Hoyt one of history’s best archers

GLENDALE - Ann Weber Hoyt was one of the finest female archers in history.

She won the International Field Archery Championship in 1959 and was the only woman ever to win both the USA National Target and Field championships, according to the Archery Hall of Fame.

She was among the first to be inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame in 1972. She managed the U.S. Olympic Archery Team in 1984, the same year she received the National Archery Association’s Thompson Medal of Honor.

Mrs. Hoyt died Saturday at the Glendale Center, where she had lived since early October.

Mrs. Hoyt, who turned 86 on March 29, suffered from dementia and a stroke.

Mrs. Hoyt was introduced to archery when she was 16 and a student at Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, N.J., where she grew up. In 1939, she was ranked fourth in the country by the National Archery Association and won the National Archery Championship.

Mrs. Hoyt went to Montclair State Teachers College in New Jersey, graduating in 1943. She won four intercollegiate archery titles for Montclair.

In 1948, Mrs. Hoyt married Lloyd Corby, also one of the best archers in the country. They sometimes performed together, and he once shot a grapefruit off the top of her head at a charity event in Morristown, N.J. Corby died in 1958.

In 1971, Mrs. Hoyt quit her job at the Robin Hood Archery to marry Earl Hoyt, owner of Hoyt Archery. Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt sold the business in 1978 and continued to serve as consultants until 1991.

Mrs. Hoyt moved to Glendale in 2001 to live with her close friend and fellow archer Ann Clark following the death of her husband.

She has no survivors.

Visitation is 10-11 a.m. Wednesday, followed by Mass, at St. Gabriel Church, 48 W. Sharon Road, Glendale. A brunch will follow at the Glendale Gaslight Restaurant, 1140 Congress Ave. Mrs. Hoyt’s remains will be cremated and interred at the Archery Hall of Fame.

Memorials: National Archery Hall of Fame, 500 W. Sunshine St., Springfield, MO 65807, or Hospice of Cincinnati.

BY REBECCA GOODMAN | RGOODMAN@ENQUIRER.COM