Owen Gammill likes how his arms are getting stronger.
Standing on the line during an archery shoot, he leaned back a bit farther than others as he pulled back the string as far as he could.
The seventh grader at Pershing Middle School sees himself improving.
“I feel like it makes me gain more arm strength,” Gammill said.
While Gammill said he isn’t very strong right now, his mother, Kristi Gammill, sees a lot of improvement. Her son’s stance used to be even more splayed out.
More important, her son is engaged with archery.
“Owen is very go-with-the-flow, and he really loved landing on archery,” Kristi Gammill said. “We’ve been trying to encourage it because it’s something that he gets really pumped up about being a part of. He lights up about it.”
More students taking aim
arrows to tell scores apart. (Photo by Mary Ellen Chiles)
More than 100 Springfield Public Schools students took aim in a district-wide archery competition. It featured teams from many SPS middle and high schools, and helped archers qualify for future tournaments, including an all-city tournament set for Feb. 21, and upcoming qualifiers for state tournaments.
It is part of a relatively new sport opportunity for Springfield students. More than 1,100 across Springfield Public Schools are competing in school’s archery teams, said Theresa Miller, co-coordinator of archery for the school district.
“About 15 years ago, we started with it in physical education classes,” Miller said. “We wanted to run some tournaments hoping that eventually we would have teams. That all came true.”
Six years ago, when Springfield schools started fielding archery teams, Miller and others hoped they could have about 250 archers across the district. Now the team scrambles to accommodate its growth — Miller said that tournaments used to be run in gymnasiums, but then moved to bigger spaces so more archers could shoot targets at the same time.
The Jan. 23 tournament was held at the Ozark Empire Fairground’s Central Buildings Event Center, where 53 targets were lined up for archers, who could hear the cheers and support of friends and family behind them. Miller said the tournament was likely to draw almost 1,000 spectators.
One of the greatest things about the program, Miller said, is its lack of tryouts. Any student interested in archery automatically makes their school’s team, giving them the chance to reap all the benefits of competitive activity. Children of any gender, skill, size and academic ability can participate, and it is one of the few sports where boys and girls can compete right next to each other.
“What is probably the greatest benefit is that all children can be part of a team,” Miller said. “We have had kids come and say that they are in tears, because they never dreamed they would get to be on the team.”
Archery has become a rising activity over the few years, with smaller schools across Southwest Missouri fielding successful teams. While the Missouri State High School Activities Association does not yet sanction an archery competition, Miller said schools compete through the National Archery in Schools Program.
Fun builds with skill
Sheila Kilgore, who is in her first year of teaching at Hickory Hills Middle School, said she is no stranger to archery’s popularity. During her 39-year teaching career, she watched it surge across northern Arkansas.
“It is great for the kids who don’t get to do anything else for the school, and then they find a place to do something,” Kilgore said. “They enjoy it, then they find out they can be coached to get pretty good at it. That’s when they start really having fun.”
the competing archer at each target, and they both confirm it. (Photo by Mary Ellen Chiles)
Nicholas Lockman, an eighth-grader at Hickory Hills, felt pretty good after one of his rounds. While he got a rocky start, he was able to group his arrows back in at the target.
An older sibling got him interested in the sport.
“My brother did it when he was in middle school, and I always enjoyed coming to the meets and watching him,” Lockman said. “As soon as I hit sixth grade, I was like, ‘I gotta do that.’”
Lockman is also on the Hickory Hills boys basketball team. While he enjoys both sports, he appreciates how archery lets him get lost in the shot. He hopes to continue with it throughout high school.
William Gerstner, a junior at Parkview High School, has kept up archery for about six years starting in middle school, and in spite of a busy schedule that also includes cross country, color guard, basketball and wrestling.
“Honestly, my teammates are a big part of it,” Gerstner said. “I have a lot of friends on the archery team and it’s just a lot of fun getting out here to compete. It’s always fun.”
While interacting with friends is valuable, Kilgore sees another benefit. She said several of her team members also shoot regularly with other family members.
“Some of them go shooting on weekends with their families at certain places around Springfield,” Kilgore said. “They have bows and arrows of their own, so they are enjoying getting to have another activity to do outside of school.”
