Rapid's Archery Club is a non-profit, family orientated organization that's purpose is:

We are located 2-3 miles south of Jefferson, Wisconsin on West Rapid's Road. Our club meets on the first full weekend of the month, December-May on Sunday's for our board meetings. We have tournaments scheduled every year on the first full weekend of the month, December-March. Our clubhouse features a bar and sitting area, 16-lane, 20 yard shooting range with bales for shooting 10 yards. During tournaments we have food and beverages available for purchase. We also have an outdoor course that is free to use for all members. Our membership usually ranges from 55-70 members annually. We offer leagues Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights starting in December and generally running until April. Wednesday nights we have open shooting for anyone member and non-members (cost is posted at club). Please stop out and see us anytime or feel free to e-mail or call for more information.

920-674-5864
[email protected]

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail I recently received from John Behrend concerning the history of our club. Hope you find it as interesting as I did.

Your membership should be pround to be still a viable club after all of these years. The list that you have as charter members is fairly complete and there are a small handful (2-3) that were not archers but were making a donation to help form the club. The club had a field range in its very early years and it was on the hill on highway 26 just north of "Little Dough Auto". The clubhouse that you now occupy was built by Oscar Bergsmark to house his sons new gun shop as I remember. The son had health problems and died very young. A small core group of archers before my time decided to rent the building so that they could shoot during the winter months. I became involved in 1964 thru my friendships with Duke Blasing, Gene Stokke and George Kemmeter. I seem to remember that we paid $5 a week rent and paid the utility bills. Finances were raised with a cigar cash box for revenues derived from the sale of shortie bottles of beer at $.25 per bottle. We took turns bringing in wild game each week for a lunch. These ranged from the likes of Elk, Bison, Deer and smoked fish of many varities. The most memorable was the night's surprise dish of Rockie Mountain Prairie Oysters (testicles of some critter). I was the dummy who guessed it to be breaded pork tenderloin. I did survive and had seconds would you believe.

Oscar decided to put the building up for sale and I remember well the meeting where we decided to try and buy it. Stokke checked with a lawyer friend on incorporation costs which were $250-300 well out of our range. Gene managed to become our "lawyer" and did the job in a month or so. We sold debentures to raise the down payment and I think the money was borrowed from Lee Haiones brother. My memory says that we paid $4,000 or $5,000 for the building with one acre of land. Everyone pitched in and we started to plan for fixing up the place. It was decided that if we were to be successful that we needed to get the our wives involved, but our bathroom facilities were primitive so that was the first thing we did. The meeting room was a smaller room and was seperate from the range with a full wall and a regular door out to the range. After a few brews we would sometimes shoot thru the small door to the targets but from the west wall in the meeting room, thru the small door to the target. That was the only way to get more distance. Ocassionaly we would hang sticks of venison sausage on strings for a "sausage shoot"and swing them back and forth. I can't remember the price for these shoots at the sausage but probably $ .25 for 3 shots and you got the sausage you hit.We shot a competitive set of targets that was called a "Flint Round" as memory serves me. There were six stations (distances) and two sizes of targets. You shot four arrows at the small target from the three closest staitions and four arrows at the larger target from three farther stations. The final four arrows where shot with a single arrow at each of the longest four stations. This was called "the walkup". This series was done twice with a total of 56 arrows shot for competition. There was no distinction as far as whether you shot instinctive or with sights. Most everyone shot their hunting bows and a very few had smaller poundage target recurves. One night was memorable and that was when George Kemmeter and Gene Stokke bought their new bows to the club. I can't remember which guy was first but the new bows were a new fangled bow called a COMPOUND. Boy did we laugh at that. It will never catch on and could never be used for hunting. I seem to remember calling them a "block and tackle" with an arrow added. "It will never replace the recurve", I said. Shows how smart I was.

It was decided to take the wall out and to build a shorter wall so that the people who were in the "lounge area" could watch the shooters. We also built a small bar. Dale Lutz was a part of a family of brick masons and with his abilities and help from Mike Newcomb, Mike Stewart and Roger Bare the bar was built. There were so many of the group that worked so hard to get the club on its feet that I feel bad by mentioning names as I am sure I am missing some very valuable people. After shooting the bows it was common to roll the target butts out of the way and shoot muzzle loaders with the bullet traps lowered. It was a sad day when I recently heard that they were sold for scrap.

Next it was time to update the foul smelling fuel oil fired space heater that was the only source for heat. It failed miserably. We decided that we needed something that could heat the building very fast as it was only used one night a week in the winter and saw no use in the summer. A large forced air modine heater was installed. Here Dave Statz and Kalvin Patzer helped us as I remember. No matter what the project was we always had a lot of help. I hope I am remembering this correctly and if I missed someone that was a big help I apologise. Another problem was the well. It was in a pit and we needed one that wouldn't freeze and crack the pump. We had a 100 watt bulb inside the pit in the winter and covered the pit with hay bales for insulation. It was a constant worry and required daily checking for being sure the bulb was still OK. I think it was changed on a regular basis say once a week to insure that it did not burn out and ruin the pump.

I am writing from the warmth of south Texas where I have a winter home in Mission. It is 75 miles from the Gulf and three miles from Mexico. Today February 4th it is 82 degrees and sunny.

John Behrend