Rooster Rush essay contest winners announced

HURON — The Huron Chamber and Visitors Bureau hosted an essay contest for young writers in the Heartland region this fall, as part of its Rooster Rush program to promote pheasant hunting in the area.
The top three finishers, as judged by Chamber staff, were Caitlin Woodward, first; Karter Miller, second, and TJ Lien, third. Caitlin and Karter attend the Hitchcock-Tulare School, and Lien attends Huron Middle School.
The prizes included Rooster Rush t-shirts and hats, and Chamber Bucks.
The three essays are published here as submitted.

“Pheasants Galore”
By Caitlin Woodward
Hitchcock-Tulare eighth grade
 October 17, 2018
 
The morning was brisk and dewy. As the sun gleamed in through the windows, and the chickens awoke I became excited by the thought of pheasant season opening. I ran downstairs to put on my bright orange hunting clothes. My morning job was to always go and get fresh eggs from the chicken coop. I ran outside. The bright sun warmed my face and the cool wind blew all around. As soon as I had gotten the warm eggs from the coop, I ran back to the house to have the bacon my mother made for me and my older brother. When breakfast was done, I went outside to sit with my cocker spaniel, Josie, and get ready for the long day ahead. I had watched two pheasants with the longest tail feathers waddle past the barn as I stared at the beautiful sunrise.
My father had just finished milking the cows and eating breakfast when I had remembered my Uncle Tom was corning to hunt with us. I became eager to see him and started urging my father to hurry up eating and put on his hunter orange vest. The day started to become brighter and warmer every minute it seemed. The time finally came, we were going out to hunt our CRP.

My uncle had already driven to our CRP. As I gazed into the dewy grass, I heard the sounds of barking dogs, and the sound of pheasants in the tall grass. Josie and MOK, my uncle’s dog, were getting ready for anything that would happen. My father and I walked the west side of the CRP as my uncle and my older brother, Brent, walked the east. We walked for three hours and had gotten three large roosters all together. As we walked, we became tired and I became bored. We came to the end of the field after walking it two times already.
Out of nowhere, 15 birds came flying out of the CRP !
The dogs went crazy as we shot four of them. The dogs retrieved them and strutted towards us feeling happy with themselves. We were suddenly awakened by the action of the birds corning out of nowhere.
The day was corning to an end. I felt accomplished with the amount of birds we had gotten. After we showed my surprised mother, we went to prep the birds for our nights feast. I was happy with the outcome of our hunting and I loved seeing the happy faces on my family.

“Opening Season”
by Karter Miller
Hitchcock-Tulare seventh grade
October 17, 2018

Pheasant hunting is something that is important to me and my family. Every year on the opening weekend of pheasant season, we go with my dad’s side of the family. The whole family goes to my grandma’s house- my family, my uncles, my great aunts, and most ofmy cousins. We take pickups and suburbans, and we all bring our dogs. The dogs all love hunting and get extremely excited. They jump around and play. When we go hunting, I usually walk with my dad through fields. We take one or two dogs with us through there, while the others are with my grandpa Rick. The dogs get even more excited when they hear gunshots. They freeze, look around, and wait until either my grandpa or dad say, “Go find the bird.” The dogs then run whichever direction they are pointing, and sniff around as they look for the bird. We are usually successful in our hunting and bring back a decent amount of pheasants.
Everyone in my family enjoys hunting for their own reason. Some like seeing family, being outdoors, being able to shoot a gun, and I’m sure my mom, grandma, and sist_er like being alone and away from their husbands, children, and siblings. I am the only girl in my family that likes to hunt, besides one of my cousins, Lily. She is the youngest girl cousin in my family, so she is used to hanging out with all of her boy cousins. I think she likes a break from all the girls, considering she is the youngest of five girls. I guess I would also have to count all of the female dogs that my family has, since almost all of the hunting dogs my family own are girls.
Everyone in my family loves pheasant hunting season- all for our own reasons. The reason I love hunting so much is because I love seeing the happy faces on all of my-family members, including all of our dogs.

“The Hunt”
by TJ Lien
Huron Middle School
Age 12

Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m turning 15. My dad said that he has a surprise for me. I have also been getting hints on what is going to happen like my dad going to the store. He never, and I mean never, goes to the store. It must be something sporty. I also found a long case by trying to find some scrap paper for drawing. It might be an instrument of some kind but what do I know. It probably will not be fun because my parents don’t get that I’m to old for that stuff and I have any interest in an instrument.
Over dinner mom said, “are you excited about your birthday tomorrow?” She asked, “a little”. I replied “a little! Mom exclaimed “what about your little surprise?” She asked confused. “That thing, I thought you were just going to a game and having a special dinner. Or get me to play an instrument”, I said “no. You and your father are going hunting. Your gun safety will still work even though you did it two years ago!” she said excitedly “WOW” I yelled “this is ten times better than any instrument I could play. When do we go? What gun do we use? What do we wear?”, said in one breath “settle down son, we will talk this over after lunch” he said.
After lunch we cleared table and we did a, clean sweep and dad said to meet him on the couch. “So, we are going to talk about the hunt thing, right?” I asked “yep” my dad said “we will need to wake up at 6:35, then when we get there we will pick out a shot gun and a neon vest. Then we will eat the pheasants you kill for dinner.” He said continuing to explain but I lost interest after the important stuff was done. That night I fell asleep quick because I knew we had to get up at 6:35 to leave on time. When I awoke I hurriedly got dressed in blue jeans and a football shirt. When I got upstairs dad was making eggs for us.” Happy Birthday bud. Just wait a sec”, he said “I’m still working on yours”, so I sat down and read a hunting article. When I got my eggs I asked, “I read this thing about gutting the bird?” “The worker knows its your birthday.” He replied. At the hunting shack I grabbed my shot gun and a vest then we were of. We saw plenty of pheasants, but I missed all but one. Then I saw one in front of us, so I aimed careful and was about to pull the trigger when another one landed right by it. I knew it was now or never, so I pulled the trigger and got them. I picked up my prize and when I got home I told my mom my story and by lunch we got our three pheasants already cooked and I asked, “can we hunt more often? And can we go fishing?”