Williamsburg, KY – Young Guns Archery Coach and founder Heath McDonald lost his battle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer on September 30th, 2022. Matthew Steward was recently awarded the first annual Memorial scholarship honoring his late coach. Heath’s wife, Julie McDonald stated, “Matthew is exactly why we started our Young Guns Archery program, and we are extremely proud to help this well deserving young man.”

Matthew Steward is a 2022 graduate of Miami Valley CTC and his home school was Valley View. Matthew did not think he was going to go to college until he found his passion for archery. Matthew joined Young Guns Archery team his senior year and had always bow hunted; however, was unaware that competition archery existed. Matthew caught on quickly with his new competition bow and racked up various podium finishes both at the State level and National level. In 2022, Matthew was the S3DA State and National Shooter of the Year, S3DA Indoor National 3rd place, S3DA National 3D 4th place, and S3DA Outdoor Target National 1st place finisher. Matthew was the first graduate out of the Young Guns Archery program and the first to receive an archery team scholarship from Wabash Valley College. His freshman year at Wabash Valley College, he had an outstanding archery season and finished the year as an Archery Collegiate All-American.

Heath and Julie McDonald founded the Young Guns Archery youth program. Heath was an avid outdoorsman and taught his wife and kids shooting sports. The McDonald kids competed in competition archery and received many opportunities through archery. Brooke McDonald was recruited to the University of the Cumberlands and earned scholarship money for archery, while also being on the dance team and choir. Trey McDonald received an Olympic Sportsmanship Award (The Jack Kelly Fair Play Award) in Colorado Springs, CO, and also participated in the World Archery competition in Puerto Rico for Team USA, where he won 2 Gold medals in 2015. Archery has always been good to the McDonald kids and Young Guns University was created to help get more kids into the sport of archery and bowhunting.

Currently, Young Guns University S3DA has 4 certified coaches and holds an Intro to Archery 101 class every Monday. Archery classes are for 6 weeks, on Mondays 5:30 – 6:30 pm and bows and arrows are provided. Location thru September is Outdoors on Germantown Middletown Rd and indoor archery range at Pure Whitetail HQ, 200 Industry Drive, Carlisle, Ohio. At the end of the 6-week class, kids have the option to continue shooting for fun or to join the Young Guns Archery Competition team. For more information you can visit the Young Guns University S3DA Facebook page, contact Julie McDonald (937-470-2251), or email info@younggunsarchery.com.

About Scholastic 3-D Archery

Scholastic 3-D Archery (S3DA) is a unique, family-oriented youth archery program which has grown exponentially across the United States as a next-step initiative to follow introductory archery programs. The mission of the Scholastic

3-D Archery program is to foster, educate and guide youth in the areas of 3D, indoor target, and outdoor target archery as well as safe, ethical bowhunting practices. The goal of the S3DA program is to provide archery and bowhunting opportunities to youth in after-school settings, as well as with archery-affiliated clubs and businesses in the community. S3DA youth participate in 3-D and target archery using compound and traditional archery equipment. Youth members can participate at regional, state and national archery events and earn college scholarships from colleges and universities across the United States. S3DA addresses the need for a program to bridge beginning target archery experience and more advanced activities such as 3-D shooting and bowhunting. The program currently operates across the United States with hundreds of certified coaches serving thousands of youth archers.

Contact the Scholastic 3-D Archery National Office at:

www.s3da.net or 410 Sycamore Street, Williamsburg, KY 40769, Ph: 606.524.3685

Media contact Kayla Bolton at kaylas3da@gmail.com, Ph: 423.494.2204