Volunteers spearhead Mineral County 4-H archery

It's truly fortunate that ‘Rusty’ Parkin and Ladd Nakasone make their living in road construction pouring concrete curbs, sidewalks, barrier rail on bridges and building roundabouts during warmer months of the year.

Otherwise, they may not have been able to commit to being the 4-H leaders for the archery program in Mineral County.

“I think we’re at seven years doing this now,” Parkin said as Nakasone nodded.

Nakasone has been an archery elk hunter for years but for Parkin, he’d basically never shot a bow before. The two decided to resurrect kids’ archery in 2014.

“We went to a leadership program to become certified to work with kids through the 4-H programs. Kevin Chamberlain with the MSU Extension Office at that time had a few starter bows from a shooting program years prior and a few of them are actually still in use today," Parkin said. "But thanks to the MCSSA, which was actually Friends of the NRA back then, they helped us get the program back up and running. Without them, we wouldn’t have half the equipment we have, and I just can’t say enough about them,” Parkin said.

“The NRA is helping, too, through their grant program with the targets, backstops and netting. Michelle (Parkin) handles that part for us with filling out the paperwork,” he said.

Six kids train twice a week after school for two hours at each practice and they are all from Superior. Last year there was one student from St. Regis, but this is open to all students in the county, including home-schooled kids.

“The season has begun but it’s such another confusing year that if a student wanted to join now, I’m sure we could make it work once we get permission from the (MSU) Extension Office,” said Parkin.

The archers practice with a variety of bows including the Olympic recurve, compound, youth recurve, hunting bows, traditional recurve and both Parkin and Nakasone encourage the kids to shoot different bows for different exposure.

This also makes the tournaments much more fun being able to compete in the different classifications. However, because of COVID, there isn’t a schedule for tournaments right now, but there are a couple matches coming up.

These are smaller in size with the number of teams and students competing, but that might be all they get to do in 2021. For the archers, this is disappointing as they are doing their part in practicing and becoming better, and they would like to compete in an atmosphere with 200 parents watching.

Both the 4-H archery and air rifle teams have a new home to practice and compete in, thanks to the Mineral County Shooting Sports Association.

Their headquarters building at the outdoor shooting range next to the Lozeau/Quartz exit from Interstate 90 has been modified to accommodate the students which is a short drive for big benefits.

“That’s the nice thing about this facility as we can both practice at the same time,” Parkin said.

This is a 10-meter range which is the standard for 4-H Archery and Air Rifle Shooting. For safety and protocol, whistle commands are used on the shooting range. They shoot a three-arrow rep 10 times. Meaning, they have 2.5 minutes to shoot three arrows.

They walk as a group down range to retrieve their arrows and back to the firing line repeating this procedure nine more times before they add up their scores.

Scoring the targets is simple with the yellow circle in the middle (the bullseye) which has a 10-and 9-point area. Red has 8 and 7. 6 and 5 in the blue circle with 4 and 3 in the black and 2 and 1 in the white ring.

Kodi Kelly is a freshman in her third year with the team.

Asked why she has taken up archery, she smiled and said “Because my family does lots of hunting. They hunt both archery and with rifles.”

Kelly has rifle hunted the last couple of years in the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Youth program, but this September will be her first attempt with a bow.