My Brother, the Archer

I'm proud of my brother Donald Brown.  He is well known in the field of archery, having done shows and won awards.  As a teenager he was a passenger in a jeep that rolled off a mountain.  He survived, but with such severe damage to his arm and shoulder that his doctors said he would never again pull a bow.  With incredible determination and perseverance (long hours spent each day in practice) he went on to win two world records and was recorded in the 1980 Guiness Book of World Records (page 506) for longest flight shooting in the unlimited handbow class with a record 1,164 yards, 2 feet, 9 inches on September 18, 1977 at Wendover, Utah.  He subsequently broke that record on October 5, 1980 with a distance of 1,227 yards, 0 feet, 11 inches.  

I'm sad to say that Don passed away a few years ago, but not before he had made his mark.  He is in the CBH/SAA Hall of Fame (California Bowman Hunters State Archery Association).  There is a CBH/SAA article online about him being an archery legend and, in addition, some of his record-setting archery equipment is at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia College of Arts & Science. Many of his archery records still hold to this day.

On time Don had a man come into his archery shop wanting to test his prototype Kevlar Bulletproof" vest.  This man adamantly insisted that Don shoot him with arrows while he was wearing the vest.  It would show his confidence he said, and be dramatic proof its protection.

But Don would only accept the test if he could use a bale of hale instead of a human body.  They argued for half an hour.  The man said he had done this test many times with bullets and there had never been a problem.  But finally, he relented.  They set the Kevlar vest in front of a bale of hay.

Don show an arrow.  It went through the Kevlar vest, front and back, and then into the bale of hay.  What the man would not accept and Don had to show him was the puncture force of an arrow is far greater than a bullet.  Pale, but alive, the man departed the store wit his two-hole Kevlar vest.