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Texan Archers Enjoy National Success! The NAA's 119th National Target Championships finished up with a banquet and award presentation on Friday, October 1, 2003 in Reading, Pennsylvania. A number of Texans attended this year's tournament and quite a few did well. Overall, competing at this year's most prestigious National event were 14 archers in the Disabled Archer Categories, including Texan Lindsey Carmichael (Adult Recurve-Standing 3), who shot a 2258, coming close to her national records set last year. If you have never seen a gent with only one arm shooting a high-powered compound bow using a mechanical release held between his teeth, you wouldn't believe it. This year, Jeff Fabry, just such a shooter, missed taking Dave Cousins in the third round of the US Open OR by one point, 174 to 175! There were 205 archers in the JOAD categories (18 years and younger), and the Texans present included Coral McMinn who finished second in the Bowman Female Compound category with a combined double FITA score of 2721. Each archer must shoot a total of 8 rounds, two of each of four distances, over four days - a total of 288 scoring arrows (a perfect score is 2880 points).  In the Cadet Female Compound category Cassandra Raffaelli finished fourth and Holly Heinsohn finished second, setting a new FITA World Record of 358 at 30 meters and a new NArchival Archery record for a double 70 meter distance of 647. The Cadet Male Compound category was extremely competitive and Travis Lafayette achieved a second place finish with a 2743.  (Holly Heinsohn)Sage Adams and Lindsey Carmichael both shot well enough in the Junior Female Recurve category to end up in 8th and 9th places, respectively. Another very competitive division is the Junior Male Recurve category, which had 4 Texans in the top 8 finishers: Garrett Krueger, 8th with a 2362, Tim Meyers in fifth place with 2419, Jake Misenheimer claiming fourth with a 2424, and Kevin Barker's 2431 earning him third place. Sam Mody and Vikram Rangraj also competed in this tough group. Mary Zorn, formerly of some place up north but now a confirmed and genteel A Lady, dazzled all with her skill in the Senior Female Compound division. On the second day of competition, while shooting the 30 meter distance, she fired a PERFECT score of 360, to achieve a new FITA World Record, on her way to a first place finish with a 2793. Out of her 288 arrows shot, 212 were in the 10 ring and 86 of those were in the inner X ring! Amanda Raffaelli also competed in this division and finished respectably 16th in this group of tough competitors. A mention is in order for Erika "Aya" La Brie, who treated the tournament as her very own "iron woman competition" - she shot in both the Senior Female Compound division, winning third place, AND the Senior Female Recurve Division, finishing tenth among 37 archers. To accomplish this feat Aya had to shoot from around 8AM to PM, 144 arrows each day, for four days. Not many archers can shoot that many arrows all so well NOR shoot both types of bows so well. Each day she shot half the arrows with one bow, and the other half with the other bow. As a result of her shooting at all three major NArchival Archery events this year with a recurve bow, AND in scoring highest among those women who also shot the events, she will be awarded (belatedly) the Schenk Award, joining recipient Joe McGlyn for 2003. Despite only shooting half of the NArchival Archery field event and then having to withdraw with an injury, she still outscored the other lady archers to win this coveted award. Jennifer Holmes also put in a good performance in this division. Seventh place in the Senior Male Compound division was taken by Adam Guggisberg. Tom Parrish managed to escape his new office at the NArchival Archery headquarters long enough to shoot in the event as well. The biggest dogfight was probably the Senior Male Recurve division which often had two and three way ties for places. Three Texans finished in the top 20 here, Staten Holmes with 15th and Greg Krueger with 16th, and Guy Krueger taking third place with a 2601. Archival Archery Veep Michael Hojnacki finished quite well, in the middle of this division as well.  (Staten Holmes) Counting the foreign guests we had, from Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, and others, there were 274 Senior and Master Archers. JOAD archers numbered 205, bringing the total number of archers to 479 give or take a couple, which contrasts sharply with the more than 600 in attendance at Canton, MI last year. Apparently the new entry fees had an adverse effect, although one has to also consider the very bad economy we have been enduring for more than a year as a possible factor. The weather was very good, although the last day, during the Olympic Rounds of the US Open saw drizzle and light rains soaking the archers but not dampening their spirits. The rest of the week was nearly perfect with light breezes and a hot, strong sun shining through summer haze and humidity. This is the first time for Reading to host the event, and while rumors abounded concerning next year's location Brad Camp assured the crowd during the annual meeting that we will