Maryville, Mo. —
Maitland, a small Holt County Community just across the Nodaway River from Graham, will be in the center of a statewide bull’s eye later this month when bow-and-arrow enthusiasts arrive for one of five events that combined will make up the Missouri Indoor Archery Championship.
This is the second year for the tournament, which begins at 9 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, and is sanctioned by both the National Field Archery Association and the Missouri Bowhunters Association (MBH).
It is the first such competition to be hosted by the local Nodaho Bow Hunters Club, which has around 60 members and maintains an indoor range in Maitland and an outdoor range northeast of Graham that features game-shaped, three-dimensional targets April through September.
The heated Maitland facility is open December through March, when the club holds shoots on the second Saturday and Sunday of each month.
But the MBH-NFAA event is something special, and Nodaho member Jeanette Brookshier said she expects at least 50 of the best shooters from across northwest Missouri to show up to compete in six age categories, most of which are divided into men’s and women’s divisions.
“It’s just a wonderful activity that the whole family can get involved in,” Brookshier said.
“There is a camaraderie among archers, and it’s a great year-round competitive sport, or you can just shoot for fun. You get to meet people from all over the state, in fact all over the country.”
Competitors at the Dec. 18 event will shoot a “Vegas round” fired across a 20-yard range at three-point Vegas targets, a 16-inch paper square containing three small bull’s eyes.
Vegas is used as an adjective here because Las Vegas is where the NFAA holds its annual World Archery Festival, which Brookshier described as a “super shoot” attracting the world’s most skilled archers, “the best of the best.” She said that as many as a dozen or so local archers generally make the trip to the Nevada resort city each year to watch the event, a sort of World Series of field archery.
The state championship in Maitland will follow similar rules. Teams of four competitors will fire at each target station, known as a butt, and get two and a half minutes to shoot three arrows a piece, which is called an end. Fifteen ends are fired by each archer for a total of 45 arrows, which can result in a perfect score of 450.
While archers are homing in on targets in Holt County, four identical events across Missouri will be taking place at the same time in Claycomo, Salem, Columbia and Seymour. Scores from all five tournaments will be compared in order to come up with winners in each category: adult, senior, master senior (over 65), young adult, youth and cub.
In addition, archers will compete in a variety of style divisions embracing different kinds of bows and accessories, including sights, stabilizer weights, hunting rigs, recurve, freestyle, traditional and bare-bow.
MBH-NFAA membership is required for participation. Registration fee is $15. For more information, call (660) 651-3175 or email potter.mbh@cvalley.net. Spectators are welcome, but all events are alcohol-free.
Copyright 2011 Maryville Daily Forum. Some rights reserved
