A Bit of CRB "Logo" History …

The Club Logo

   The crazy Indian has been the logo of the Cedar River Bowmen for many, many years. Today, in our politically correct society, there certainly exists some concern about the caricature of an Indian as a mascot for a club. But back when this logo was developed by Lloyd Omura, it was just a great idea and a greater piece of artwork.

   Many years ago, in 1964, the Cedar River Bowmen Archery Club was only a few years old. It was meeting at facilities of the Green River Community College because that’s where one of the board members, Art Benny, was teaching and could get a room for the members. Art, Lloyd, a fellow by name of Johnson whose first name has been lost in history, and Joe Line were all working as drafters at Boeing. Lloyd was not really an archer, although he had played around with the sport like many young men. The board of directors at Cedar River Bowmen knew that Lloyd had worked professionally as a cartoonist for an ad agency before joining Boeing, so they asked Lloyd to design an Indian logo for the club.

   Lloyd, who was 34 at the time, consented and came up with the fierce Indian with an arrow in his mouth. He didn't copyright the drawing and donated both his time and the drawing to the club. For his generosity, the club presented Lloyd with a trophy. Even then, members of other archery clubs told CRB members what a neat mascot they had with the crazy Indian.

  The idea for the Indian motif may well have come from one of the founding families of Cedar River Bowmen, the Tooks. Carlene and Gene Took were Yakima Indians and, according to Ivan Burns, the glue that kept the Cedar River Bowmen Archery Club together in the early 1960s when it might otherwise have folded up. In those days, a typical annual banquet might have had only a dozen attendees. When Gene Took passed away, much of his family from the Yakima area attended in full buckskin garb. The Tooks were obviously proud of their heritage. Carlene even owned a ceramic shop and for years produced most of the trophies that CRB awarded to archers.

   Lloyd Omura worked at Boeing for 42 years before retiring as a Supervisor Instructor. Art Benny went on to become the Director of Vocational Education for the State of Washington.

   Editor’s Note: Since this was printed the mascot has been changed a couple times and currently is an archer, Mt. Rainier, and an elk or a field target.

History of “Ray White" Big Game Award ...

As printed in the April 2006 Puffs:

   As a relative new member to the Cedar River Bowmen, I was curious as to who Ray White was and why an annual award was made to successful archery hunters of the Club in his name. Back in the early 1950’s a small group of longbow and recurve archers did their thing at Boeing and identified themselves as the Boeing Archers. Ray White was president of the group in 1954-55. where he provided quite the inspiration to other Club members with his interest in the sport and excellent shooting. He thoroughly enjoyed target shooting with his long bow and spent many hours at it. Ray also had a recurve, which at that time represented the newest design innovation in archery equipment. He was a good hunter and hunted Deer, Elk and Bear. But at the time of his death, he had yet to down any of these species with his bow. Actually, when Ray wasn’t target shooting, he and his good friend Frank Deraitus were out bear hunting around Kelly Butte.

   It all happened after Christmas in 1955. Ray’s wife, Leona, gave him a British made 303 Mark 4 rifle. Being unfamiliar with the characteristics of this weapon, he did not realize an extra shell sometimes remains in the chamber after the clip is removed. Ramming a cleaning rod down the barrel he hit a live cartridge against the firing pin. It exploded and forced the ramrod up, instantly killing him. Ray was three-quarters Cherokee Indian.

   Soon after the accident this group of archers left Boeing to form the Cedar River Bowmen and establish a range east of Lake Washington. In 1956, Frank Deraitus designed the arrowhead award in honor of his close hunting partner, Ray White. Up until 1970, Frank remained an active member of CRB and made the annual presentations of the award. In addition to honoring Ray White, Frank set up a recording system that today gives us an idea of the overall annual hunting success of the Club. Actually, Frank was the most successful early hunter of the group bagging nine big game animals between 1955 and 1966. Later on in the decade, 1973-1984, the dominant archer of CRB was Ron Carpenter credited with taking 25 animals. James Miller downed 14 animals between 1971-81 and Joe “Rusty” Watson arrowed 11 over the 1974-83 time period.

Editors’ Note:

   According to CRB records, the Club was first formed as Boeing Archers in 1953 where Boeing allowed them to use one of its' hangers for a practice range and became Cedar River Bowmen in 1957. In December 1959 they merged with the Sammamish Archers and were able to use the Sammamish Range. Due to a legal mix-up, the lease was cancelled. A short time later, in the fall of 1960, CRB leased the 56 acres from King County, on which they developed the Range in Issaquah. In 1999, King County decided they wanted fair market value for ALL the leases they had. CRB's lease increased over 15-fold, forcing CRB to find an alternate location. Once King County figured out that most, if not all, lessees were leaving under the circumstances, King County took a different approach to their leases. By that time, CRB had moved to its' current location in Enumclaw, WA., and has been there since 2000.