Straight arrows: Archery program aims to help students in school ...

-- Mark Koley is a lifelong lover of archery. When he was a kid and he and his friends played "Cowboys and Indians," he always wanted to be the Indian because he preferred the bow and arrow.

The math teacher at Clovis Point Intermediate School in East Wenatchee has never forgotten how much he enjoyed archery as a kid and wondered for years how he could share that with students in a way that it could benefit them in school and in life.

Two years ago, he found the answer: The National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP).

"It was something I'd read about in articles and sounded really interesting, and as a teacher, it was something to get kids interested in school in a different way," he said.

"It at least gives kids an opportunity to do something different and in their own lives take it wherever they want to go with it."

Not only was it an excuse to try, but the program's established reputation and proven curriculum made it an easy sale to Clovis principal Dennis Gibson, who jumped onboard immediately.