be returning to Reading. The NArchival Archery is working out some adjustments to what Reading did or did not furnish the event, and all will be resolved according to the Executive Director. A source for some of the rumors about relocating arises from the very preliminary possibility that some land in Colorado Springs MIGHT be donated to the NAA, which in turn gets the mental wheels turning about all sorts of possibilities. At this point it is only the slightest of weak possiblities. As many of you already know, the NArchival Archery posted each day's preliminary results during the evening hours on their website, which was very welcome, and I tried to post pictures to the Archival Archery website as quickly as the painfully slow speed dialup connect of 20k in the hotel room would allow. A funny note - the hotel, called "The Inn At Reading" turned out to be more expensive than the other nearby hotels, such as the Econolodge (rated good by the A Contingent) and the Sheraton - the folks handed me a very surprising bill for more than 2940 dollars at checkout time - and they didn't even have fridges or microwaves in the rooms! After some strident negotiations my final tab was less than half of what they initially charged my card. Needless to say, I will not be returning to the "Inn" next year and I urge others to choose their hotel CAREFULLY. Oh yes - very important - the Texan Female Compound Team of Raffaellis (see the picture) won, and the Texan Male Recurve Team of Staten Holmes, Mike Hojnacki, and Greg Krueger took first as well. . Several hundred photographs of the event can be viewed on the Archival Archery website. Check the "what's new" area on the opening page at http://www.achivalarchery.org.The date for the 120th NArchival Archery National Target Championship has not been set - since 2004 is the Olympic year, the usual date conflicts somewhat. I'll pass along any bulletins from the NArchival Archery as soon as they are available. Speaking of passing along, please DO pass this email along to any friends you have that might be new to archery so they can in turn subscribe if they wish. |
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| 2003 State Target Championship - REGISTRATION CONTINUES AND THE DEADLINE IS THIS MONTH! The information for the State Target is firm and the wheels are turning. Linda and Wyatt Misenheimer and their Top Tens JOAD have agreed to host the event in the Fort Worth Area. The date will be September 13 & 14th - a partial FITA on Saturday, lunchtime will have pizza cooked onsite and a chance at a different, neat, fun archery competition, the second distance in the afternoon, and an OR in the evening. Sunday shooting of the shorter distances should be done by 3PM. Open practice will be Friday evening the 12th.  I have posted the tournament information AND THE ONLINE REGISTRATION FORM at the link here, including an explanation of the noontime fun competitions. Please notice that the Misenheimers are planning a couple of unusual options for additional archery shooting at the Target event. Please plan to participate fully, and if you want, bring your jetski! (see the MAPs) |
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| SAVE YOUR OXL CARD The US Olympic Organization has created a way of promoting the US Olympic movement, and the NAA. If you are a member of the NArchival Archery you have either already, or else will soon, received a letter in the mail with what looks like a credit card titled "OXL". It has your name and USA ARCHERY as well as the USA Olympic logo and the NArchival Archery logo on the front. This card is NOT a credit card. But please do not throw it away.  The letter accompanying the card is from Brad Camp of USA Archery (the NAA) and it includes a website URL (http://www.usolympicteam.com/oxl) where you can log on using the 16 digit number on the front of the card. The website and the letter may not explain adequately "what the deal is". So here's the deal as best as I can figure out (though I am guessing a little - the information available is sketchy just a mite bit). You can use this card to get discounts from the US companies that have contracts with the USOC! They in turn (here is where I am guessing) donate money to the USOC on behalf of ARCHERY. These cards are being sent to the members of many of the Olympic disciplines: wrestling, swimming, track, etc.For example: Right now and through the end of this year, United Airlines will give you a 5% discount on tickets, and an additional 5% if booked more than 30 days in advance. So you can get 10% off the price of a ticket! Gateway computers will give you 7% off the price of a computer. Now THAT can be a real chunka change! Likewise, Marriott, Monster.com, and Nu Skin (cosmetics/skin care) will give you discounts if you just follow the instructions. The best explanation for all this is on the NAA's new website, at this link. So do NOT throw the card away! Use it and you get a discount with the companies that support the US Olympic movement and in turn you support our US Olympic Athletes. I suspect that since they will know which people belong to which sport (like us and archery), that ultimately the more of us NArchival Archery archers that use the