Rotary on target with archery grant

By RICK MORAIN
For The Jefferson Herald

Jefferson’s Rotary Club auction, which will be held Friday evening, Nov. 13, at the Elks Lodge in Jefferson, benefits many worthwhile organizations and projects in the Greene

County area. Among them is Gang Greene, Greene County’s unique youth archery program.

Thanks to last year’s Rotary auction, Gang Greene was able to keep up with its growth in popularity among area youngsters.

Don Orris, of Jefferson, one of Gang Greene’s three instructors, explained that after an 11-year hiatus, the program restarted in 2009. The program’s limited amount of equipment restricted the number of enrollees to around 12 or 14. Growing demand pushed that number to 18 after three years, but Orris described the difficulty of teaching archery within equipment limitations.

“We can share bows, since they work for everyone,” Orris said. “But we didn’t have enough arrows or quivers. Arrows need to be different lengths for different archers. We were spending half our time trying to match up various youngsters with various arrows. And we also needed new arm guards and finger tabs.”

Enter the Rotary Club of Jefferson, which donates the proceeds from its annual auction to worthwhile civic projects.

The club funded $2,300 worth of new Gang Greene archery equipment, enough to provide arrows, finger tabs, quivers, arm guards and bow stabilizers to outfit every youngster in the program when the participants meet for their weekly instruction sessions.

With the new equipment, Gang Greene was able to expand its number of participants to 28 kids, Orris said, although six were still turned away. Orris hopes supplies will soon be sufficient to match the heightened interest in the program.

The new arrows include four sets of the carbon variety, which are about four times as expensive as standard aluminum arrows. The carbon arrows are used by the group’s older, advanced archers, who have consistently won prizes in statewide competition.

Four individuals donated a target each, at a cost of $300 apiece. Targets last for decades, Orris explained, and the group is still using bows that were obtained more than 30 years ago through a $5,000 grant from the National Archery Association, one of only four such grants awarded in the nation. The bows are shared between the two Gang Greene classes.

Some of the original arrows are still being used as well, Orris said. “We repaired arrows when necessary, and found them consistently during and after practice.”

“Having Doreen Wilber’s name on the national grant application was probably a difference-maker for us,” Orris said, crediting Jefferson’s 1972 Olympic women’s archery gold medal winner.

Doreen and her husband, Skeeter Wilber, along with Orris and Phil Siglin, started the Gang Greene program in the early 1980s. Orris, Siglin and Skeeter continue to teach archery to the group’s youngsters.

Because of Rotary’s generosity and the original grant, “a kid doesn’t have to buy a single thing. Everyone can afford it,” Orris said. The Jefferson Park and Recreation department charges youngsters $15 a year to participate.

The Gang Greene program makes archery a lot of fun for kids, Orris said. “It’s the biggest grin ever when a kid gets to where he or she can hit a balloon in a target.”

Orris was quick to point out that Gang Greene teaches Olympian recurved archery. “It’s a lot different from using a compound bow. Compound bows are much easier to shoot, since an archer can hold a compound bow at maximum all day.”

Orris laughs in recalling the late Doreen Wilber’s remarks about compound bows: “As soon as you get the training wheels off that compound bow, you can shoot a real bow.”

Tickets still remain for this year’s Nov. 13 Rotary auction dinner, to be served by the BPO Does. A social hour at the Elks Lodge begins at 5:30 p.m., with the steak dinner and complimentary wine to follow at 6:30 and the live auction starting at 8 p.m.

A variety of items will be auctioned in both “silent” and “live” formats. Raffle tickets for drawings for eight $250 winners are also available from any Rotary Club member. Raffle ticket holders need not be present to win in the cash drawings.

Ticket sales chair for the auction dinner is Andy Harland at Don’s Ace Hardware in Jefferson.