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Putnam County 4-H'ers keep their eye on the target
The Putnam County 4-H Archery Club was established in 2002 with founding leaders Keith Redman and Randy McNaulty who had a vision to pass on the heritage of traditional archery to the youth of Putnam County.
Shortly after its inception the two asked Peg Royer to join the team. Along with Royer, many other Putnam County archers joined the efforts to assist by becoming certified instructors. Redman was the leadership of the team for the first seven years before turning the leadership over.
In May of 2010, new archery project leaders Chris Comer, Royer, Allen Royer and Danny Burdine took over the club. The enrollment for 2010 was 84 participants.
This year with project leaders P. Royer, A. Royer and Burdine, the club has grown to 141 participants. With nine certified instructors that help teach the discipline sport of archery to the children.
Project leader P. Royer said she saw this explosion coming after last years season was over.
"Due to movies like The Hunger Games and Brave more youth saw archery as a cool thing to do. We have also done a lot of promotion of the club," P. Royer stated. "The Girl Scouts of the United States of America asked our club to teach archery at their summer camps, so last year we helped 200 Girl Scouts learn the discipline of archery and in January 2013 we were asked to teach first time archers at a first time National 3-D Pop Up Archery Shoot Program that was held at the C Bar C Arena in Cloverdale.
"Indianapolis news media came and did a feature article on our club and the girl archers in our club. It was great and like I thought our club grew to 141 participants this year."
With the growth of the club having established rules are essential in making sure that no one gets hurt and that safety is always a thought.
"We run our club by five basic concepts; fun, safety, respect, responsibility and discipline. We can't have fun without safety," P. Royer stated. "We have to learn to respect our equipment and others and be responsible for ourselves and others safety as well as responsibility for our equipment. Archery is a discipline sport and with that discipline each child learns they can achieve their goals of being better archers and people in general. "