USA CROSSBOW Hall of Fame

Carol Pelosi was elected into the "Crossbow Shooting" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2002:        

Born 3/12/46 in Philadelphia, PA; resides in Greenbelt, MD:  holds  all national women's crossbow records (except for clout division)...has  won the US Target Crossbow Championship 34 times since '73...has won the  National Indoor Championship 32 times....4-time World Crossbow Champion  ('82, '84, '86, '07), bronze medallist in '88 & '90 World Crossbow  Championships, 5th in '92, silver medallist in '94, 6th in 2000...member  of the 2000 World Crossbow Team...1st in '90 Albufiera Cup; 1st in '94  Wiesbaden Cup, 3rd in '96 Chung-Jean Cup, 2nd in 2000 Lion Foundation  Cup, 1st in 2007 Slinzer Cup....Graduated from the University of  Maryland in '68 with a degree in English...Retired from the US Office of  Personnel Management...interests include golf (is in 3 golf leagues),  women's basketball, geocaching, and the stock market.  

George Slinzer was voted into the "Crossbow Shooting" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2002.

Born in St. Joseph's Children's Hospital, Scranton, Pa. on May 19,  1928.  He was adopted by Joseph and Rose Slinzer.  George attended  Sacred Heart of Jesus School and for 49 years was the caretaker for  Luzerne Borough.  He was a bow and crossbow archer, began competitive  shooting at Penn State University in 1954.  He was the first person to  win the U.S. Target and Field National in the same year.  Between 1963  and 1982 he won the state championship 14 times in the recurve division.   At about 1984, George got interested in Field Crossbow and started  competing in local events.  At the 1986 World Field Crossbow  Championship's that took place in Oxford, Ohio, George won the IAU  Gold Medal.  I have talked to many foreign competitors and they said,  "George is such a gentlemen".  George continued on shooting crossbow,  with some fine scores that all of us would like to have shot.  

Gil Frey was elected into the "Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2002.

Gilbert John Frey, was born October 19, 1917 in Illinois. Gil became  interested in Crossbow Archery in 1972 and started competing.  He was  active as Corresponding Secretary for 18 years to the National  Crossbowmen and was a large contributor to the Crossbow Chit-Chat.  Gil  spent many hours tinkering with new ideas and was a huge fan of the  Trackless Crossbow.  In 1994, at the World Field Crossbow Championships  that took place in Wiesbaden, Germany, a Rotating Silver Cup in  Gil’s memory was presented to I.A.U. President, Chris Aston to be  presented to the Ladies World Champion at each IAU World Championships.    

Hardy Ward was elected into the "Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2002.

Some of you may remember Hardy Ward as being one of the top recurve  archers from the 1960’s, he was in a number of publications, one of  which was “Boys’ Life”.  After archery, he came up with the Ward  crossbow stock which was a trackless crossbow.  Most of the current  trackless crossbow designs are based on his Ward stock.  The Ward stock  was the next significant crossbow design after the Gurik crossbow.   

Geroge Gurik was elected into the "Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2003.

In the mid 1960’s George was asked to help in making a crossbow.  He  said, “let’s get some plans and do it up good”.  He found Bailey plans  and proceeded to make it.  After making one, thoughts came to improve  it.  His past experience in making recurve long bows, for him was ideal.   His prod was a true center shot and his first tournament was at Purdue  University in Indiana.  Most thought his crossbow would not perform  well.  It did very well.  After that tournament others asked George to  build them a crossbow and he did for several until many never kept  coming to tournaments.  Others had ideas on improving and this has  caught on to make the crossbow very accurate.  (You can read more about  George Gurik in the Virtual Museum section.) 

Harry Bailey was elected into the "Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2003.

Henry Lloyd “Harry” Bailey 1874 – 1961:  His first target model  crossbow looked very much like a rifle with a bow across the barrel.  It  was a center-shot design, but it did not shoot as well as he thought it  should.  In 1945 Harry Bailey applied for a patent for his Bailey  Crossbow.  In 1950 the patent was granted and read:  This invention  relates to crossbows and it has for one of its objectives to  provide a crossbow which is constructed to be used with arrows which are  feathered in the same way as arrows used with the conventional longbow.   

His love of archery and  determination to continue on the shooting line with his friends was  responsible for his efforts being turned to crossbow.  His motive was  not entirely for self-gratification, however, as he envisioned the  return of many veterans from the European and Pacific theaters who would  not be able to shoot a longbow, but might be able to handle a  lightweight crossbow.  (You can read more about Harry Bailey in the Virtual Museum  section)  

 Odrun Stevens  was elected into the "Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2018. 

