Larry Smith and Kathleen Millar started South Nation Archery Supply (named after the great river that runs from north of Brockville into the Ottawa River) in August 1983.
The business started out small (the hole-in-the-wall) with neither lanes nor programming, in the front of our home.
In 1988, we took a gamble and made a decision to expand so that people in eastern Ontario would have facilities and programming in the sport of archery.
Since then, thousands of youth and adults have taken classes, been coached, and/or used the lanes.
Larry is a former world target team gold medallist and bronze individual world field medallist. He represented his country 19 times to international and world events. He is a certified level 2 NAA coach. He is also an accomplished bowhunter and IBEP instructor.
Kathleen is a former national target and field champion, representing Canada 3 times as an archer and 20 times as a national team coach or national administrator. She worked for the Federation of Canadian Archers (now known as Archery Canada) for over 17 years as both Technical Director and Executive Director. She is a certified level 4 NCCP coach, and a Chartered Professional Coach, and has been writing coaching manuals for archery since 1982, along with a small group of talented volunteers. Also, she was hired as Technical Writer for Shooting Federation of Canada’s Instructor Beginner and Competition Development coach certification manuals and teaching aids working with volunteers in rifle, skeet/trap and pistol.