Easton Foundation and NFAA Foundation Award $16,000 Archery Scholarships

Yankton, SD-Easton Sports Development Foundation and the National Field Archery Association Foundation are pleased to announce the Archery Scholarship Recipients for 2011. $16,000 in total scholarships was awarded to 23 student athletes in middle school, high school, and college that compete with either compound or recurve bows. Individual scholarship awards varied from $500 to $2,500. Top scholarships were awarded to Forrest Blakley of Cobdin, Illinois and Riley Whiting of Logan, Utah.

"Archery is a lifestyle for me and has taught me discipline which has benefitted me not only in the field but also in the classroom", Forrest stated. He is pursuing a degree in Agricultural Engineering at Shawnee Community College in southern Illinois where he also started an archery team. Forrest has been on the US Junior USAT for two years and participated as a member of the Junior World Indoor and Outdoor teams. He plans on attending the Olympic trials this fall.

Riley said, "Receiving this scholarship is not only a pleasure, but it creates a wonderful opportunity for me to go to college and accomplish my goals and dreams in archery." Riley recently made the United States Junior team and will be competing in Poland in mid-August.

"Forrest and Riley are both outstanding athletes that developed their archery skill in youth programs, and have become seasoned competitive archers and we are very pleased to award each of them our top $2,500 scholarship awards for 2011", stated Bruce Cull, President, NFAA.

NFAA Scholarships were first awarded in 1990 to student athletes that compete in archery and excel in academic and intellectual achievement. The limitations of the original scholarship program were resolved in 2009 with the creation of the joint NFAA/Easton Foundation Scholarship Program. "The Easton and NFAA Foundations share the goal to support student athletes that compete in archery. We believe these scholarships will help us to develop stronger college archery programs and strengthen future Olympic and World Championship Teams. By combining our respective Foundation programs, we can award more student scholarships, and increase the scholarship levels. In 2011, $16,000 was awarded to 23 recipients. We expect the number of applications to increase in future years, and plan to award up to $50,000 in total annual scholarships in 2012," said Greg Easton, President Easton Foundations.

The 2009-11 scholarships are funded by an initial $150,000 grant from the Easton Foundation to the Easton-NFAA Foundation Scholarship Program. Future net revenue from the NFAA Easton Yankton Archery Complex, plus scholarship donations from both individuals and companies will be held in an endowment account to fund the scholarships in 2012 and beyond.

Dave Gordon, of Gordon Composites, made a large personal contribution to the scholarship endowment fund. Dave stated, "Archery has been a big part of both my personal and business success. I believe the Easton-NFAA Foundation Scholarship program is an outstanding program to support our youth archers, and allows me to give back to the sport I love. Awarding our best archers and student athletes scholarships that allow them to pursue further education while competing in archery will help develop much stronger youth and college archery programs. I encourage everyone that shares my passion for archery and desire to support our young archers to make their own donation to the scholarship program." Individuals or companies interested in donating to the scholarship endowment fund or learning more about the program are encouraged to contact Bruce Cull, NFAA President. The NFAA Foundation is a 501(c )3 Public Charity and all donations meet the IRS requirements as charitable donations.

Scholarship applications, program requirements, and additional information is available on the NFAA website at www.fieldarchery.com, or from the NFAA Headquarters, 800 Archery Lane, Yankton, SD 57078. All applications for 2012 scholarships must be submitted to the NFAA Office by December 31, 2011.