OSKALOOSA —  Twelve-year-old Madison McQueen of Oskaloosa has not been shooting a bow in her hands for very long.

Yet she could be a female equivalent to William Tell or Robin Hood as far as archery prowess goes.

McQueen, who will be a seventh-rader at Oskaloosa Elementary School this fall, has been shooting bow for just two years, but has already won a number of individual and team titles.

Just this summer alone, she has captured the top spots in the Apple Valley Archers, Wapello Chiefs Bowman, Mid-Iowa Archers and won a gold medal in Iowa Summer Games in the 3-D Shoot. The competitors walk through the woods and shoot at 3-D targets in challenging places similar to those in hunting situations.

McQueen took third place in the Iowa Bowhunters Association’s Fall Festival and was a member of the first-place team in the IBA Shoot-Out Championship earlier in August in Eldora.

McQueen hopes to repeat as the Southern Iowa Triple Crown last year and is in first place this year. Next year, se’s also expect to be shooting Jo-Ad division in the ISAA Junior Olympic Archery Development team.

McQueen got interested in archery after going to a Field Day at the Russell Wildlife Area last year doing such things a bow fishing and she realized she really liked the sport.

“I asked my Dad (Todd) if I could shoot with compound and get into it and, of course, he thought I was going to put it down because I haven’t done anything that big where I kept on going,” she said. “He got me a used bow and I started doing really good and kept on shooting. Last year at the Fall Festival, I won my new bow and it’s a really cool bow.”

Most of the Fall Festival last year was done in by a hail storm and she won her bow in a drawing.

She doesn’t know of any other Oskaloosa student involved in archery although her father would like to get a high school team started much like the one that is in Cardinal of Eldon.

“Cardinal has a NASP (National Archery in School Program) team, Pella is putting together a team and North Mahaska’s coach may not return this year,” Todd McQueen said. “I’m trying to get one started here in Oskaloosa. This keeps kids busy all summer long. This doesn’t happen just two weeks during the summer. This shooting is all year round and it keeps their interest going, looking forward every weekend going to a new town and setting.

“We’re going to start traveling next year around the Midwest, from Arizona to Ohio.”

NASP is put on by the Iowa DNR.

Archery can be an inexpensive sport or it could also be one that you spend a lot of money.

Todd McQueen said a newcomer can spend $75 for a set-up or could go as much as $2,000 on a more expensive bow and arrows.

“It depends on what you want to go for,” he said. “She started with a $75 bow and now has a $2,000 set-up.

“The most expensive part of this is the initial purchase of the equipment. When they first begin in the Cubs (shooters ages 9-12), most places don’t charge for them to shoot. They just want the kids to shoot.”

They said about the most expensive place to go to shoot is at Pella, as it charges a $12 fee. They added that’s pretty cheap entertainment as it takes about 3-to-4 hours to shoot a 3-D range.

“Archery, some people don’t think of it, is all around and there are a lot of people shooting it,” Madison McQueen said. “They don’t really talk about it much because they don’t now what 3-D targets or what archery is. I had to explain it to my sister and my grandpa because even they didn’t know what it was.”

Her father gives a lot of credit to Boyd Mathes of Pella, who has a pro shop and has really brought Madison along.

“He has given her a lot of pointers and helped her out and that’s whose team she was on, Buck Hollows, when it won at the IBA,” he said.

She will be making a long trip to Las Vegas as her accomplishments earned her a trip to the ISAA Shoot-out in February 2011.

Todd McQueen would like to get more people involved in archery.

“They’re trying to draw a lot of stuff into Iowa. We have a large following, but not large enough,” he said. “I’d like to get a lot more kids involved and once they pick up a bow, like her. Once she picked up a bow, it was something she loved to do.

“It’s low-impact, not like shooting a gun and it’s more fun than sitting in one place shooting clay birds or something. You actually get to walk through the woods and see wildlife. We’ve seen deer, baby muskrats as we go through. Most of these places are wildlife reserves and we can’t shoot the wildlife, but they are there.”

“We hear a whole bunch of turkeys up in the trees and it’s really neat,” Madison McQueen said. “You have to bring a good bug spray because there’s a lot of bugs out there.”

He added that there’s a youth shoot the first Monday of every month, beginning in October, at the First Church of the Nazarene where kids can go pick up the sport. It doesn’t cost any money to shoot there and bows are there if the kids don’t have one.

He said the sport has brought them closer together, being out in the timber together and spending a lot of time with each other.

She said archery has taught her patience because shooting with other people and since she’s a Cub, you have to wait for them to shoot before she could shoot. She’s also learned what to shoot and how to shoot it from other people. She’s also learned calls of animals because of the birds singing, turkeys gobbling, which she said is neat.