H.E.F.T.Y. Home Contact Information Donations Needed Sponsors of the H.E.F.T.Y. Program
Recent Events and activities H.E.F.T.Y. Graduates Program
H.E.F.T.Y.
A Cooperative Program.
Violence on Television and at the movies, video games portraying realistic violent enactments, boredom, and lack of adult supervision. These are a few things that today’s youths face every day. Cell phones and texting have become more important than school and homework. Today’s electronics are so advanced that basic skills have become a trade of the past. Outdoor games and activities are fading away at an alarming rate, day floats down the river, tree houses, and go cart races are all but gone.
Troubled youths in today’s society are trapped on a vicious cyclone of poor study habits, social disrespect, and troublesome judgment. Beginning with simple classroom disruption the student is punished with detention, detention with other disruptive students who, in kind, conspire a rebellion. This rebellion may lead to “hanging out” at the local department store which in turn leads to peer pressure, shoplifting or destruction of property. Punishable by community service or possible incarceration throws the affected youth into a situation, once again, where the social setting is more troubled youths and once again, conspiring a rebellion. This in turn leads to more contact with the “wrong crowd” and eventually to more socially unacceptable behaviors. Eventually this cycle may direct a youth into drug use, violent crimes, or further incarceration.
Hunters Education For Today’s Youth, (H.E.F.T.Y.) is a program designed to step in and interrupt this cycle, to guide youth into a new environment, and mentor them into a thought process of self respect, compassion, integrity, and high moral values. Hunters Education programs have proven on several levels to teach and mentor most of the traits in individuals that society as a whole desperately needs and deserves. To further set these traits into motion and create individual self esteem H.E.F.T.Y. incorporates additional field projects to promote self worth and fulfillment. H.E.F.T.Y. is a yearlong program that takes youths on monthly excursions including community support projects, outdoor skills improvement assignments, and group leadership programs.
Through the cooperative efforts with community groups such as The Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, The Mule Deer Federation, or County and State agencies as well as local land owners, outdoor or indoor conservation and personal projects will be completed as a group allowing time for reflection and an insight into personal accomplishment. Working in a group to accomplish a common goal in a mentored environment provides youth with a positive direction and creates new activities to help remove the youth from their previous peer groups, negative roles in society, and violence encouraging Medias.
My name is Karl Milner, I am a
hunter Education Instructor, Outdoor enthusiast, Environment protector
and
habitat builder, and most importantly the father of two wonderful
children and
stepfather to two very bright and very self sufficient children. I have lived in the Gillette, WY area for
over 15 years now, worked in the mining and methane industry and I own
a game
bird and poultry farm. I am active in the community and belong to the
local
chapter of Pheasants Forever, a conservation and habitat improvement
group that
as a local chapter we have committed our efforts to youth education and
activities. With experience in teaching photography and a vast number
of hours
spent in nature guiding fly fishing and mentoring others in
environmental
practices I have developed H.E.F.T.Y. as an inspiration to my part
helping the
environment and the community.
Background, history, and research
“Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
President Theodore Roosevelt, a world renowned conservationist and hunter, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. In 2001 He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for his military actions, the only president to win such an honor. President Roosevelt was a world class big game hunter whose personal hunting efforts helped supply the Smithsonian and many other national museums with taxidermy models of flora, fauna, and insects from both South Africa and South America.
Accomplishments like the fore mentioned are extreme examples of the virtues learned during life events such as hunting and fishing. Connecting with nature in any hunting or fishing experience encourages and creates a deep emotional and spiritual realization that one is a small part of the bigger universe thus creating a deep humility, respect and reverence for oneself and his or her community.
“My greatest inspiration has always been the out of doors. The out of doors was my first and truest best friend and because of that when I began to try to express myself it was a perfectly natural thing for me to use images from nature, and my songs are full of images from nature. People may not know West Virginia, but they know what take me home feels like and country roads are, I think a part of everybody’s life, and those simple things like, sunshine on my shoulders and Annie’s song, you fill up my senses like a night in the forest or like a walk in the rain. These are parts of peoples experience all over the world.” He, (John Denver), goes on to talk about the environment and people talking of how big it is and what one person can do. He states to them “you do what you can do and I’ll do what I can do and between us we’ll do what needs to be done.”
When speaking of his music he states that he can’t say that he owns his music, the songs that he wrote are gifts given to him and the talent to sing them is a gift and he is grateful for those gifts given to him by the nature around him.
With the woes of war, crime in the street, drugs in the schools, and violent television, movies, and video games today’s youth have no inspiration to excel in life. Single parent homes, fathers that loose touch with their children trying to better the Jones, gangs in the very environment we as society have sent our youths have caused the very lack of leadership that is so desperately needed in today’s civilization.
A great deal of research has been done regarding youths that hunt verses youths that don’t hunt. In his book From Boys to Men of Heart: Hunting as Rite of Passage Dr. Randall Eaton explains the history of hunting and how it was then, as it is now, a rite of passage that it is not only the transition from boyhood into manhood but a profound realization that each of us are a small part of a bigger universe. This realization creates within the individual all the virtues needed to become a productive member of society. Virtues like respect, for oneself and for others, self worth, and integrity are just a few that have been shown to be gained by a simple connection to nature and the environment.
Programs like Outward Bound have for many years turned troubled youths into productive citizens by using this connection with nature and the elements. In the film, “The Sacred Hunt II: Rite of Passage” Dr. Eaton interviewed Dr. Wade Brackenbury, Field Supervisor of S.U.W.S.. Dr. Brackenbury had this to say about “the meanest boy he had ever taken into the wilderness” and the transformation that had taken place.
