Evidently, everyone was in on the secret except Pam and me. Just before 3:00 p.m. on October 12, 2011, Meredith came through the door of my office at the department of transportation and said she had a surprise. She was smiling so I did not expect bad news. Then, who should pop in but a soldier dressed in fatigues and bearing a broad grin. Reed!
Posing with Mere in our driveway
After surprising his parents, the next stop was at Grandma Irene's. Reed multi-tasks here by talking on the phone with Aunt Francie.
Reed was the lucky recipient of an all-expenses-paid hunting vacation sponsored by the Hunting Dakota with Roosevelt. A former college roommate of mine, Mark Fliginger, originally planned to participate but had to back out. He donated his space to Reed. Two men, Roger Krueger and Jon Hanson, started this unique hunt four years ago. Funds raised through the program are used to pay for a hunting experience unlike any other. Since money raised greatly exceeds that needed to cover the costs of the hunt, the excess is used to pay for the lodging of families of patients at the Bismarck Cancer Center. Here is a description of the program lifted from the web site of the Bismarck Cancer Foundation:
"Our Hunting Dakota with
Roosevelt event offers the hunt of a lifetime! A select group of interested
persons have the opportunity to step back in history and, on October 14-16,
2011, hunt grouse and pheasant on the very land that Theodore Roosevelt hunted.
Sponsors have made a financial contribution to the Bismarck Cancer Center
Foundation to further the fight against cancer at the local level. Twenty
military personnel from North Dakota, who have been deployed overseas for at
least one tour of duty, are invited to join their sponsors.
The military personnel and their sponsors spends two days hunting in small
groups, joined by Tweed Roosevelt, Theodore's great-grandson, and Jim Posewitz,
a biologist, writer/author and conservationist, who has been instrumental in
presenting the story and history of the North American Model of Wildlife
Conservation.
Saturday night's dinner, in historic Medora, ND, affords us the opportunity to
celebrate, thank and honor farmers and ranchers who generously offered us the
privilege of hunting on their property during this amazing event."
On October 13, the hunters sharpen their skills at the Capital City Sporting
Clays site northeast of Bismarck. A banquet at the Elks Lodge followed
that evening.
Dakota Taxidermy had several trophy animals on display.
Roger was Reed's Sunday school teacher and the two have since become good friends. They went on a bear hunting trip to northern Minnesota four years ago but got skunked. This year, the pheasant population is about half of what it was in 2010 so there was concern as 100 hunters readied themselves for the trip southwest.