RIPLEY, W.Va. — When teachers at Ripley High School assign the “What I Did This Summer” essay for Levi Staats’ class in a few weeks, it’s doubtful any of his classmates will be able to top his summer adventure story.
Staats,16, a rising junior at Ripley High recently returned from Johannesburg, South Africa. He was one of 16 American students selected to shoot for the National Archery in Schools Program (NASP) All-Star Team in the inaugural international competition.
“It was definitely a different adventure, but it was really fun,” he said. “We shot two days and it was set up in brackets like they do in March Madness basketball.”
Participants were grouped in four member teams all from within their own country. Each group included three males and one female archer. Teams from the United States, Namibia, and host South Africa competed against one another and eventually each other in the final rounds of competition. Madagascar and Canada were expected to send teams but did not. Each four-member team shot against an opposing country until the elimination rounds.
“I shot six times. Some only got to shoot three times,” Staats explained. “We got down to the final two which was US Team 1 and US Team 2.”
Staats was a member of Team 2 which lost in the championship round by eight points.
NASP organizers used the event not only as a competition, but also an archery outreach. Team USA members visited with local children and offered instruction on how to shoot a bow. Staats helped a group from a private school learn to shoot and later assisted two other schools whose students were bused to the lodge where the event was hosted.
“Some of them had never seen a bow before,” said Staats. “They told us these were the poorest of the poor in the country.”
Backed up with generous donations from Matthews Bows and Easton Arrows, NASP managed to leave the instructional equipment for the schools to use and form their own Archery in the Schools program.
No trip to South Africa would be complete without a safari.
“The lodge we stayed in was actually a hunting lodge, so we saw stuff there every day. There were giraffes right outside our room,” he said. “We stayed about three miles from the lodge and there was game everywhere. We saw every animal they had except an elephant and a leopard.”
Staats said the abundant game was enough to whet his appetite for a return to hunt, but the experience also taught him a few lessons about economics.
“The hunt is expensive and the plane ride is expensive,” said Staats who worked, saved, and had generous donations to make the trip to the competition. “I was also told if you live there, you can shoot most of those animals for 70 dollars, but they’ll charge Americans 4,000.”
One more lesson Levi learned was to be leery of the local cuisine.
“Wildebeest tastes about like they look. It’s horrible. If somebody offers you wildebeest, pass it up,” he said. “But, the impala is great, it tastes like deer steak.”