In this newsletter: |
| State Field Results 2002 The Archival Archery 2002 State Field Championship was so unique that it will be what all future shoots will be compared to! The organizers really outdid themselves on this one. Over and over, as one reads the comments from the archers at this event, what stands out is this: the adults and the kids got to shoot together, and I can't tell which bunch had the most fun at it! As one put it: " It was a win win situation for all". You should really read the comments for yourself, they highlight just how unique, how fun, how enjoyable for all, this event was! It will make you realize what a NEAT tournament you just missed, as you view the MANY pictures. This event was held on the Blaschke's A Exotic Ranch and set up by Rick Stonebraker and John Blaschke. Kathy Eissinger of A A&M, along with two young archers, had to chase 4 American bison from one of the shooting stakes!  See the entire story, the results, and the pics! |
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| JOAD Archer Spotlight The JOAD program provides a positive effect in many ways for kids all over the United States. It is appropriate to highlight those who have been in JOAD, and are having a positive effect on those they come in contact with and who provide a positive example for younger archers to follow. Kristin is a JOAD graduate, and she's the very example of what JOAD can do for youth. (Along with nurturing parents and other positive things)  I first met Kristin Milchanowski a few years ago when my daughter started shooting in tournaments. She always, always has a positive outlook, shows great poise under pressure, and has a great record as both a JOAD archer and as a collegian archer at A&M. Regardless of the instance Kristin has always shown great courtesy and a willingness to help other young ladies on the line. She began shooting archery around age 6 and was influenced by her older brother, Jeff, and her dad, Jack, both well-known and successful archers. Interestingly, when she started she was left eyed dominant and shot left-handed, but after a couple of years her eye dominance changed and she switched to shooting archery right handed. Kristin did quite well in school in Louisiana where she was born. Very athletic, she participated in basketball, volleyball, and soccer as well as archery, setting many archery records for her age group in Louisiana, A, and at the Regional level. In November 1995 Kristin competed in and placed first at the Utah Open Indoor Tournament. Her greatest memory of that trip was not winning, but getting to see snow for the first time in her life! Kristin continued to shoot well within her JOAD age group and set many more records in both indoor and outdoor tournaments. In February 1997 the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram newspaper featured Kristin with a full-page article entitled "Athlete Next Door" after she placed first at the famous Las Vegas Indoor. The first thing that Kristin did when she found out that she had won was to call her brother who was a junior in college at Florida Tech, since he had placed first in Vegas at the very same age. Kristin continued playing soccer through high school and was selected as All District in the sport. Thankfully her soccer coach was very receptive to allowing Kristin to pursue her archery and luckily Kristin never missed a game due to an archery conflict. Good coaches are hard to find! After Kristin's freshman year in high school she went to the US Olympic Training Center (OTC) for the summer. She was shooting quite well and hoped to win the Nat'l Outdoor in the Junior Division, and ended up placing second by just one point. She had planned on going back to the OTC full time after her sophomore year and making an attempt at the Olympic team, but a mis-diagnosed injury nearly ended her archer career for good. Kristin worked with special education students at Junior High and High School, and her style was to often stand up for the special education students when other students made fun of them. Even then, her teachers all took note of this and commented frequently about her unique, mature attitude. Kristin attended a specific class to learn how to assist and care for a severely mentally retarded young boy who had seizures, no speech, and a breathing tube, so that the boy's mom and dad for a few hours each week could have some time together. She graduated a year early from High School and after serious consideration, chose to go to Tarleton State University, turning down a scholarship at Sam Houston State. The school had an intramural archery tournament and Kristin shot in it for fun and did quite well. (Translation: she even kicked the guy's butts, which seems to be an aspect of archery that my daughter also enjoys). She got the archery bug back and spoke with Kathy and Frank at A&M and asked if they would still like to have her there. The decision to transfer to A&M and to get enrolled took place in about one weeks time between semesters. Kristin became a real Aggie. Kristin has earned All-American status at A&M for the past two years, placing first two years ago in the Collegiate National Indoor. Kristin is working hard to earn the All American status again this year which may be her last year to be able to do so if she leaves A&M when she