And the icing on the cake? She likes guns

June 10, 1971

This just in from the Appearances Can Be Deceiving Desk:
Don’t pick on your baker. She may be able shoot more than butter cream icing. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Focus story by Jim Hayes and the photos by Larry Jamison.

Little lady packs a big bang

Dee Adamson is quick on the trigger.
It’s not that this 30-ish mother of three and full-time cake decorator in a San Luis Obispo Bakery is hot-tempered, mind you. Far from it.
Mrs. Adamson is a lady gunslinger. And she slaps leather faster than most of the hombres who stalked the streets of the Old West at high noon.
Yet she’s never fanned a six-gun in anger. (In fact, as a member of the Rawhiders fast draw club of San Luis Obispo and its parent organization, the Western Fast Draw Association she shoots only wax pellets or Kleenex wadding.)
Dee, as she’s known to her friends and customers at the Safeway Bake Shop on Marsh Street, hadn’t drawn so much as a cap pistol less than two years ago. Then it happened: She watched a quick draw exhibition at the Pismo Clam Festival–and her cylinder was spun.
“I’m really not a quick person,” she says softly, a disarming gleam in her unsteely blue eyes.
Her fellow worker at the bakery and fast draw mentor, Ted Wiwehar, disagrees:
“Dee’s reflexes are much faster than most women’s,” he says. “This plus her determination to be the best, has made her a top competitor.
And tops she is. A roomful of trophies (37 to date) and a blouseful of gold medals attest to the fact that she’s lightning quick now and getting faster all the time.
This week Mrs. Adamson is in Oregon, where she’s competing for another state women’s quick draw title to accompany those she already holds from three other western states.
Now she it taking dead aim at the top prize. She’ll be competing in the women’s national quick draw championships in Santa Clara Aug. 21-22.
As for the other gals’ chances in that shoot-out we’d guess they ain’t worth the powder to blow ‘em up.

How fast? Less than half a second to hit her target. Her .357 Ruger has an aluminum barrel bored to take .45 caliber wax loads. The gun weighs one pound and cost $250. And when you pick up that cake remember to tip your cap and say “Thank you kindly.”

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