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Nearly 700 students, ranging from 4th to 12th grade, will take to their stand and draw their bows April 10-11 in an attempt to bring home an archery state title at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Archery in the Schools 3D State Championship hosted by Pangburn High School.
Unlike the AIS Bull’s-eye Championship that concluded last month with a dominating performance by Magnet Cove High School, this competition allows students to aim at multiple targets of differing sizes positioned 10 to 15 meters away.
“A lot of these students shot with us at the AIS bull’s-eye competitions and state championship last month,” Aimee Swaim, AGFC Archery in the Schools Coordinator, said. “They’re shooting the same bows as before, just at different styles of targets and with a different format. The idea is to add another step toward the transition from just learning to shoot a bow to becoming a hunter.”
Swaim said one of the largest barriers youth have toward hunting and outdoor recreation is that many are raised without mentors familiar with teaching archery, firearms or other basic outdoors skills. The AGFC’s AIS Program is one of many programs offering gradual stepping stones from complete novice to accomplished outdoorsperson.
“They’ll be shooting at North American game animals,” Swaim said. “There’s a target shaped like a wild turkey, a coyote, a deer, a bear, a pronghorn and a stone sheep. All but the pronghorn and stone sheep are animals hunters can pursue right here in Arkansas. This format really helps us align the archery program closer to our effort of recruiting new outdoorspeople.”
The addition of 3D animal targets to Arkansas’s program began in 2024 at the request of a few coaches and students.
“Pangburn’s coach approached us and said the extra discipline was held during the Bull’s-eye national competitions, but you had to have qualified through a state tournament to participate,” Swaim said. “So we worked to include it here so those students who were headed to those big tournaments would be able to compete in more than one event. It sort of took off from there.”
Swaim says 41 school systems have already signed up, and many have listed multiple teams. Each team consists of six archers, and each team must have at least two boys and two girls.
“We’re seeing a lot of excitement about this new discipline since we started offering it,” Swaim said. “Pangburn has held the event for the last two years, and it’s grown from 256 archers in the first year to right at 700 this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s as big as the bull’s-eye competition one day.” Visit www.agfc.com/AIS for more information on the AGFC’s Archery in the Schools Program.
