The day began on the right foot. My daughter and wife were wearing their BowHuntingStuff.com tee shirts with the Kicking Bear logo on the front.
A lady in town saw the shirts and said “hey the Kicking Bear event is this weekend isn’t it? I saw it on t.v., that’s great!”
That brought a smile to my face because I knew the work had been done to get the word out. One of the things I like about the events is that they show non archers a different side to archery and it’s positive impact on young people.
I got back to the event around 8.00 a.m. All the kids were wide open by then. They had been fed and were ready for action. There were several shooting sling shots, others shooting BB guns and still other playing football around the camp.
Kicking Bear Camp
The morning started out bright and sunny. The clouds rolled in soon thereafter though and by 8.30 it was cloudy. Rain looked imminent but with any luck, I thought, we might could get it in.
About this time we all got together for a group picture. As the picture indicates it was a sizable number. It took a while but considering the amount of kids it went rather quickly.
The Kicking Bear Gang - Fisher IL 2005
We then had a prayer led by Rod White followed by the safety meeting. All the newbies were shown how to shoot. There were probably around 30 of these.
They were divided into groups by size and then various ones worked with each group. I worked with a group of kids that were around 10 years old. It was great watching their reaction when they launched their first arrow.
Ray gives his "behave or we'll pound you" speech
Newbies getting ready to let it rip for the first time.
Me working with one of my new pals
Then it was off to the 3D course for them to shoot until their arms fell off . I walked around between the different groups and everyone was having a great time. Rod White, Ray Howell, Frank Archey, me and others spent the morning walking around cutting up with the different groups. The groups were being led by the different mentors which donated their time to help and are the essential cog in the event.
Rod was showing the different kids his gold medal. He let some of them wear it while they were shooting. How cool is that!
Rod and me with some of the kids. Note the Gold Medal on the one in the middle
Rod offering his Gold Medal to one of the kids for "good luck"
I had a deal where I let different groups shoot at the bow hunter in my logo. I stuck a BowHuntingStuff.com business card on a target and the one that hit the closest won some candy. They seemed to really enjoy that.
These are some kids at the candy shoot target
Rod had $ 5.00 gift cards from Gander Mountain and was doing the same deal with those as I was with the candy. Of course the kids that won those were strutting around like peacocks. My youngest son Zach won one of the cards and had one of the kids in his group offer him $10.00 for it. My oldest son Wes heard the offer and laughed until he cried.
I guess getting to show people a $ 5.00 gift card was worth $10.00 to the kid. Evidentally it was worth more than that to Zach though because he didn't take the $10.00 he was much more interested in showing it off.
