Bill Wadsworth – Bowhunting Educator
I like steak, big, juicy, and tender. I like it at a restaurant with white tablecloths, served by waiters in jackets. Give me a huge baked potato, with sour cream and butter on the side and I’m a happy man. However, I’m not that fond of game meats, and I would never even consider going deep into the woods to hunt down my own. Yet each fall, all across America, a dedicated group of hunters does exactly that. A smaller group of these outdoorsmen pull off the ultimate mano-a-deer challenge and hunt with bow and arrow. (My apologies to those feminists listening).
Bill Wadsworth was one of those men, a bowhunter extraordinaire. But Bill took bowhunting to another level, becoming one of the sport’s greatest advocates and the founder of the National Bowhunter Education Foundation. Bill had been active in the Boy Scouts of America during the mid 1940’s. Appointed the director of Camp Woodland, a scout summer camp in the Syracuse area of New York State, Bill’s philosophy was to provide a meaningful learning experience where lessons learned could be applied to all aspects of life. It was this characteristic that led him to organize bowhunter education in the late 1960’s.
In 1967 Bill and a small group of bowhunters met in upstate New York to begin work on a book about bowhunting. Their goal was simple: To ensure that hunters had a good understanding of bowhunting safety practices and techniques before they entered the wild. The resulting book was printed in 1969 and soon led to the start of a bowhunter education course that covered such subjects as conservation, bowhunting safety, lures, calls, scents, bowhunting methods, and shot placement. Eventually, members of the National Field Archery Association (NFAA) met to discuss taking the training program nationwide.
Thanks to the support of the NFAA, the International Bowhunter Education Program (IBEP) was taught in state after state and later in the Canadian provinces. In 1979, the IBEP became organized as a nonprofit organization, separate from the NFAA, known as the National Bowhunter Education Foundation (NBEF). Every year approximately 70,000 bowhunters are educated through the IBEP, which is still administered by the NBEF.
During his lifetime Bill Wadsworth presided over numerous state, national, and international organizations related to bowhunting. Because of his distinguished volunteer efforts in creating and promoting the IBEP, he received numerous awards and citations. In 1999, Bill was inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame. His tireless energy, boundless enthusiasm, and love of the sport of bowhunting are all very much a part of what is taught today, and Bill Wadsworth is another amazing story from the pages of The Wadsworth Family in America.
WOW— nice tribute — I was in Boy Scouts in the 50’s -60’s and remember all those things including tin can cooking. I was a camper at Aksentonta in 1954. Went to a couple Winter Camps. Worked at Woodland and Sabbath’s in 1962-1963.
During his years as an executive with the Boy Scouts, in Onondaga County, N.Y., Bill Wadsworth designed and developed a pack frame, which was sold for a very affordable price to scouts, which they would take home and assemble themselves. This was years before the fancy expensive welded aluminum pack frames, such as the famous “Kelty” packs. Bill, also, developed a “tab tent”, which was a simple canvas sheet outfitted with tie-tapes, very affordable and widely used for tents or cooking fly’s. Scouts would be creative by building a frame using ordinary poles. Then, Bill designed a sleeping bag of generous proportions, which were sold to scouts for a very affordable price. Bill established and conducted a “Winter Camp” for scouts at Camp Woodland. He created Explorer Scout camp Askenonta, on Moose Island in Lake Placid. At Askenonta, Bill, with his wife Barbara, established a coed camp for 2 weeks each summer, to include Girl Scouts in the outdoor experiences the boys benefited from. Everything at Askenonta was conducted on a high standard…canoeing, camping, crew cooking, mountain hiking, taking responsibility seriously, while having fun. Bill, then established the huge Adirondack Scout reservation at Sasbattis…several thousand acres, and still used today, by scouts from several counties in upstate new York. Sabattis was, and is, a mini-Askenonta…same format, but more conservative for the younger scouts. The former Askenonta staffers held a reunion after 50 years, so loyal and thankful to Bill and his wife Barbara for that experience. And, Barbara traveled to Lake Placid to join them. In all of these endeavors, Bill’s leadership and skills were the keys to success.