Hononegah Archery Inc.

313 W. Mechanic St., Rockton IL 61072 815.289.2822 [email protected]

Hononegah Archery is catching fire

all across the State-line!

Our Company Name:

Our home Village of Rockton, IL was founded by the first English Settler and his Indian wife. Stephen Mack Jr. built a limestone trading post for fur traders and Indians at the confluence of the Pecatonica and Rock Rivers. Mack refused to trade guns and alcohol with local Pottawatomie and Ho Chunk Indians. One day a young Indian girl named Hononegah heard of a plot to kill Stephen Mack Jr. So Hononegah warned Mack and led him to an island nearby to hide. Hononegah brought him food and drink for weeks till the vengeful tribe left the area. The multi-cultural couple eventually married and founded Pecatonic, now modern-day Rockton.

I founded Hononegah Archery Inc. in 2014 and named the company to respect our local history. While many businesses and even schools in Rockton use Stephen Mack Jr. and Hononegah’s names, our company was actually given the blessing by two of Hononegah’s Great-Great-Great Granddaughters to continue using her name in our goals to teach archery to children and to advocate for special needs children inclusion in school !

Honoarchery.org 1

Archery Family History:

Back in 1950s Chicago, Harry Oster Sr. was one of the top 5 archers in the USA! Grandpa shot with men like Fred Bear and qualified to shoot archery as 1 of 5 USA Archers in the 50s Pan Am Games! In the late 1970s my Grandfather taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow in his back yard, on the banks of the Rock River, just East of Mack and Hononegah’s home.

When I attended Hononegah I was a heavy kid. The only time I ever felt comfortable in Gym class was during the Archery Unit in Mr. Hoey’s class. It was the only time the jocks appreciated my knowledge of shooting a bow while Mr. Hoey was busy working with other students. After High School I didn’t do much with archery till I became a single Dad with full custody of my kids.

My children were my own first archery students. I was a single Dad looking for fun family stuff to do when I took my kids to get their Hunters Safety Certificates which led to an invitation to an archery range for the first time for my kids. While I would never put anything beyond Julie’s capabilities (Julie has Autism,) I was happy to see her interest in archery grow! Her big sister Madison was a Hunger Games fanatic and enjoyed archery from the start! My oldest son Jacob would always be the first one out on the archery range in the mornings when we went camping. (Jacob has brain damage from Doctor error at birth.) Jacob, Madison and Julie are all competent archers despite 2 of them having disabilities!

Archery Training:

My children’s success in archery encouraged me to seek further training and licensing. I wanted to bring the joy of the of archery to other kids, especially those with disabilities! My first formal training started with a 3 day 4H Archery Camp through the University of Illinois Extension. Then I volunteered as a 4H Archery Coach for 3 years at the Winnebago County 4H Fairgrounds in Pecatonica, IL.

Page 2 I continued training with the National Archery in the Schools Program and earned my trainer’s certification. In the past few years I have licensed dozens of school teachers for grades 3-12 in both and Illinois for co-ed competitive archery teams.

I also hold Advanced Level Licensing through Scholastic 3D Archery, and I am qualified to license school teachers S3DA school teams across the USA. When I go teach archery units at schools I take the opportunity to introduce students to both NASP and S3DA. The last class we taught for a school was in January of 2018 for Rockford Christian High School!

My highest regarded license is that of a USA Archery Level III (NTS) Junior Olympic Coach. This license qualifies me to train a Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) Team. I also license Joad Level I and II. During my training I had the remarkable opportunity to spend time working under Linda Beck (our current USA Junior Olympic “Dream Team” Coach who takes kids to International Olympic competitions) and Mr. Ken Strickland (our 1996 Men’s USA Olympic Archery Team Coach.)

USA Archery also is the organization that oversees Boy Scout and Girl Scout Licensing. I have licensed the Director of Boy Scout Camps Shooting Sports in , WI. I also license Scout Leaders and run Merit Badge classes in addition to our regular weekly archery classes.

Traveling Archery Range for hire:

Hononegah Archery dresses up as Indians from Hononegah’s tribe at Indian Settler Rendezvous to teach history and introduce archery to the public. Our standard rate for entertainment is $300 per day plus travel expenses and a camping site. We always do Rendezvous “school days” for free when hired for weekend entertainment.

This will be our 5th year running our Hononegah Archery 3D Longbow Archery Range at the “Macktown Gathering” in Rockton, IL. We are in our 4th year working for “A River Through History” in

Page 3 Willow Springs, IL. This will also be the 2nd year for us at the “Boone County Autumn Pioneer Festival.”

Hononegah Archery dresses as Robin Hood and his family for Renaissance Faires as well. This will be our 2nd year running our Hononegah Archery 3D Longbow Archery Range at the “Old English Faire” at Stronghold Castle Camp and Retreat Center in Oregon, IL.

Hononegah Archery is also available to bring our instructors and mobile range to you for School Archery Units, Park District Archery, Festivals, Farmer’s Markets, Birthday Parties, Weddings, Corporate Team Builders, Church Fundraisers, Scouting and other events.

We are a Non-profit 501c3 Charity:

As of November 2017 Hononegah Archery was approved as a 501c3 Non-profit Charity. We offer student and adult disability archery scholarship programs and low-income archery scholarships.

We sponsor the University of Wisconsin Waisman Center Autism Research Department and Hartley Labs. There are 6 major Autism Research Facilities in the USA and the Waisman Center is the closest one to us. Julie has participated in 3 different research programs with them so when we became non-profit I asked my board to vote the Waisman Center’s Autism Research Projects as our primary cause to support.

Our organization has been fully funded by my own personal finances over the past 4 years. We hope that you see the work we are doing with kids and adults with disabilities, the good we do in sharing history with the public, and the way we build our students character up.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Hononegah Archery Inc. to help us continue our mission to bring archery to the schools and our youth. Archery empowers women, non-traditional students, and students with disabilities.

Page 4