Good chance you have seen these bows in action

WALLA WALLA – Bo and Luke Duke used them in the “Dukes of Hazzard.”

Actor Patrick Swayze used one in “Red Dawn,” the 1984 movie about Colorado high-schoolers fighting Soviet invaders.

They were also used in the target-shooting scene in last year’s “Princess Diaries 2” and will show up once more in the still-in-production sequel to “The Scorpion King.”

The local celebrities are bows made by Walla Walla-based Martin Archery Inc., a 54-year-old company that also has a manufacturing plant in Yakima.

Outside of archery circles, few people have heard of the company. But the products have been seen worldwide, operations manager Ryan Martin says.

Remember the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona when the archer arced a flaming arrow over the stadium torch to officially open the games? Yup, it was launched with a Martin Mamba, a laminated wood-and-fiberglass recurve bow.

Ryan, grandson of company founders Gail and Eva Martin, remembers the moment. Like millions of people around the world, he held his breath in front of a television as the archer drew back for perhaps the most famous shot since William Tell’s arrow split an apple atop his son’s head in the 13th century.

“Whoa, was that ours?” Ryan recalls saying when he caught a glimpse of the black-and-brown bow in Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo’s hand.

The company began with humble origins and continues as a family-run operation.

Gail and Eva, a couple in their 80s who met when they were school children in Walla Walla, remain active as president and corporate secretary, respectively.

Sons Terry and Dan, who started helping out when they were still “little guys” shooting in pee-wee archery tournaments, are now vice presidents overseeing product development and marketing.

Gail, who shot his first bow in 1937, started making his own archery gear while serving in Europe with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. Back in Walla Walla in 1946, he worked as a government poultry grader and soon joined a local archery club.

Club members liked the craftsmanship he used in affixing turkey feathers on arrow shafts to keep them flying true, said Eva, who at the time was working as a registered nurse at St. Mary Hospital. Soon they began paying Gail to fletch – affix feathers to – their arrows.

Gail also had designed a jig to make his own bow strings that didn’t weaken despite being stretched repeatedly. Locals began buying those, too.

When they sent a sample of their strings to Bear Archery and received an order for 500 more, things began to take flight for the Martins.

“We weren’t prepared for that,” says Eva, who recalls many late nights at the dining table with her husband making strings and fletching arrows while both worked their day jobs.

In 1951 they incorporated as Martin Archery, dealing mostly in archery accessories. They got into the bow-making business in the early 1970s when compound bows started becoming popular with hunters and target shooters.

The bows, made with aluminum risers and fiberglass limbs, employ a system of cams, pulleys and cables to fire arrows at higher speeds and with greater accuracy.

In 1976, the Martins expanded their local business to Yakima with the purchase of the Howatt Archery manufacturing facility. At the Yakima site, under manager Larry Hatfield, they continue to make their classic wood longbows and recurves – essentially a longbow but with an additional curve on each end pointing away from the shooter.

Today the company has about 100 employees and sells about 50,000 bows a year along with a full line of accessories, from quivers to arrows to targets – enough products to fill a 97-page catalogue, Ryan says. Prices range from $250 for a basic longbow to up to $900 for a top-of-the line compound bow.

The domestic market for bows totals about $192 million a year, with accessories adding another $535 million in retail sales, according to Denise Parker, vice president of the U.S.-based Archery Trade Association.

Gail Martin likens the industry to automobile makers, with each company having to “build something new each year” and tweak the performance of existing products to remain competitive.

To him, that means doing what he’s always done since starting the company.

“Regardless of what it cost to build, we try to build the best quality bow possible and then we stand behind it,” he says.