By Chris Spangler
The tenth annual Fort Atkinson Archery Shootout took place Saturday at Fort Atkinson High School.
The local invitational featured teams from 13 school districts.
All three teams from Fort Atkinson swept their divisions.
Fort Atkinson has 112 students in the archery program, including 24 from Purdy Elementary School, 48 at the middle school and 40 at the high school.
Michael DeRubeis, health and physical education teacher at Fort Atkinson High School, serves as coach, along with coaches Jeff Jensen and Troy Sharp and managers Rhonda Klingman and Amanda Wrobel.
Among elementary school teams, Purdy Elementary School placed first with a score of 2,317, followed by Columbus Elementary School in second with 2,028.
Jensen is Purdy’s coach.
In the middle school division, Fort Atkinson Middle School was right on target, placing first with a score of 3,047. The team’s coaches are Sharp, DeRubeis and Jensen.
Spring Hill Middle School in Wisconsin Dells placed second with a score of 2,962.
Among the high school teams, Fort Atkinson High School placed first with a score of 3,209. Its coaches are DeRubeis and Sharp.
Sun Prairie High School placed second with a score of 3,079.
DeRubeis said that Theo Hanson started the program at Fort Atkinson Middle School 11 or 12 years ago.
“Two or three years later, student Lilly Gomez approached me and said ‘we need archery at the high school,’ and we have had a high school program for nine or 10 years now,” DeRubeis said.
He noted that the high school has had an archery unit in physical education class for many years.
“We originally used old-school recurve bows that I was taught on, and we eventually transitioned and used the NASP-certified Genesis original bow used in competition,” he said.
NASP is the acronym for the National Archery in the Schools Program.
“Our focus is to continue to work with Fort Atkinson students at all levels and provide a unique opportunity to compete as an individual and focus on individual skills, development and improvement,” DeRubeis said.
“The unique opportunity is that archery is an individual and team sport in the same respect,” he continued. “A team score comprises the top four female scores and top four male scores. The remaining four scores will be the top male or female scores to complete the whole score of the top 12 scores.”
In addition to the Fort Atkinson High School, Fort Atkinson Middle School and Purdy Elementary School in Fort Atkinson, school teams participating in the shootout included those from Elk Mound High School; St. Paul’s Lutheran School, Grafton; Bluff View Intermediate School, Prairie du Chien; Columbus Elementary School; Columbus Middle School; Columbus High School; Lake Mills Middle School; Prairie du Chien High School; Spring Hill Elementary School, Wisconsin Dells; Spring Hill Middle School, Wisconsin Dells; St. Peter’s Lutheran School, Reedsburg; Sun Prairie High School; West DePere High School; Wisconsin Dells High School; Wisconsin Heights Middle School; and Wisconsin Heights High School.
Full results of the shootout may be viewed at https://nasptournaments.org/Default.aspx.
A related story about Fort Atkinson’s physical education teachers recently becoming NASP-certified appears at https://fortatkinsononline.com/focus-self-control-discipline-among-skills-to-be-taught-through-archery-says-district/.
Students from St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Grafton chat prior to target shooting.
Team members count their scores before retrieving their arrows.
Monica Broadhead, a member of the Fort Atkinson Middle School archery team, displays her target after target shooting.
Volunteers Allie Chase, from left, Maggie Messler and Lily Siglinsky sell pizza, soda, candy and other snacks from the Fort Atkinson Archery Club concession stand to a patron, at right.
Archery team members from Columbus stretch before the tournament.
Students line up to check their quivers. In the foreground are siblings Brock and Monica Broadhead. They are members of the Purdy Elementary School and Fort Atkinson Middle School archery teams, respectively.
Two photos above, as seen from the bleachers, archers shoot at the targets.
Family members cheer in support of student archers.
Fort Atkinson and Columbus archery team members thread, or “nock” their arrow on the bow.
Chris Spangler photos.
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