Post by BT on Dec 7, 2007 23:41:37 GMT -5
Gainesville, FL -- During a blizzard on March 5th 1902, Fred Bear was
born in a farmhouse in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania in the heart of the
fertile Cumberland Valley. Now, a century later, on the 100th
anniversary of Fred's birth, The North American Archery Group, LLC will
celebrate that quiet, but momentous event.
Fred was not born an archery legend. He left home a few days after his
21st birthday and headed for Detroit where he found work as a
patternmaker for the Packard Motor Car Company and attended night school
at the Detroit Institute of Technology. Five years later, he saw Art
Young's film "Alaskan Adventures" and that outing changed his life and ours.
In 1929, Fred went bowhunting for the first time, but like many of us
even today, it took him six years to harvest his first deer by bow.
Nevertheless, in 1933, he and a partner founded Bear Products Company to
produce silk-screened advertising materials. "Off in a corner of the
small building," Charles Kroll and dick Lattimer wrote in Fred Bear: The
Biography of an Outdoorsman, "Fred made archery equipment." That hobby
soon became Fred's full-time business.
Fred Bear was an energetic archery pioneer and inventor. This self-made
man registered archery patents as early as 1937. He experimented with
and found practical applications for materials like fiberglass and
machined aluminum that have become the building blocks of modern
archery.
With a deeply engaging personality, Fred promoted his business and the
sport of archery around the world. Part of his success was due to his
ability to surround himself with lifelong, supportive friends and
bowhunters like dick Mauch and Bob Munger.
A major part of Fred's success however was entirely due to his own
promotional genius. He produced the first of many archery and adventure
films in 1942 and later published feature articles in major national
magazines such as Life and True. He took his bows to state and national
archery tournaments winning several. Fred taught himself to write and
published a widely acclaimed book, Fred Bear's Field Notes. In the '50s
and '60s, he appeared frequently on television and became a widely
sought-after speaker. National sports personalities such as Curt Gowdy
sought out the Lincolnesque Pennsylvania farm boy to cut records and
tapes. Fred and his company hosted international events and he led
parties of intrepid bowhunters on one adventure after another around the
world with equipment that he designed and built in his Michigan
manufacturing facility: Africa, India, South America, British Columbia
and Alaska. For a man of small beginnings, his list of accomplishments
is nothing short of phenomenal.
Fred Bear positively influenced national conservation policy and the way
we do business today by supporting and promoting the extension of the
Federal Excise Tax to certain types of archery equipment. His efforts
are a part of his broad conservation legacy and they will benefit many
generations of hunters beyond our own.
In 1968, Fred sold his company, Bear Archery, to Victor Comptometer. The
world had changed around the entrepreneur. Bigger was now better and
deep pockets were required to fund research and development and archery
sales on a worldwide basis.
The sale gave Fred ten more years to serve as president. So, he founded
the Fred Bear Sports Club and passionately promoted his company and all
of archery. His philosophy was that if he could turn a dozen people on
to archery, they may not all purchase Bear equipment, but he would get a
share. It was that spirit, perhaps even more than his hunting exploits,
his movies or his patents, that has made Fred an honored legend among
outdoorsmen everywhere.
Fred Bear passed away in April 1988. Arlyne Rhode of The U.S. Archer
Magazine imagined his life like the long flight of an arrow that had at
last come to rest. The image is memorable and we believe that Fred would
have liked it.
