resourceful.” They said he would visit a Texas Confederate Home near his family’ s residence, showing off his arrows he made and visiting with the men that lived there. Bob started selling his arrows at a country club in his youth and eventually tried his hand at making a bow.
His daughter-in-law, Jenni Lee – married to his son Robert“ Rob” Lee, said Bob told the family his first bow“ shot great,” but the second and third were“ a horrible disaster.”
“ He said the first one he finished, it shot great, it was on point and he thought,‘ There’ s nothing to this bow building,’” Jenni shared.“ Then he found out there’ s a lot to this bow building. You’ ve got to have a piece of wood, that has to be very specific, that will flex but not break and withstand the strain. The wood from a Bois D’ Arc tree is a big one for archery. So, he said he had thought,‘ There’ s nothing to this,’ and then said,‘ Later I realized, I don’ t know what the heck I’ m doing.’ He said it was only by the grace of God that that first bow he made turned out well, or just dumb luck, or whatever you want to call it, but he said,‘ Had [ the first bow failed ] I would have never attempted doing that again, ever.’”
Bob Lee was 23-years-old when he founded Wing Archery in 1951 in his garage in Houston, Texas. He funded his start up by selling gators and frogs he killed with his bow in Houston’ s Oyster Creek.
In 1959, Bob successfully lobbied for Texas’ first archery-only hunting season. He also helped Glenn St. Charles form the Pope & Young Club, archery’ s equivalent to the Boone & Crockett Club, in January 1961. He was also an active member in the early stages of the Archery Manufacturers and Dealers Association which later became the Archery Manufacturers Organization. He was said to have been instrumental in helping to establish the industry standards.
In 1963, Bob created the first three-piece detachable limb recurve bow, the Wing Presentation II. Jenni said the bow was an immediate success and served as a forerunner to the takedown bows on the market today.
In 1965, Bob relocated the company to Jacksonville where his company quickly became one of the city’ s largest employers. At the company’ s peak they were producing and shipping out more than 300 bows per day, everyday. Jenni said in its heyday, Wing Archery was the third largest manufacturer in the world.
Jenni said Bob was a“ big wig” around Jacksonville, helping to put in the Cherokee Club and Pine Crest Estates and the golf course through their company Bob Lee Builders. He also owned some manufacturing businesses.
Jenni said a member of the Wing company’ s staff won gold at the Munich 1972 Summer Olympics.
“ It was the year of the terrorist event, in 1972, they had been holed up in the hotel and this guy, John Williams, who worked for Wings, he has an interview on YouTube talking about it, he said he could see the guy, right across the way. Can you imagine?,” Jenni said.“ That was the first year, after I don’ t know how many years, 10 or some such, the Olympics had not had field archery for some reason and they reintroduced it and that was the year. He said it was very bittersweet, accepting this gold medal, but under extreme circumstances.”
In 1968, Bob Lee sold the company to Head Ski, remaining as CEO until he resigned in 1972.
Jenni said he took a break for about 10 or 15 years when the compound bow came onto the horizons.
“ He said,‘ That’ s not a bow, I don’ t want no part of it,’ Jenni said.“ He sold the company and went into the oil drilling business. Then the 1980s came along. They went into the water-well drilling business for a while and then Rob just told him one day, this would have been in the late 1980s, he said,‘ I really don’ t want this craft to pass away with you. I really want to know how to do this. So his dad said,‘ O. K., but one condition, we will never be a mass production company again. We are building one-off bows.’ So now we build two bows a week.”
The father son duo launched Bob Lee Archery in 1989. The bows made under the name of Bob Lee Bows are all hand-finished with all-American made products, Jenni said.
Jenni said it took Rob around 10 years to fully learn the craft of bow-building from his father. Each bow takes 40 or more hours to complete.
“ There are some processes where you glue pieces and then let them set,” she said.“ It’ s not a linear process.”
In 2007, Bob was inducted into the National Bowhunters Hall of Fame. He received a standing ovation from the audience at the dedication ceremony in Las Vegas.
She shared that Bowhunting World field tested
Fall 2025 | Jacksonville Progress 9