Here's how you become good at something.

You commit to the undertaking. You repeat the act over and over and over again. You fine-tune, learn from mistakes and make adjustments. You surround yourself with support.

Of course, enjoying the pursuit is helpful as well.

Beyond good, Kaylee Zimmerman is an accomplished archer, one perhaps bordering on great.

"Archery is a fun sport," said Kaylee. "If you want to get better you can if you have that determination. You just keep going and practicing. I put a lot of practice into it. If I have a bad score, I know I can do better. But it takes determination."

During the first week of June, Kaylee, a rising freshman at Lititz Area Mennonite School (LAMS), successfully competed against some of the top archery shooters in her age group in the country at the National Archery in Schools Program (NASP) Open Championship in Myrtle Beach, S.C. She excelled in two events.

Kaylee fired a personal best score of 291/300 to finish third among 627 archers in the middle school girls' division of the bullseye championship portion of the competition. In the 3D championship challenge, she compiled a 287/300 to place eighth out of 488 competitors.

"I felt like it was a really good experience," said Kaylee, a 14-year-old resident of Clay Township and the Ephrata School District. "I didn't expect to do as well as I did. I was surprised to see my name near the top at that tournament. Going in, I had a goal to get to 290 (in the bullseye competition), and I got that. But I also wanted to have fun and enjoy the experience of being at the tournament."

"She has been one of the top Pennsylvania archers for the last few years," said Justin Zimmerman, Kaylee's dad and coach. "This year, we wanted to work on her form and see if we could get to that next level. It's all about hard work and repetition, and she just started clicking. She actually had an awesome championship tournament with some of her best scores ever."

June marked the third year in a row that Kaylee had qualified for the NASP Open Championships. It also capped a 2025 season during which she experienced varying levels of success at 25 prior tournaments.

"Archery is pretty important to me," said Kaylee, who also competes in the sport of cross-country. "I'm good at it, and I enjoy doing it. I do it pretty much every day, unless I don't have time or I want to take a day off. I just like the sport and all the connections I make in it. It's one of the ways I get to connect with others."

"She is kind of quiet when you first meet her," said Justin of his daughter's demeanor. "She doesn't show her feelings or express them too often. With archery, it's sometimes hard to know if she's enjoying it or not. She's a hard worker. She's very stable. She's very trustworthy."

This past school year, Kaylee competed on a LAMS co-educational, interscholastic team coached by her father.

"It is a very difficult challenge to balance," said Justin. "As a coach, I want to push her to get better. As a dad, I want her to have fun. There are times I have come up to her and said, 'As your coach ...' There are other times I've said to her, 'As your dad ...' At tournaments, when I watch her shoot, I have to encourage her. When there's a bad shot, I have to make sure my parental emotions don't come out and affect my job as a coach."

As an archer, Kaylee is now in the fifth year of a pursuit that began when she was in the fourth grade. At this point, she's not quite sure where her archery journey will lead her.

"I don't know. Over the next few years, I think I'll figure it out," said Kaylee. "When I was younger, I saw these better archers. I wanted to get up there with them, and I've always had the determination. I'm a lot better now than I used to be. I used to be in the 250s, and now I'm in the 280s."