Weather was near perfect, the venue was great, the location had all the support facilities nearby. Judging was first rate. The shooting was controlled by both stop lights as well as electronic horns that were audible throughout the field. At first there was some consternation that the field might be crooked, because of the gentle but uneven slope of the land behind the targets, and the fact that the people (not the tourney organizers) who mowed the huge area did not mow in line with the shooting corridors. That caused what I think could be described as an optical illusion of grass furrows, the targets appearing to be slanted at an angle to the VERY LONG shooting line.(80 targets is a boatload!)

The officiating crew verified the dimensions, however, and I don't think there was any more than the usual number of arrows shot on the wrong target which is to say there were a few.

The grass was thick, making missed arrows a little tough to find without the metal detectors. Wind was very light and variable.

The planners had pizza and subs delivered continuously as well as by special order, they also had a Schwann's truck there to sell all sorts of great ice cream treats, they even had a masseuse onsite giving free massages! There was shade aplenty for the archers, and the temps were in the mid to upper 80s.

Of special note was the team maintaining the leader boards. Every even round they collected the scores, and had the results posted by the time the odd round was done. Very well done! Many archers shot personal bests (one added 79 points to hers to end up with an 1156), and most had a great time. It was discovered as a surprise on the last day by many parents of Junior class archers that an archer could (and did) skip the majority of the FITA round, shoot (well) in the OR, and still medal in the tournament. For the Junior Class (only) the FITA round of 144 arrows over two days was used to determine the lineup of the OR, but counted nothing towards the final ranking of the tournament.

About 50 people attended a JOAD committee meeting on Saturday evening. For a review of the subjects of the meeting, click here to go to the TSAA newsletter
 

A final congratulations are in order to the Texas JOAD Archers who participated in this event and in many cases, increased their personal best scores. Catelyn Curtner, Ethan Butemeyer, Samantha Hessong, Leanne Wiley, Andrea Wiley, Karla Leonardo, Trevor Seidel, Tamara Raffaelli, Cassandra Raffaelli, Holly Heinsohn, Kevin Barker, Sam Mody, Sage Adams, Travis Lafayette, Lindsey Carmichael, Vikram Rangraj, Garrett Krueger, and the tallest of them all, Tim Meyers. Good shooting and congratulations!

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