The Demopolis Sports-Plex will officially debut its new archery range Saturday, Oct. 9 with an opening seminar that will cover a number of basics pertinent to would-be archers.

“The October event is kind of just an opening ceremony kind of deal to let people know that it is open. We are going to do just kind of an instructional seminar,” Mark Pettus, director of the Demopolis Parks and Recreation Department, said. “We’ll have local archers out there to demonstrate techniques.”

The seminar will include representatives from Willingham Sports who will be on hand to offer tips for bow maintenance. Additionally, local archers will offer insights into techniques and proved some bow-hunting tips while conducting a demonstration. The seminar will also have stationary range targets as well as three-dimensional animal targets available for all ages at multiple distances.

The range is the result of a project that began in January after the state provided approximately $30,000 to cover the materials for the site. The Demopolis Parks and Recreation Department provided the labor to complete the range.

“We started working on it in the winter time when we were slow,” Pettus said. “(The state) would have provided the labor, but there is a long waiting list.”

Included among the materials provided by state funding are the targets and a number of bows to be used by young people who do not possess their own.

Since the site’s completion earlier this year response has been limited as word of the Sports-Plex’s latest feature has yet to spread.

“I really haven’t advertised that it was open, so I haven’t had a whole lot of reaction,” Pettus said. “But I’ve had a lot of people ask about it around town. So there seems to be a lot of interest in it.”

The range expands the Sports-Plex’s features into a new arena in which it had previously been unable to work, making the most diversified recreational facility in the city even more appealing.

“It’s an outdoor hunting type of event,” Pettus said of archery. “Parks and rec doesn’t really work in that area, but it fits in great with our community.”

The event is scheduled begin at 9 a.m. and run until noon and will include beverages provided by the parks and recreation department.