28-year old Vince Lukowsky (clad in camouflage) raised his right index finger in response to his mother’s question. It was his way of saying yes to a query whether he was enjoying his outing.
He raised the little finger of the same hand and wagged it for emphasis
when his mother asked if he was ready to leave. That meant, “no way.”
Vince and his mother Jeana Hutchinson shared a blind on Mark Twain Lake’s annual turkey hunt for the disabled. Vince’s nurse and therapist from Beth Haven Nursing Home in Hannibal also accompanied them.
Lukowski was virtually completely paralyzed and speechless resulting from a car wreck when he was 20. The only physical reaction he was capable of producing with his limbs was the communication from those two fingers on his right hand.
No, he was not there to hunt - at least, not in the traditional sense. He was there to “participate.” Perhaps hear a turkey, see a butterfly, a squirrel or breathe deeply of scents recalled from the past. According to Mrs. Hutchinson, her son was an avid hunter before his crippling automobile accident.
In predawn hours at a canvas draped shelter house used as a staging area for this special hunt for special people, I mingled with hunters participating in Mark Twain’s fifth annual disabled wild turkey hunt. The USCOE Resource Management Division stationed at Mark Twain Lake produced it.
Most were in wheel chairs. One mobilated on crutches. Two had use of their legs but contended with upper-body impairments. Some did their own calling, alone, in their blind. Callers accompanied others. Thirteen disabled hunters participated in the hunt.
All must hold and fire their own weapons. The rules of the hunt as written in the MDC code book applied to them the same as any other licensed hunter. No special privilages were allowed them after they set up in their blinds. No baiting - just a predator beguiling his prey.
Shelly Howald and Diane Hellhake were COE Park Rangers under the direction of Park Ranger Wayne Williams (Resource Management). They coordinated Mark Twain Lake’s disabled hunts with Howald
shouldering much of the pre-hunt preparation.
The COE relied on volunteers from Monroe City Lions Club for the Fall deer hunts and Paris Lions Club for the Spring turkey hunts – both for disabled hunters. A women’s auxilliary from Perry, Missouri usually furnished the food.
Paul Allgood, Paris elementary school principle, ramrodded the Paris Lion volunteers that year’s hunt during May 1 and 2. They loaded participants, wheel chairs and all, into trucks. They then off-loaded the ambulatory onto specially rigged ATVs that ferried them, in pre-dawn darkness, down isolated logging roads to permanent blinds built by volunteers over the years specially for these hunts.
Four or five volunteers accompanied each disabled hunter to his blind. They portered his gear, set up decoys for those using them and made sure each had a hand held radio - and knew how to use it. An iron-clad rule required that each hunter made periodic radio checks to the main camp.
The tremendous volunteer effort to get all the hunters in blinds by daylight went smoothly.
Steve Schleuter, 34 years old from St. Charles, hunts from a specially rigged wheel chair. Severely paralyzed in a diving accident, he employs a crane attached to the back of his chair. It extends up and over his head eventually suspending a padded metal loop in front of him to rest his shotgun on. The device allows him to swing the firearm freely from side to side with limited usage of withered arms.
Schleuter killed a 10-inch bearded gobbler during a special hunt using this apparatus. During special Fall deer hunts at Mark Twain Lake, he killed two deer in 1990 and two more in 1992 using his bonus permit each year.
Billy Walker, 18-year old Vandalian, killed a buck at a special hunt. He hunted four of the first five special turkey hunts. Walker was a member of the Pike County Trap & Gun Club in Bowling Green. He loaded his own competition ammo and shot competitively every Wednesday night from his wheel chair.
Bob Behrle, 33-years old from St. Annes (St. Louis area), killed a doe at a Mark Twain special hunt conducted for the disabled. He does his own turkey calling soloing the blind in a wheel chair with nothing but a handset two-way radio for company.
Bob Cross, 61-year old St. Louis resident, fell out of a deer stand 17-feet up a tree in 1989. He turned to follow a big buck circling the stand when a board gave way, landed on his head and crushed his spine. His son found him under the tree 7-hours later.
Cross referred,ironically, to a career as an iron worker that included 18-months building and scaling “The St. Louis Arch.” He was business manager of St. Louis Local 396 when the fall from the deer stand retired him.
I helped put Behrle in his blind and returned to camp to await, with other volunteers, the crackle of a radio calling for help with a kill. The atmosphere was tense with a lot of crossed fingers anxiously afflicting the group waiting at the main camp.
Turkey hunting is a tough enough hunting test for those blessed with 100% of the use of God’s normal gift of physical endowments. The challenge facing these fellows appeared formidable.
A radio set crackled now and then startling all of us into an expectant
mode. However, initially, they just fulfilled the required radio checks.
Then about 9:00 A.M. came a terse, “Blind 15. Come get me.”
It was Cross. The 61-year old retired iron worker’s son, 21-year old Bob Jr., was in the blind calling for him. Cross never turkey hunted in his life before this day. Bob Jr. was the son that found him after his crippling fall.
Cross’ bird weighed 21 1/2 pounds sporting a 13-inch beard.
Back at camp, Jerry Holt, 24 from Sturgeon, had also killed. Chris Parrish (Mexico, Missouri, National Champion Turkey Caller) accompanied Holt. Parrish is a four time Missouri State Turkey Calling Champion (1988, 1990, 1991, and 1992). He placed second in 1989 and 1993.
He won the Ozark Mountain Gobbler’s Open in 1992 and the Mid-America Open in 1993. In 1992 and 1993, he placed eighth both years in the Grand National Turkey Calling Championships. Late in the ‘90s, Chris finally won the Grand National.
Parrish volunteered his skills to help put this event on. Holt killed three straight wild turkeys at these special hunts with Parrish calling for him.
Later, I stood back and watched all share the usual hunters’ stories. There were tales of birds that hung up and refused to come in. Schleuter’s special harness failed to operate properly preventing him from getting his gun on a target.
However, nobody showed unreasonable remorse that they did not score. The prevailing mood was that if one killed, they all did. Those flubbing-their-dub stirred healthy measures of laughter and good natured ribbing. They all shared that too. They were amongst peers.
In actuality, it was just another hunting camp sheltering a close-knit clan scattered around a camp fire - disabled and volunteers alike.
Beyond that, understanding the emotional experience required personal attendance. Such as, when pretending to ignore the tears streaming down champion turkey-caller Parrish’s cheeks as Vince Lukowski was ferried out of his blind - hopefully just till next season.