Sportsman's Banquet

Preparations are on the way for our annual Sportsman's Banquet to be held on February 7. Once again, it'll be a wonderful time! The following bit is from a talk we had with this year's featured speaker, Kermit Stover:

My dad and 15 coal miners would go hunting every year, and usually, they would kill one -- likely, it'll be a doe. I couldn’t wait for my dad to get home and tell me the stories about the deer hunt, but it was rare that they ever got more than one deer. By the time they got done sharing that, our family got such a small portion of venison that I -- being one of eight children -- couldn’t even remember what it taste like. I could not wait for the day when I could get to go on the hunt myself!

One a day in 1952, instead of my dad going with all of the coal miners, he and his first cousin and two other men were going.  I decided that it was time for me to go. So, my dad said, “son, you’re going to have to talk your mother into it.” I had this 12 gauge model 12 that was my dad’s when he was a teenager, and I’d killed all kind of squirrels, rabbits, and the like, and I was very familiar with that gun. It held seven shells. My mom had to be persuaded, but finally she said ok. We didn’t have warm clothes, but she made me a great big red flannel shirt out of feed sacks or flour sacks. That’s what I wore.

So, on Opening Day we had to wade through snow and we walked in the dark with my dad carrying a carbide light along this ridge top and I wondered if he would ever stop. He said, "Son, we’re going to make a stand." That was the term that they used back in those days. They’d go out into the woods and stand. I was tired from all the walking and it was breaking day and I could see deer tracks. I’d never seen deer tracks, I’d never seen a deer, but I’d seen the pictures. And I asked my dad if it would be ok to take a stand right there. He said "ok," but he moved on up the ridge a little further.

Well, I didn’t back up against a tree, or sit up against a stump, I just walking into the woods about 20 yards and stood there. About an hour later I could hear twigs breaking, and I looked, and looked, and all of a sudden I could see this buck with the horns and he was looking in my direction from about 35 yards away. So, I decided that since I couldn’t see his body, I would shoot him in the head. I fired, and I missed his head, and I was getting ready to shoot him again when he started running right towards me and a little to the right. I shot five more shots and he went down. That was my beginning. I’d just turned 14.

Kermit Stover is 81 years old, and has been hunting for 67 years! He has a message he has prayfully prepared to share.