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Well archery is what we would call a lifetime sport.
So kids whether we get them at elementary school, middle school or high school are able to participate in the archery program long after they have even left school.
So as an archer you can be you know five years old if you can pull back a bow,
Or you could be 50, 60, 70 years old as long as you can still pull back that bow. It's just a lifetime sport.
Did we hit it? No. Well let's do it again. It's in the grass.
Sergeant Steve Simpson brought for summer camp for me the equipment and shot with my kids at summer camp.
Just for me to take a look at what was going on. It's super cool equipment, greatest stuff in the world.
I never shot about a bow like this.
Archery or a lot of archery organizations, whether it be bow manufacturers, arrow manufacturers,
I mean just everyone in the archery community has gotten together and what would cost us forty eight hundred dollars,
It's now twenty four hundred dollars for each school.
And what you get is a ten right handed bows, one left-handed bow
You get an error resistant tarp because you're able to do it in the school or inside the gym. As well as doing it outside.
Then you're getting 60 arrows, you're getting a group of five targets,
And a bow rack and of course a little repair kit to repair those minor knots that fall off and so on and so forth.
I had no idea what we'd get but ended up with basically about three thousand dollars worth of archery equipment that improved what we were doing here tremendously.
And thanks to them and what they're doing is how it started about three years ago,
And last year, the first tournament and archery for schools at the Sportsman's Classic.
We competed in it and did pretty well.
Whoever is willing in the school system to learn whether they have no knowledge of archery at all,
Or whether they have a little bit of knowledge,
We give them an eight hour course where we just teach them the basics from beginning to end.
And a lot of little teacher things that they would need in order as far as curriculum, how to.
It's a two-week program you can incorporate history, you can incorporate math, and on and on.
So it's as creative as a teacher wants to be. But they receive that bit of training and then you know kind of left to their own laurels as to how much they train with the students.
What this program does that is hard to find, if they don't play football or basketball, if they're not a cheerleader,
There's not very many places kids can succeed.
Archery in the schools it's that segue into I can do it and I'm better than anybody else in the world at it.
And it gives them that morale that self-esteem boost that is awesome when you find it.
We had four girls on the team already but
I was the one that they just chose to come out and do it cause I was willing to do it.
So they pulled me in and said hey do you want to be on the Archery team?
I was like yeah sure. So the only reason I'm I was on the team last year to them was just so they can go to the championship, uh, the tournament.
But I really enjoyed it.
I see a lot more students self motivated and a lot of kids that weren't involved in groups, now they had a group to be involved.
And they don't have to act out to get that attention now that they are a part of something.
And that being an archery club or national archery schools program.
So you see kids not acting out as much for the attention because now they do belong in a group.
We were wanting to come up with something like you said that they can be involved with at the school,
Other than you know, sports related things that you know as the normal in school.
So we heard other schools had outdoor club started so we thought it'd be a great idea for this school because it's still a rural school.
And kids still participate a little bit, hunting and fishing so we thought we can incorporate that so they feel part of school as well.
Mr. Long and the assistant principal and my brother, school resource officer, they started outdoor program.
And they started archery program and a fishing program. And this is my second year in the archery program.
I did pretty good, I won the state in South Carolina.
I went down there to columbia to the sportsmen classic and did pretty well.
Although it's probably gonna be a lot closer this year.
Everything is set up just like what you would do in the gymnasium or or your teacher would teach you.
So when they get to the tournament everything is set up exactly the same.
They know at a specific line you're supposed to wait behind that line.
And everyone or anyone that is not shooting is supposed to be behind that waiting line.
So the students know they can cheer, do whatever they want behind that waiting line. But it has to be behind that way the line.
And then you have another line which is a shooting line. They know at certain whistle commands you go and stand on that line.
And you know you prepare yourself mentally to shoot at one more whistle.
You're able to shoot, once you've shot all your arrows you know not to go downrange.
And it really makes it easier for us because we're going our field captain just is blowing the whistles.
And the kids know exactly what to do at each whistle.
We have a full game but we have a shooter that this is the second day that he ever shot.
And we have a six-year-old shooting for the first time and we have everything in between.
We have several of our shooters from last year and they're doing very very well.
I shot 274 today. Last year I shot a 282. Not as good as last year but hopefully it will be good enough.
You shoot a perfect score if you get all arrows in the tens and it's a 300.
So that's pretty tough to do I know last year at Nationals I think it took 298 to win it.
So only dropped out of the bullseye twice.
In the middle of the target you have yellow and there's a little black circle in the middle of the yellow that's the tens.
Then outside the outer yellows is a nine and then each level outside of that it goes down 1.
I've been practicing real hard especially these last couple of weeks, been practicing real hard.
It's shown today, a lot of kids and pushed their points up it looks like 10 to 20 points you know.
So we're looking good this year I believe.
But for a student to be able to participate and to be successful ie hit a target is just invaluable whether it be in the school system at home whatever the case may be.
So it just brings a lot to the table for a student to learn discipline because you have to know what to do, where to do.
For them to follow instructions, these are all good things that each individual Archer learns, each person learns.
And it just enhances a person in general.
[DUCK NOISE]