SETTING HER SIGHTS

[antiquity]

SETTING HER SIGHTS
Monday, December 23, 2002
By Gary W. Morrison
The Grand Rapids Press


SPARTA -- Angela Kline's love of bow hunting has brought her more than venison.
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The Sparta High School junior now corresponds regularly with rocker Ted Nugent and writes a column for his sportsmen's magazine. She also is the state handicap director for the Motor City Madman's hunting organization, United Sportsman of America.

"I smile a lot because this wonderful girl has chosen to be a part of my organization," Nugent said in a telephone interview while on a Texas hunting trip. "She's proven to everyone that you can do whatever you want if you just put your mind to it."

Angela, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, said a bow shooting demonstration about six years ago by Todd Albaugh sparked her interest.
After seeing the demonstration by Albaugh -- a quadriplegic who is national handicap director for United Sportsman of America -- Angela told her father, Tim Kline, that she wanted to shoot.

"I had the interest to do that, but felt I couldn't because I was physically disabled," she said. "A little later, I met Todd, and he introduced me to Ted."

Soon after that meeting, Angela began writing Nugent about how her father helped rig her wheelchair so she could shoot a bow, and about taking her first deer, a doe, in 1997.

She now writes articles about being a handicapped bow hunter for the United Sportsman of America magazine and e-mails Nugent, whose nicknames for her range from "Little Miss Dangerous" to "Attitude on Wheels" to "Queen of the Forest."

"She's been a part of my organization for about five years," Nugent said. "She enhances what I do."

Angela, 17, also speaks and gives demonstrations at hunting expositions. She said part of her job is to help disabled people find the resources they need to enjoy the outdoors.

Tim Kline said he is proud of his daughter, who also is his hunting partner.
They hunt so often that Angela's mother, Brenda Kline, also became a bow hunter.
"I felt that I might as well join them," Brenda Kline said.

Besides her first deer in 1997, Angela shot an eight-point buck in 1998 and a button buck, a young deer, last year.

"I enjoy what I do and like being in the woods," she said. "My goal is to show that just because you're in a wheelchair, you can still have fun doing what you want to do."


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