Ben Rogers

All Around Champion


A 65-year-old gentleman named Homer Spoonermore in 1958 at Eureka, CA introduced Ben Rogers to archery. Homer taught him to shoot and approximately 6 months alter starfing to shoot he won the Eureka City Recreational Department Championship. They competed on the FITA face at 20-30-40 yards. At the time he was shooting a 35 pound Ben Pearson recurve with 24 srt arrows.

Shortly after that he entered high school sports and forgot about archery. After college and marriage he saw an ad for indoor archery in Mountain View, CA and checked it out. he bought a Bear 45 pound super Kodiak recurve, and started shooting in an indoor league. At the same time he joined the Black Mountain Bowmen. It was the winter of 1968. He started shooting in the barebow style. At the time, Tom Daley was the King of the Hill and Ben spent a lot of time trying to beat him. He enjoyed mixed success over the next few years. In 1975 he shot the first 560's ever shot on the Kings Mountain and Mt. Diablo ranges (shooting freestyle).

Ben won his first state field championship in 1977 at San Francisco in the Bowhunter style. In 1978 he won the first of 7 National Field Archery Championships in bowhunter. The nationals were held in Aurora, Ill., that year. In 1975 at the Las Vegas indoor tournament, he challenged Cal Vogt and Lou Rangel to a team competition at the Fresno Safari, at $100 per team, winner take all. By the time Fresno came around, they had about 12 teams who wanted to compete. That was the birth of the world Bowhunter Team Championships. He promoted and ran the event into the mid 1980's when Pat Norris of Bonnie Bowman Archery was gracious enough to take over the duties.

Ben believes he has been fortunate to serve CBH-SAA as its president from 1988-1990. He has also been MTBA Regional President Black Mountain Bowmen President, and NFAA Director from California. Over the years he has tried to support every archery organization that he could. Those organizations include NFAA, NAA, PAA, CBH-SAA, IBO ASA, NAHB, Bowhunters Who Care, and others.

In his 27 years in archery he has tiled to be a good ambassador for our sport. He has had the privilege of introducing many newcomers to archery. Ben is an avid hunter and has taken many blacktail deer, mule deer, 1 whitetail in Nebraska, elk, wild boar, pheasant on the wing, and numerous small game with his bow.

The list of Ben's Championship titles is long:
* NFAA Outdoor Field Champion- Bowhunter - 1978; 1982; 1984; 1985; 1987; 1988; 1989. In 1988 he set an all-time aggregate record.
* Southwest Sectional Field Champion - Bowhunter - 1977; 1987; 1988. Freestyle - 1989.
* CBH-SAA Field Champion - Bowhunter - 1977; 1978; 1981; 1982; 1983; 1984; 1986; 1988. He set another all-time aggregate record in 1986.

* CBH-SAA Indoor Champion: Bowhunter 1987 (state record); 1988. Freestyle: 1987. Bowhunter Freestyle Limited: 1989; 1990; 1991. Barebow - 1996 (state record). Traditional: 1996 (state record). CBH-
* SAA Broadhead Champion - 1979; 1982.



He has also been Las Vegas Champion in Bowhunter in 1987; Big Sky Open Champion -Bowhunter Freestyle in 1993; Redding Trail Shoot Professional Team Champion with Gary Broadhead in 1996 (Freestyle); Redding Trail Shoot Bowhunter Team and Individual Champion 1993.

Ben Rogers- a champion in all competitions.

Inducted 2000