 Odrun is a mentor to many PA crossbow shooters. He has reconditioned many crossbows to make them competitive. Many crossbows used today came through his shop. He was a founder of Appleway Archers in 1984. He started a youth archery program in the early 1990's which is still very active today. He started an archery program at Wilson College in the mid 1990's and is still actively coaching students. 

He has been developing crossbows with unique characteristics since working with the legendary John Gracey. His latest model, Version III, made its debut in Florida in 2015 at the WCSA World competition. He claims, "This crossbow, in my mind, is my greatest accomplishment in crossbow design." All vertical adjustments, including the palm rest, are made in the stock area which results in a single hold for all distances. Thus all distances from 20 feet to 80 yards can be made with a single adjustment.  You still have to hold still and pull the trigger. 

He has been a teacher for 54 years and is currently a professor at Wilson College. He has been a Board Member of the Pennsylvania State Archery Association since 1985. He currently, 2018, holds 27 State and Regional archery records, many of which are crossbow records. Odrun and his wife Connie hold 12 Husband/Wife Team PSAA records.  

Some of his accomplishments include:

2nd Place USA Team Member at the Worlds in 1998 held in Valencia, Hungary and at the Worlds in 2007 held in Bloomfield, NJ.

Senior National Crossbow Champion in 2001 held in Canton, MI.

Postal Indoor Champion in 2001 and 2002.

2nd Place in the WCSA World's Forest Round in 2015 held in Fort Lauderdale, FL

He competes with rifles at local competitions

  Stan Pennypacker was elected into the "Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2018.  

Stan has been involved in some form of archery for over seventy years. Starting with a stick bow and wooden arrows, and gradually changed over time to a recurve bow with aluminum arrows, to a compound bow with fiberglass arrows. While participating in an archery tournament in 1963, he observed a separate line of archers shooting crossbows. Each having been, more or less, designed and built by the shooter. Since he too enjoyed making things, he went home and made his first crossbow for target competition. At the time, Bob Reedy was making limbs for several crossbow shooters. Bob invited him to his home and demonstrated how he made bow limbs. Stan started making limbs in 1984. Several shooters approached Earl Hoyt, Jr. to make limbs for crossbows, but he declined. Earl liked Stan’s limbs, and encouraged him to continue making them.

Stan has designed and built several trackless and track crossbows since 1983. He was the first to make track crossbows that were adjustable to shoot different diameter shafts and later, crossbows with a track that could be adjusted horizontally to obtain perfect arrow flight.

In the 1980’s he placed 1st in the US Nationals, and scored a record 890 in the Pennsylvania State Archery Associations 900 round. A record he held for 25 years. He was outscored by one point by a young fellow for whom Stan modified his bow and set it up with Stan’s limbs. In 1990 he took 1st place in the Worlds IBO Championships in New York.  Stan also participated in the World Crossbow Championship tournaments held in Australia, England, Germany, Hungary, New Zealand, Portugal, and Sweden. 

Stan has served as the board member representing the North Central Region of the Pennsylvania State Archery Association for several years, as Vice-Present of the TNC for seven years, and president of the Eastern Archery Association for six years.

 William G Pimm Jr was elected into the "Crossbow Shooting / Crossbow Innovators" category of the USA Crossbow Hall of Fame in 2018. 

President of The National Crossbowmen of the USA, Inc. (TNC) / USA Crossbow Inc. 1995 – Present - Accomplishments:

Incorporated organization (Twice), once as TNC and then as USA Crossbow Inc.

Designed and developed new web site: www.usacrossbow.org

Designed and developed new USA Crossbow Facebook page

Initiated new TNC / USA Crossbow Hall of Fame

Instituted a new National Rankings program

Write articles for various magazines including Crossbow Connection, USA Archery, Archery Focus, the US & International Archer, Crossbow Magazine

Head Organizer of 2007 WCSA World Championships in Bloomfield, NJ, USA

Head Organizer of 2015 International Crossbow Festival in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA

Publish  “The Crossbow Chit-Chat” 3 times per year

11 time winner at the US National Outdoor Crossbow Championships

2 time winner US National Indoor Crossbow Championships

10 time winner at the World Archery Festival in Las Vegas

13 time winner at the Atlantic City Archery Classic

6 time US Crossbow team member in Portugal, Germany, Taiwan, Hungary and USA (2)

2007 3rd WCSA World Crossbow Championships

1st place Men’s team

3rd place Men

3rd place MatchPlay - Men

Former 1st Vice President of the World Crossbow Shooting Association

Wrote the rules for the NFAA target crossbow division