“There was this boy who was 15 years old,
and he was a neo-Nazi. He was in a gang that believed in white
supremacy. He
was just filled with hatred. I’ve never known anyone so filled with
hate. He
had come to us because he had taken a shotgun and beat another boy, a
little
black boy, half to death. We brought him out to the desert where we had
him and
other boys for about two weeks, and he didn’t show any signs whatsoever
of
changing.
“One of the integral aspects of our program
was that we were hunter-gatherers, but we also were hungry most of the
time,
just as the Indians probably were while they were out there. I remember
when we
had gone two days without eating anything, and this boy was starving-
all he
could talk about was food.
“We were trying to get a marmot - a marmot
is a large rodent like animal that lives in the Great Basin Desert….
This
marmot we were particularly interested in trying to get would come down
out of
his hole in the morning, we’d watch him over the ridge and just as he’d
come to
the water we’d run after him and try to chase him and catch up to him
before he
got back to the hole. And one day finally it got far enough away from
the hole
that we were able to catch up to it, and that boy chased it underneath
a rock.
It wasn’t able to escape to its hole. He took his hunting knife and
bound it to
the end of a stick and reached up under there and stabbed the marmot
and
wounded it. And then we pulled the marmot out.
“I’ve never forgotten the look on that boy’s
face as he looked into the marmot’s eyes - it wasn’t dead yet. It
looked up at
him and there was a light of understanding or mutual empathy, then the
light
went out of the eyes of the marmot and it died. And that boy started
crying, he
just broke down and wept, and the reason he was able to feel that was
that he
watched the marmot for several days. He’d almost gotten to the point
where he understood
who that marmot was, how that marmot lived. I think he almost got
inside that
marmot and could see the world through the marmot’s eyes.”
That boy, several years later came back to the program to become a counselor.
The Program and the Proposal
H.E.F.T.Y. is practically what it sounds like. Hunters Education For Today’s Youth, young people trapped in a society that fails to guide them into adulthood. Youths with minor offenses involved in the court system, youths that are in trouble with the school system, and single parent homes are especially qualified for this program. Essentially the program is designed to get youths, in groups of 10 to 20 students, away from the peer pressure and bad influences and into an environment with structure, education, and mentored self evaluation. Furthermore, youths that have completed the program are encouraged to return as youth mentors, continuing their involvement in outdoor events.
As structured, Hunters Education is a 12 hour course with topics covered including Hunter Responsibility, Firearms and Ammunition, Firearms Safety, Specialty Hunting, Wildlife Identification, Marksmanship and Shooting Fundamentals, Basic Hunting Techniques, Hunting Skills, Game Meat Care, Wildlife Management, Outdoor Survival, and Hunting in bear and Mountain Lion Country. At the end of the course is a test that each student must pass with a score of 70%.
Meeting once a month participants will become involved in projects such as reclaiming a habitat for better wildlife propagation, building a fly rod or spinning rod, nature photography trips, nature hikes, nature trail building, local crises cleanup, and community volunteer programs. Seasonal projects will include collecting food and gifts for local food banks, Red Cross services, and social services organizations. Working closely with the Forest Service, BLM, and Game and Fish organized projects such as walk in area clean up, erosion control, and invasive plant control become an outdoor adventure as well as a learning experience.
During the 12 month experience each participant is encouraged to plan a project, spearhead a project, and make the necessary decisions to lead others into the completion of the projects. Encouraging the youths to become leaders in the projects teaches them leadership skills, planning and organizational skills, and citizenship skills.
H.E.F.T.Y.
Graduates
At the completion of each participants 12 month course and hunter education course he or she is awarded with an all expense paid hunt and field grade fire arm of their choice. Private landowners are offered a trade relationship, H.E.F.T.Y. participants clean land areas, plant food and shelter crops, and improve habitat in trade of paid hunts. Encouraging landowners to use the landowner coupon attached to each big game license ensures that landowners are willing to purchase hunting license for participants.
The intention of the combined programs is to teach new hobbies and habits encouraging positive roles as a citizen. Each student will gain self worth and self respect by reflecting on the completion of short term goals. Youths will be mentored in a positive environment while being introduced to new programs and outside groups such as law enforcement ride along, Boy Scouting, local conservation groups, and city, county, and state officials involved in nature and nature conservation. Guest instructors and mentors will include officials from DARE, Game and Fish, Community groups like Pheasants Forever, Turkey Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, and National Elk Foundation.
In
place of
community
service
Shoplifting, property damage, destruction, alcohol or drug offenses are all crimes punishable by detention or community service. Within the school system habitual misbehavior is corrected with in house detention and extra assignments. As an alternative to these punishments I would like to suggest H.E.F.T.Y., an adventure encouraging new life directions. Youths enrolled in the H.E.F.T.Y. program will be evaluated upon completion of each phase of the course. These evaluations will include meeting the required attendance, class participation, and successful completion of tests and projects. These evaluations will be forwarded to the official enrolling the student in written form or personal appearance of myself and the student.
At no cost to the participant, funding for the H.E.F.T.Y. program comes in the form of donated materials and funds from companies and community organizations such as Cabellas, Rocky Mountain Discount Sports, VFW, Elks, Eagles, County Weed And Pest, County Environmental Planning, City and County Police, Game and Fish, and local business and land owners. With strong mentoring and equally strong community support H.E.F.T.Y. will be a success to a great many youths.
“Every child has inside him an aching void
for
excitement and if we don’t fill it
with something which is exciting and
interesting and good for him, he
will fill
it with
something which is exciting and
interesting and which isn’t good for
him.”
Karl Milner
86 Coyote Trail Rd.
Gillette, WY 82716
(307) 686-5705 or (307) 299-2084
H.E.F.T.Y. Home Contact Information Donations Needed Sponsors of the H.E.F.T.Y. Program
Recent Events and activities H.E.F.T.Y. Graduates Program