I'll do my best to make a long story quick...
At a recent NWTF kids' clinic I sold a call to Jared McJunkin, the NWTF's western US conservation supervisor. The guy is a turkey expert and all-around nice guy. He recently served as a guide for the KS Governor's turkey hunt, which brings in a lot of big names. He guided for Dr. James Earl Kennamer. If you know anything about the NWTF or turkey hunting and conservation, Dr. Kennamer's name should be very familiar because he is a true icon of conservation. When turkey experts have questions about turkeys, they call Dr. Kennamer. He's one of the people that are truly responsible for our ability to hunt turkeys at all. Jared used my call and Dr. Kennamer was apparently very impressed with it, and took a nice bird.
Jared and his boss Brandon Houck decided to surprise Dr. Kennamer with a custom call from me to commemorate the hunt, as they were pretty excited to have the opportunity to spend time hunting with him. So I made him an osage orange call with an aluminum surface. Did a little burning work on the call and also inlaid a decorative ring of coffee grounds on the call and the striker. Had the surface laser engraved with a message from Jared and Brandon.
I don't have Dr. Kennamer's permission to use the picture I have of him with the bird they took, but I plan to email him and ask if it would be ok. I also have a picture of Mike Cleary (VP of the NWTF) with a bird that came into my call. Might be a conflict of interest because of the big name call companies that pump sponsorship money into the NWTF though.
Anyway, it is an honor to get to make a call for a guy that is so important to the sport we all love so much. He's probably receiving it this week, so I've held off posting this until now for fear of spoiling their surprise (so if you know him, give it a while before mentioning this, just in case!) I did send Jared a call that matches the Dr's, just out of appreciation. He wanted one engraved with his name to display in his office. So that's the 2nd one in the picture.
