Chris Powers
My love for archery started when I was twelve. My Dad brought home a used Bear Polar LTD Compound Bow in 1978, from his job where he had bought it from a coworker. The bow was taller than me, and I could barely pull it back, but a love affair with archery started. My life started to center around that bow and archery. I had nobody to teach me the ropes, but it didn’t deter me. I started buying raw materials and building my own arrows at age of 13. Then I started going to archery 2D tournaments. Back then they were paper targets on wood celsor bales, and I loved it. I harvested my first deer at the age of fourteen with my bow. I can’t explain why I loved it so much, but it would forever be a part of my life. I continued to hunt and shoot tournaments as much as possible. Eventually archery would give me a second chance at life.
In 2001 I made a switch to be an all archery hunter all the time. In 2003 I started losing my eyesight, and after multiple trips to specialist it was determined that pressure on my brain was high and damaging my optic nerve. If not corrected I would go blind, so the decision was made to install a value in my brain to relieve the pressure. They did surgery, but unfortunately it went poorly and several emergency surgeries had to be done. In 2005 after one surgery a staff infection developed in my brain. The infection went undetected until major brain damage had occurred. I woke up in ICU struggling to stay alive, and forever a different person. My memory, motor control, balance, and coordination had been severely affected, which turned doing simple tasks into big tasks. Getting dressed, eating, walking, going to bathroom all became big issues. I could no longer even count to ten even though I had a Bachelor’s in Accounting and Finance. All the activities I had enjoyed all my life were now gone, and I found myself no longer able to shoot my bow. It took me around 18 months to be able to safely shoot my bow and just hit the bag target on a regular basis. I had lots of doctors, family and others that tried to convince me to give up archery and hunting just accept my new circumstances, but a few archery brothers continue to encourage me not to give up. I just couldn’t give it up.
I started rehab in 2006, but it seemed little progress was being made, and my life as I knew it seemed to be over. In March 2007 I had another brain surgery that went bad, and in April they had to do emergency surgery once again. Each surgery was getting harder and harder to recover from as my body just wore down. After surgery, lying in the hospital bed I decided I had to try a different route to getting better. I decided to center my life around archery to get better. Everyone knows archery is between the ears and that is where my damage was; it requires balance, coordination, muscle memory. From my hospital bed I ordered 15k worth of feathers and would try to sell them to my archery brothers around the globe. I would sell them in any quantities and colors they wanted, and this would force me to practice counting. When I got home from the hospital the feathers were waiting at my basement door. From my bed I got on the internet and let everyone know I had feathers for sale in any combinations they wanted. Soon I was counting feathers every day, and things slowly started turning. Also I set a goal to kill a P&Y Whitetail. This seemed crazy because at the time I could barely hit a bag target on a regular basis.
Before I knew it I was sending feathers all over the world. With lots of help from family and friends we opened Bowhunters Supply Store in 2008. As the business grew and time went by I started slowly gaining more abilities back. Hunting was extremely difficult at first. Just being able to get to the woods with all my gear was a challenge. I would forget half of it, drop half on way in, fall and break some, and then whenever I would get an opportunity it would never come together at first. As every year passes I would make progress in my recovery and abilities. The business has grown into one of the largest archery stores in the South, and my hunting skills have improved to where I am now harvesting deer every year, just no P&Y yet. I shoot 3D tournaments regularly, even though my scores are not great comparably, however every tournament I finish I leave a winner. Archery has literally given me a second chance at life, and even though my abilities haven’t returned completely, I am enjoying this second go around a lot more than the first go around.