RICHWOOD — Pat Copley was running a jewelry store 13 years ago when she accompanied her son Jeff to an archery tournament in Oxford, Ohio.

She had always enjoyed target shooting with pistols and rifles, and the longer she watched her son and others compete in that tournament, the more her interest was piqued.

“Actually, I got bored just watching,” she recalled.

Then a woman competing in crossbow asked her if she would like to take a shot.

“I almost Robin Hooded her arrow,” Copley recalled.

“After that, I was hooked. It was like a virus.”

Since then, the jewelry retailer and repair person has become a gem in both national and international crossbow circles. She is the reigning world indoor champion, and she has her sights set, literally, on this year’s world outdoor championships July 14-21 in Bloomfield, N.J.

She’s been able to travel the world and meet some “great, great people.”

She’s competed all around the United States and in Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary and Germany.

“New Zealand is my favorite,” she said. “It’s a lot like West Virginia. It’s easy-going, and everybody is really honest. If you couldn’t understand how to get to a certain place, they would take you.

“In Germany, the people are real giving. Taiwan’s probably the wildest place to go to.

“I’ve met people from Japan, China, all the European countries, the Philippines,” she added. “At an international competition, they come from everywhere. It’s a great place to meet people.

“A German family came and stayed with us for a month last fall. We’re supposed to go to Germany next fall and stay with them.” (Walter Hillenbrand and his sons are world champions in crossbow and air rifle.)

Along the way, the pleasure has been mixed with a little pain. Copley once suffered a broken nose, and the sport has also given her some broken fingers and ribs.

But she presses on.

“I’ll do it as long as I can,” she said. “I do enjoy it.”

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Copley, the daughter of Verelene Coffman and the late Orville Coffman, grew up in Richwood. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in nursing school at West Virginia University.

“That’s where I met Bud,” she said of her husband, Walter “Bud” Copley. “We got married and I went to work (at the university bookstore while her husband completed his master’s).”

They returned to Richwood in 1972 while she was pregnant with son Jeff.

“Bud was from Charleston, but he loved Richwood,” she said. “He loved to hunt and fish.”

Bud Copley taught at Wahama High School and was assistant principal at Point Pleasant High School before coming to Richwood, where he was principal of Milltown Grade School before it closed. He then was principal at Cherry River Elementary until he retired in 2000.

In 1980, Pat Copley’s Fine Jewelry began business on Main Street.

“Bud’s friend was a jewelry salesman, and we had been selling jewelry before that,” she said. “We had spoken with one of the people who had the jewelry store then, and it seemed like the thing to do at the time. We thought it would be a good way to raise the kids, and it has been.”

Copley took classes in Charlotte, Columbus and Cincinnati to master the trade. Today, she calls herself “semi-retired.” The store is open two days a week.

“A lot of people here can’t go anyplace else for batteries and repairs,” she said. “I like repairs.”

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Copley competes with a 15-pound crossbow with a 95-pound tension.

“All bows are specifically fitted for different shooters,” she said. “You can’t just go and buy one off the shelf. The German team is making me one now. We hope to have it ready this summer.”

Major competitions last a week. Indoors, the target is 18 meters away; outdoors, it can be as far as 65 meters.

“You start by shooting a 900 round every day,” she said. “The 900 means you shoot 90 arrows with a possibility of 10 points per arrow. You do that for three days, then they seed you and you go to a shoot-off.”

And there are regulations covering, among other things, belts and the height of shoes.

“There’s no magnification,” she added. “Whatever you’re prescribed (by an ophthalmologist or an optometrist for everyday vision) is what you’re allowed.”

After that trip with her son 1994, she returned to Oxford, Ohio, the following year for a national tournament “to try and get the feel for it.” She followed that up with an indoor victory in Atlantic City, N.J.

In 2006, she won the gold medal in the world indoors after finishing third in the outdoor world championships in 2005 in Perth, Australia.

Earlier this year at Las Vegas, she came in second to Carol Pelosi of Greenbelt, Md. Those two are also battling it out this weekend in the indoor nationals at Harrisonburg, Va.

“She’s been a world champion several times,” Copley said of Pelosi. “She can shoot in her sleep.”

When she’s not competing, she’s usually practicing for the next competition at a makeshift indoor range or, when the weather’s nicer, outdoors.

“I usually practice five nights a week, about two hours at a time, sometimes longer if I’m getting close to a competition,” she said.

And unlike athletes in other countries, most notably Europe, American crossbow shooters are on their own as far as expenses.

“We have no financial backing,” she said. “You have to pay for everything yourself. When you travel to a competition, typically there’s a host hotel. Sometimes there’s a college campus close by and you can stay in dorms if they’re not occupied at the time.”

At the world championships, which are held every other year, “usually a bunch of us will go together and get a place where we can cook regular food. People will bring lawn chairs and we’ll sit in the evenings and drink Diet Coke and talk. It’s a good time. You may not see them again for two years.”

The U.S. plans to be a good host for this summer’s world championships in New Jersey.

“We’re trying to figure out things (for the visiting athletes) to do,” Copley said. “We’ll be directly across from New York City, so there should be plenty of things to do. A lot of people who will be competing have never been to the United States. And the ones who have been here, when they came here for the first time, they had no concept how big the United States is. When the German family visited us last fall, we took them to Florida. We drove nonstop for 15 hours. They didn’t know we could have driven 15 hours (north) and still be in the country. They thought they were going to be able to see it all on that trip.”

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Copley’s husband and her two sons have been able to accompany her on some of her trips. Her son Jay, a physician’s assistant in the emergency room at Summersville Memorial Hospital, has served as a U.S. team manager, paying particular attention to the athletes’ medical needs.

Son Jeff, a radiology technologist, has also competed himself in various disciplines of archery.

“Jeff has been second in the world in sport crossbow,” his mother said. “He trained with an Olympic coach in recurve, which is an Olympic sport. Had he not hurt his shoulder (while kayaking), he would have excelled at recurve, and I think he would have made the Olympic team.

“He has a natural eye for it. He’s better than I am. He just hasn’t had the opportunity to outshoot me because he doesn’t get to practice as much.”

Copley said she never dreamed what the ensuing years would bring the day she shot a crossbow for the first time in Oxford, Ohio.

“I never thought I would go that far. I never thought I would get to travel like I have. I never would have met the people I’ve met. But my mother always told me that if I worked hard I could do anything I wanted.

“Bud has been very understanding. My family has sacrificed. They’ve given up things so I could go compete.

“And the town’s been good to support me. I don’t think you can get better support in larger cities than what I’ve had in a small community.

“I thank everybody for helping. Everybody’s been really good.”

— E-mail: phanna@register-herald.com