Don't be intimidated by the wood. Just pretend you know what you are doing and with luck the wood wont realize you havn't a clue until it is too late and you have found the bow in there.
If nothing else you will have a lot of very valuable learning time working on that stave. Do everything like it is going to be the best bow ever built and you have a good chance of coming out with something very shootable. If you have any kids in your life you could look to make matching kid/adult bows from the one stave. Just think how cool that would be.