Kenosha Bowmen is the Place to Be on Friday Nights in the Winter
On Friday nights the Kenosha Bowmen’s Club has opened its doors to the public. They are welcome in to the members only club to use the indoor shooting room until the end of March of this year.
Margie Huff was taking aim with her bow and arrow at a target. Huff said her husband is a state trooper in Wisconsin and added that it was her first time shooting a bow and arrow. We didn’t want to just stay home and watch movies” she explained after a photo was taken of her using the bow and arrow.
Spencer Cain, of Trevor was there with his dad. Cain was shooting his bow and arrow from a further distance than some of the other people there. Cain’s dad said he was only 12 years old and it was his fourth time there. All of his arrows landed very close to the target. His father made a statement that Cain’s uncle is a member of the club.
Rich Lemay was behind the bar in the other room. Lemay is Vice-President of the club and has been a member for 40 years. He explained the membership fees to me.
“It is $180 the first year, $100 of that is the initiation fee, $80 of that is the membership fee and then $20 of that goes to the Wisconsin Bowhunters Association.We are 101% Bowhunters Affiliated. All of our members plus the club joins too. Every member is required to do 20 work hours a year but that is easy to do” Lemay said. When asked about how many members belong to the club Lemay pulled out the membership roster. “We have about 130 members right now” he stated and added that they get about four to eight new members every month.
They have five outdoor ranges and an indoor range. One of the outdoor ranges is for members only, according to Lemay. He added that the Kenosha Club is the biggest he has seen in the state and he said he has been to almost all of them.
After hearing that I was asking about medals, John Bloom put a belt of medals he won on the bar so that a photo could be taken of them. Bloom is from Libertyville and works for the state of Illinois and said he had worked for the Chicago Tribune. Lemay said he won the Indoor Nationals this year and a lot of other competitions that made his belt heavy.
There are all kinds of different targets the bowmen use. There are multiple, spot shots and 3-D. Lemay held up two types of paper targets to show me the difference between them. The club also has a whole storage area for the 3-D targets.
Tina Rosselli arrived and brought her children with her. She manages the Facebook page and is secretary for the club and has been a member for three years. Lemay and Rosselli took me outside to show me where all the 3-D targets were stored. A life-sized moose without horns and a lot of piercings from multiple arrows had made little indents in its foam form in the abdominal area. The horns had been removed from the moose for winter storage. Life size turkeys, deer, dinosaurs and assorted animal forms were all stored together on two levels in this giant storage area.
Lemay and Rosselli told me how each year the Kenosha Bowman club sponsors a benefit event. This year the event will be held on August 3rd. Lemay said the club has not decided who will be the recipient of the money they raise. In past years, Rosselli said that they have had a bouncy house for kids, a live auction, live music, games and raffle prizes at the event. They both said that admission will be $10 for members and $12 for non-members and it goes toward the charity they have yet to choose.
The club has been open since 1949. It started in Kenosha then moved to where Bristol Woods is on County Road MB in Bristol after that. In the 1970’s they moved to the current location on Highway 50 in Bristol.
Each Friday the Kenosha Bowmen’s club is open to the public from 6 pm to 10 pm in Bristol if you would like to check it out for yourself. Admission is $5 for members $10 for non-members and $3 for kids.
The Kenosha Bowmen’s Club is located on Hwy 50 in Bristol. The driveway into the club is very long as it cuts through 42 acres and up to a large building. A few recreational trailers sit outside in a large parking lot. Inside the large building there is a room with tables and a bar to one side with a smoking room in back. A glass enclosed area has people in it with bows and arrows shooting at paper targets. The shooting room resembles a school gymnasium.
