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Bernie Morrell of Morrell Targets Welcomes Alpen to the National Archery in the Schools Program
 Editor’s Note: This year, here at Alpen we’ve become more interested and involved with the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) and we hope to have some announcements coming soon about our future with this program. One of the corporate pioneers of this program has been Morrell Targets, and we’ve asked Bernie Morrell to tell us about Morrell Targets’ involvement in the program, and why his company supports the NASP.
Question: Bernie, tell us what do you do for Morrell Targets?
Morrell: I’m a sales representative for Morrell Manufacturing and the national coordinator for the National Archery in the Schools Program for the Morrell Target Company.
Question: Bernie, why did Morrell get so involved in the NASP?
Morrell: We saw an opportunity to promote the sport of archery and help grow the sport of archery. We see the NASP as a tool that can benefit archery more than the invention of the compound bow has. We believe that archery in the schools will help determine the future of archery hunting specifically and of all hunting in general. The NASP as it’s set up right now, also teaches many of the values that we feel are so important for our young people to learn. Participants learn to respect themselves, respect others and respect their coaches. Through archery, they learn the discipline that’s required to be successful in life. NASP also provides a way for students who aren’t skilled enough at baseball, tall enough or fast enough to play basketball, big enough and strong enough to play football and fast enough or have enough endurance to run track to have a sport where they can compete and do well.
 Question: What’s Morrell’s involvement with the NASP?
Morrell: We donate targets for the national and regional competitions; we also pay 10-percent of the monies we make from selling our targets in the states that have NASP back to the program. Too, we donate to the general fund of the NASP and to the NASP scholarship program. We also provide a meeting area so state coordinators can come together and plan their programs for the year.
Question: What else does NASP teach young people?
Morrell: They learn that, to participate in this program, they can’t be absent from school, they can’t be tardy, they have to bring their grade-point averages up, and they have to learn to obey the whistle commands of their instructors, which helps them learn discipline and self control. They also are able to get more personally involved with their teachers and their coaches through NASP. One of the great values that NASP teaches is it gives young people a way to participate in a sport and see their scores get higher and their skill levels increase and proves to them that they can achieve certain physical tasks as well as mental tasks. NASP gives children an opportunity to be successful.
 Question: What do you perceive to be the future of the NASP?
Morrell: The NASP has tremendous benefits for every participating child, school, community and state. We all have a responsibility to the young people of this country. We need to look for more and better ways to help these young people learn that they are and can be successful. We need to provide vehicles like NASP that teach children to become disciplined, maintain self-control and to set and achieve goals.
Most of all, NASP is fun for the youngsters, their families and their teammates. We at Morrell believe that the NASP has a tremendous future, and we’re glad to know that Alpen Optics has made the decision to contribute to a program that’s helping to improve the futures of young people across the nation.
 To learn more about the National Archery in the Schools program, visit www.nasparchery.com.
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