Youth Wildlife Interest Spikes

COFFEEVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Most kids, in the beginning, are naturally curious about the outdoors.

Statistics, from the Environmental Protection Agency suggest kids spend less than 30 minutes outdoors a day. However, Archery In Mississippi Schools’ director, Waldo Cleland, says archery is gaining popularity among younger generations.

“This is our North State Championship. We use this for a qualifier for our State Championship. We’ll have about three thousand kids come through this program. We started this with 10 schools back in the early 2000’s and now we shoot over 6,000 kids, so it’s really grown rapidly,” said Cleland.

Randi Terry is a junior at Center Hill High School. She says she’s always been interested in wildlife but a famous book series may have had something to do with it.

“I did read the hunger games when I was in the 6th grade. A year before I started archery. I did think that it was cool that I could kind of be like that. I did dress up like Katniss for Halloween one year but when I watch the movies now she shoots really wrong, it kind of bothers me a little bit,” said Terry.

With archery and wildlife interest picking up, AIMS Floor Director Jason Johnson says technology is the only challenge.

“There’s always a concern in this technology oriented world to kids staying on social media and computers more than they are getting outside. So, this program opens an avenue for them,” said Johnson.

Johnson says he hopes, through this program, more students become interested in the outdoors.

“A lot of our kids living in a rural state like Mississippi, a lot of there parents exposes them to outdoors, hunting, and fishing. But a lot of kids don’t, this program exposes a lot of them and introduces them to archery in a target area and we hope that will translate into a hunting licence in the future,” said Johnson.

Terry hopes she can pick up a bow, well after graduation.

“Collegiate archery is starting to make an appearance on the scene now. More and more colleges are starting to have archery teams,” said Terry.

The competition will conclude Thursday. The highest scoring schools will advance to the state championship in Jackson.