card, the more USOC benefit is directed towards the NAA's programs. And we know they need our help, right?Get neat gear at a discount with your card from the US Olympic Store using this link. If you wear cosmetics and/or use skin care products, this link will take you to the NuSkin website.To read more about the offers and this card, I suggest going to the NAA's website, to this link. Use the card to save money and support the Olympics. If you have additional questions you can always call the folks at the NArchival Archery offices, phone number 719.866.4576 (mountain time zone). By the way the NArchival Archery has contracted with a pro outfit to produce quality sportswear - I've seen the stuff and there are some great designs in shirts, for example. Be sure to also check the NAA's webpage on these moving advertisements for our sport. Help get the word out about archery. |
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| Archival Archery Message Board Enhancements The AA's message board has been operating on new software for several months now, and I recently added a number of new Avatars as well as several more "skins" so that you can make what you see more to your liking. What's an "AVATAR"? it's just a picture to represent you when you leave a message for other archers. It can be any image, as long as it is no larger than 100 pixels in size. Here's what my Avatar looks like:  - it suits me, yes? If you don't want to make your own you can pick from a gallery display of more than 100 avatars. It's a fun way to quickly see who posted what message. SKINS? The whole flavor of the board is controlled by a "skin" - you can choose to make it look like a comic book, or have a calm and soothing blue background, just by choosing a style. How do you change your avatar, and choose a skin? It's easy. But you do have to register on the board. It is safe, and it allows you to set a number of things, including hiding your email address so that others can still leave you private messages, but not leave your address out for spammers to harvest. Once you register, you can log in with your chosen name and password, and at the top of the screen is a series of links: Just click on Profile, and review all the customizing options - help is provided as well - you will see this picture(the background will be a different color till you choose a skin). When you get to styles, just use the down arrow you see on the field to view and highlight the style of skin you want to try. Save your changes by clicking at the bottom of the screen where it says SUBMIT, and then look at a message or two to see the effect. Same with "Avatar" - it displays all of them and you can click on the one you want. I've added lots of archery-related images, and you can always upload your own. Just what is a message board, anyway? First, and importantly, it is NOT a "chat" room. This is not chit-chat! The messages are a slow motion conversation, in threads of subject matter, usually fairly singular topics. They are kept indefinitely and become valuable references for new archers, since the board has a search feature where one can search using keywords, like "serving", "nock", "release", "execution", or whatever you are interested in, and you might turn up something of interest. Of course, the information up there is a series of questions and answers, most usually pertaining to A Archery and especially to JOAD archery throughout the United States. This message board is and will continue to be a valuable resource for sharing information! You can easily see what new messages are "up" on the board by looking in the message box If you see a message thread of interest, or if you post a message yourself, you can choose to have an email automatically sent to you whenever someone posts another response in the message thread. People from all over the world, in the archery world, can see and talk with one another. Again, this is an ongoing conversation in slow motion, NOT some cybernetic chat room. Take a look, and if you have any questions feel free to write me and I will be glad to help. |
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| Yew Know Yew Are In A In The Summertime.... YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN TEXAS IN THE SUMMER WHEN... * The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground. And, the cows are giving evaporated milk. |
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| 4-H Invitational Tournament, New Mexico There was a large invitational tournament held in Raton, New Mexico on July 11-13, 2003. Last year the A 4-H archers went, saw, and conquered. This year, they again returned home with the trophy. The Garners provided a synopsis of their trip to the 4-H tournament in New Mexico, with all the scores of A archers. They managed to get back from Raton by driving 15 hours straight through, and beat the hurricane by enough time that Dale was able to harvest much of his crops before the heavy weather hit and made the fields an impossible quagmire of ruined crops. Theresa writes: "Our A teams did it again and brought the trophy home. The Recurve Team consisted of Andrea Garner, Ashley Page, Clint Johnson, and Matt Sheehan." For her writeup with all the scores for the Winning A Contingent, check this link. |
