I'm sure Jimmy wont mind the title of this....
There is a LOT of archery history in Gordon County GA. Will and Maurice Thompson ran the river bottoms of Gordon County.....
As a matter of fact Cliff Huntington tried to get a statue erected here....Cliff, if you are still interested let me know....I might be able to talk to some folks and help get that done.
Deacon Balliew was from Gordon County....and he was ranked 3rd in the nation at one time...he worked at the local bowling ally and practiced behind the lanes while working, and stopped shooting when there was a pin jam or ball jumped the track. He was knocked out of the Olympics cause he hit a nock and deflected out of the targets bull.....this was the start of chat for a 5 spot target. He also hunted with Howard Hill, Ben Pearson and Fred Bear. He taught me to shoot a longbow at age 8 at Cub Scout Camp where I won the tourney out of 400 Scouts at the end of the week. Lots of other stories about Deacon, but I gotta move on. Oh, he was also big buds with Dan Quillian. AND, was one of only 3 that won the 'Master Hunter' award east of the Mississippi before that award was no more. Deacon passed away last month.
There was a guy here by the last name of Brown, cant for the life of me remember his first name that did a lot of innovative things for bows back in the 70s and 80s.
Jule Medders was a trad bowhunter that went on to write a lot of songs for country and folk type ballads.
Then there was a gang of us when I grew up that were deer killing machines, ....that Brown guy, Mike Tinch, Robert Richardson, Trevor McIntyre, D.A. Richardson, Lex Richardson, Terry Childers, Jesse Morehead, Jule Medders, Ron Reno, Greg Wilbanks, Tommy Hefner to name just a few...
Jesse went on to invent the famous Eliminator Pendulum Sight, and won a many national titles on the tourney circuit.
Trad Gang came out of Gordon County....
And now Gordon County has an IBO World Champ with a recurve.....a Mr. Jimmy Blackmon.
Congrats Jimmy.....and thanks for adding to the long history of this little County in North Georgia. You done us proud!!!