Paetyn Woodring was excited to join the Garvin County 4-H Archery Club two years ago.
The 16-year-old said archery was something she’d been interested in learning for a while, so when her mother, April, ran across information about the 4-H Archery Club, she jumped at the chance to join.
It was exactly what she’d been looking for.
“It was better than I expected it to be! I love it,” Paetyn said.
She said she particularly enjoys the comradery among the archers and has met new friends from all over as she has traveled to different competitions around the state.
“The competitions are my favorite part I think. I just really like getting to see all different types of people,” she said.
It turns out she’s also a pretty good archer.
Paetyn recently qualified to compete in the 4-H Shooting Sports National Championships, which will be held in Grand Island, Nebraska, June 21-26.
An impressive showing for a second-year archer.
“Over the last two years, she has placed high enough to qualify for nationals in the state competition, and she’s got between first and fifth on almost every [individual] competition she’s been in this entire year,” Garvin County 4-H Archery Club Coach Rusty Cole said.
Paetyn and her Garvin County teammates also did well in the team division at state competition this year, earning third in the senior team division and fourth out of all age groups.
When asked what she thinks her biggest strength as an archer is, Paetyn struggles for answer, then turns to ask Cole what he thinks.
“She’s got a lot of strengths when it comes to archery, but I would say her focus on accomplishing a task. When she first started she was grouping good, but she wanted to always improve on her groupings and stuff,” Cole said. “I’d say it’s her focus on an individual task with archery.”
Cole said in some ways Paetyn’s focus and performance have raised the bar for everyone on the team.
“Last year, she was ‘top shot’ [in the Garvin County Club] and because of that, other people in her age group have stepped their game up to try to knock her out of the top shot spot,” Cole said.
She even inspired her two younger sisters, who initially had no interest in joining the team. Both have now joined the archery program, after watching Paetyn compete that first year.
Paetyn said the 3D archery contests are where she feels she has the most room for improvement.
“I’m not the greatest at 3D. I’m not good at guessing the distances,” she said.
Cole explains there are three areas in the archery competitions: FITA, in which the archers know the distance – usually 33 to 66 meters in Paetyn’s age group; Field competition, in which archers know the yardage to be anywhere from 5 to 50 yards; and 3D, where the archers don’t know the yardage at all and have to be able to estimate the distance to make the shot on an animal form.
“It’s trial and error until you figure it out. Once you figure it out, then you can tune it in. And everybody’s different on how they get to that point of how they can judge the distance,” Cole said “It’s just one of those things that each individual archer has to fine tune themselves.”
Paetyn said she’s excited to be headed to the National Championships in June.
“I’m really looking forward to doing good,” Paetyn said. She chuckles and adds, “That sounds so bad!”
Then with a slight shrug, “I want to do good. I’m looking forward to doing good.”
With competitors from multiple states there, she’s also looking forward to meeting others in the sport – and maybe learning from them, too.
“They may do something different than you do, as far as the way they shoot, and you may do something different from them.
That’s one of the things I like about 4-H. It’s a competition, but they still share ideas with each other to make everybody better.”
Cole said.
While Paetyn’s registration fee for the national competition is covered, the Woodrings will be responsible for travel expenses and meals to attend the contest. The Garvin County 4-H Archery Club holding a fundraiser to help offset some of those travel expenses for the family.
Club members are selling smoked pork butt by Butterbeans Small Batch BBQ in Stratford. The cost is $40, and orders are due by March 25, with a pickup date of April 4.
Orders can be placed by clicking the link included here, or by contacting Rusty Cole at (580) 279-8057.