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| Perfection is the Goal at Junior Olympic Archery Championships by Shawna Hickman A great article appeared in the Centennial Citizen Newspaper during the NArchival Archery National JOAD Target Championships in Denver this summer. It was written by Shawna Hickman, who clearly took the time to "get it right". It was such a good read that I contacted her and she generously allowed me to post the story on the website. Here is the beginning: On June 26 when the sun was still at that place in the sky when driving east requires you pull the visor down, about 300 young bravehearts and their parents were setting up camp at Arapahoe County Community Park. By 10 a.m. territories were established at the park, the younger Bravehearts toward the center with the older teens – boys and girls were segregated down the middle – on the wings. “Especially the older boys, they don’t need the girls around while they are shooting, with their hormones raging,” said dad Kurt Christensen. FOR MORE OF THIS STORY, CLICK HERE.  The championship was held in a suburb of Denver known as the "Tech Center", also the location for the Denver Broncos' Training facility. The venue was actually a large, lovely park. Green, thick grass on a sloping field, adequate and close parking (no humping the bowcases huge distances). Plenty of room for more than 80 target bales. Nearly perfect conditions including light winds, cool temperatures, and no rain (till just before the OR finished). Of course, the rains actually terminated the recurve OR after the second round of matches, when they arrived full of bluster and gusts. A webpage of the results, with the Texans highlighted in Red, is available at this link. A number of photos are available at this link. Also, the NArchival Archery has placed the results at this link in the form of an Adobe Acrobat file. For a 360 view of the field, try this link (not all browsers support the feature). Tom Barker shared some pictures, available at this link. For the THIRTY-ONE Texans that attended, comprising more than TEN PERCENT OF THE ENTIRE RANKS OF ARCHERS AT THIS EVENT: 21 finishes in the top ten of divisions. Male Archer Compound: Chris Barr, 1st |
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| NADA To Help Create Flying Arrow Flingers Actually, the title from the NAA's bulleting was: NADA to help U.S. Air Force "Discover Archery" Newberry, FL--The U.S. Air Force has selected NADA (National Alliance for the Development of Archery) to conduct youth archery camps and instructor training/certification programs at 35 Air Force bases nationwide. The week-long camps will be conducted beginning August 2003 and will run through July 2004. The national program, entitled "Discover Archery", will be conducted by advanced-certified course instructors selected and coordinated by NADA. "NADA is an alliance of archery instructors which is active in training new archery instructors and promoting target archery to non-traditional audiences," said Doug Engh, NADA President/CEO. "We have been working with US Air Force recreational programming officials for over a year to develop this partnership, and are very excited that our efforts have been so successful. Archery instructors will being going onto active U.S. Air Force bases to teach archery to the youth of our service men and women. They will also be conducting USA Archery Level 1 Basic instructor training courses to enable these bases to create permanent archery programs for the youth and their families." Click HERE for the full story.And while on the subject of Promoting Archery: Brad Camp, Executive Director of the NAA, reported to the NArchival Archery annual meeting attendees in Reading, PA that the school archery program in Kentucky was in full swing (after about one year) and that there were some 600 high school archers in attendance at their state target tournament. Now THAT is more archers than attended the just-concluded nationals. Imagine how much the NArchival Archery and the sport could grow if every state came on board with this great program bringing archery to school kids throughout the land. Makes one think....hmmm. |
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| INVITE A FRIEND, RECRUIT AN ARCHER
If your kid is in JOAD, pick a good likely friend of your kid, and approach his or her parent about "coming along" to experience a JOAD session with you and yours. Just like bowling, swimming, Frisbee, or even jogging, It is true that you have more fun doing sports with friends. So try inviting your friends. Some, if not most, range operators would LOVE to have a birthday party full of kids at their range. Of course, do observe all the safety rules and use common sense. |
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(Mary Zorn and Aya LaBrie)
on the AA's main web page, very near the top. Clicking on one of these message topics will open a new window with your browser, and take you to the message board, right to that topic. If you tell the board to "log you in automatically", by putting a check in the box under your name/password, then you automatically get your avatar and your skin style.