graduates in December. She is an excellent speaker and has given speeches to groups of over 400 people. She has always been very outgoing and not afraid to ask questions, something few people can say. Kristin is the President of the Student Athlete Council at A&M and the Vice President of the Big 12 Student Athlete Council. She was just voted the "Most Influential Student" at A&M for next year by the faculty. She has been honored at each of the Scholar Athlete Awards dinner for the last three years. Kristin was in charge of the awards dinner this year. She has worked with several projects that include speaking to young students at surrounding schools concerning her sports activities. She is the only student with a vote on a committee that determines the continuance of varsity sports at A&M. She and Coach Kathy Eissinger met with former President and Mrs. Bush recently for almost an hour. Kristin is finishing her B.S. degree in less than four years, with thoughts of a Masters in Business, Chiropractic School, or law school.  Her dad just hopes that someone teaches her how to throw a horseshoe. |
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| State Youth Open The next formal (well, official) archery event for the Archival Archery is actually an informal event, of sorts. Tom Barker of the South A JOAD has agreed to host a JOAD event in Victoria. The venue will be located where the State Target events are to be held in July, so this will be a kind of warmup for Tom and crew, who are also hosting that event. More on those events in a minute. First, the Youth Open, aka the Top Gun. The Archival Archery has gone to great lengths to attempt to avoid conflicts with other recognized organizations' tournaments this summer. A result is that instead of having a State Target JOAD event AND a Regional JOAD event AND a Senior Target event (that the kids could also shoot in), we have combined the three into one single weekend/venue. This compromise reduces conflicts with the other organizations but also drastically reduces the shooting experiences for our youth. Tom Barker and Jim Krueger were quick to see this, and decided to offer a unique tournament event for the JOAD and 4-H archers of A. This Youth Open is going to be more of an Olympic Style, with NO FITA, just the type of ranking and elimination round seen at the Olympics. This will provide our young archers with valuable shooting of FOR-style competition, and knowing Tom and Jim, a lot of FUN SHOOTING as well. The fun events will include the lake swim party and feed on Saturday and a couple of novelty shoots on Sunday  Who can forget the waterguns and waterballoon duels of last year's Gulf Coast Regional JOAD shoot? If you have a young (under 18 y.o.) archer, please consider attending the upcoming Youth Open - it's going to be a GREAT shoot and a positive experience for all who attend. For the information page on the Archival Archery website, click here. |
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| A State Target, State JOAD Target, and Gulf Coast JOAD Regional Tournament The weekend of July 6-7 will be a BIG event. It is a combined tournament - the Adult State Target, the State JOAD Target, and the NArchival Archery Gulf Coast Regional JOAD Target championships, all rolled into one. We've had inquiries from abroad, so it looks like this might be an international event! A Hospitality will be at it's best for this event, and all are welcome. The full resources of the Archival Archery will be used for this event! Victoria, location of the event this year, is very close to the A Riviera, and is far enough from the large cities such as Houston to insure that the beaches will be uncrowded, so plan to spend some extra days catching rays and walking the beach! It is not too early to book a room at one of the hotels in Victoria. For online info and links to the hotels, as well as the registration form, please go here. |
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| A 4-H State Tournament A 4H archers should also be thinking and beginning to plan about the state 4H archery match in Bay City June 27,28,29th. There will be 14 field targets, 28 "3D" targets, a 1/2 FITA, a clout round, a flight contest and a team relay for the archer's breakfast on this three day event. Where else can you shoot over 200 arrows in 3 days for ONLY $25 and experience so many kinds of archery competition? The deadline for this all kids tournament (but with lots of adult volunteers) is June 5th. For more information, please check this link. |
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| Members Sell and Buy Gear Looking for some good, second-hand, less-expensive archery gear? There are two places where Archival Archery members can list items they either want to sell or want to buy. One is open to anyone, the Archival Archery message board wherein you will find a separate forum to post your own messages. You can include pictures if you wish. The link to the message board is here The other place where adverts are posted is generally limited to AA/NArchival Archery members and is the ForResale page, which has grown to a large number of adverts! You can check out what currently is up for grabs at good, very good, prices. There are also some "Wanted" ads here |
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