17-04-2025
Youth Archery growing in popularity
FARMERSBURG, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — One of the oldest sports in existence has been gaining traction across the nation, including right here in the Wabash Valley.
In recent years, youth archery has been on the rise here in the Hoosier state. The Indiana NASP, or National Archery in the Schools Program, plays a large part in that. It began back in 2005 with ten pilot schools, but Indiana NASP coordinator Tim Beck says that number has grown to just under 500 across the state.
'The program has been attractive to both almost 50/50 male and female,' Beck said. 'It's just a program, let's face it, not everybody makes it onto the basketball court or the football field, but we have a lot of students that really excel and find their niche with the archery program, and they get to interact. The social activity of archery is very unique.'
Not only can youth here in Indiana get opportunities through their high school seasons, but they can also hone their skills by trying to get an arrow like this onto one of these targets at the Farmersburg Range and Archery.
The Lambert family created the range when they saw the passion that their son Oliver had developed for the sport when he was in elementary school. Owner Amy Lambert says the next step was sharing that passion with the community.
'Locally to us, there weren't a lot of places where you could go and shoot archery competitively,' Lambert said. 'The youth programs in the state for us to practice were more than a couple hours away, so we decided to start our own S3DA team, which stands for Scholastic 3-D Archery, and it kind of takes NASP to that next level to prepare kids to shoot in college or to shoot competitively or just for fun for the rest of their lives.'
As the sport continues to thrive, even current archers, like Sullivan junior Jayme Adkinson, say they have noticed a change since they began.
'With archery, you travel around a lot. You meet a lot of new people, you get out of your comfort zone,' Adkinson said. 'You socialize a lot, so it helps with your social skills and you just become friends with a lot of people, like I have people from four years ago that I've met and I'm still close friends with because of archery and S3DA.'
Linton sophomore Rainey McCammon says the sport has become a staple in the Wabash Valley.
'I've seen it grow a lot,' McCammon said. 'When I was in fourth grade, we had about 20 kids around my age, and then the NASP program at Sullivan now has over 200 I'd say. Then I joined S3DA and it's even bigger.'
The NASP season ended in early March, but the Midwest Mavericks still have plenty of shots to take in 2025.
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