The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

I am sitting in the financial services office as the wind blows 35 miles per hour outside. I was going to go pheasant hunting late in the afternoon today, but I guess I am just going to pass today and spend the evening at home. It got me thinking about all of the things that happened in 2024. It was quite a year for this amateur outdoor writer. Some of the things that happened I caused and most of the rest of the happenings in 2024 happened to me.

I upgraded my membership in Pheasants Forever in late December of 2020 to what is called a life membership. An annual membership to PF is $35 per year. To reach that level you contribute $1,000 and then never have to pay the $35 again.  I got a pretty good feeling supporting an organization that I feel does the best job of protecting wildlife habitat and creating more of the same. In 2022 I upgraded that membership yet again to a Patron member. A Patron Membership is a person who contributes $10,000 either all at one time or over a period of 4-5 years.

I opted for the multi-year payments plan and made my last payment on my Patron Membership in December of 2024. I have been a Pheasants Forever volunteer for 40 years. It is amazing to think I started with this organization when I was 28 years old and am now only a few years away from slowing down into my retirement years. It was March of ‘24 that started the changes that will be the most memorable and the longest lasting of this past year. In early March I was awarded the first-ever National Pheasants Forever Volunteer of the Year Award. This was announced at the National Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic held this past year in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

About four hours after the Volunteer of the Year announcement I spoke at the Elite Membership Event and spoke to an audience of approximately 300 other dedicated contributors and supporters about how their gifts to Pheasants Forever promoted the successful on-the-ground work that chapters do. When that little talk was over, I got down on one knee and proposed to my girlfriend on the big stage. She said yes and what a great weekend it was.

Just a short time later my dad at the age of 90 abruptly took a turn for the worse and entered Hospice. Two weeks later he was gone. I looked back at the 90 years my dad had spent on the earth and remembered how he always told me how proud of me he was for my efforts in conservation. My dad had left a significant mark in conservation as well, although most people never truly understood or appreciated it. He made countless bluebird nesting structures. He handcrafted all of the signs that now mark our public land parcels across Nobles County. They now total 49 in number. Signs 50-60 are also completed and in a shed waiting to be utilized. I can’t count the number of wood duck boxes he made and handed out for free.

Every year he would spend weeks in his wood shop creating unique furniture and other items that sold at our banquets for the past 40 years. I would not like to venture a guess at just how much time, effort and money he contributed and how many acres of habitat has been acquired with the results of those contributions.

Watching my dad’s wood shop slowly disperse was the hardest part of his passing for me. Everything he made was ultimate perfection. He used to say “There is no substitute for sheer raw talent” and then he would add his great big smile. He never bragged about anything he did so I did his bragging for him.

My mother passed away in November 2023, only 90 before my dad passed. She had pheasant earrings for every occasion and always bought lots of raffle tickets for our fundraisers. She was the luckiest person I know, and I have a few inherited guns to show for it.

When you look back on 2024, I hope you can find some good things that happened to you. Life doesn’t let you win on a regular basis. You get some wins, and often as many or more losses. I lost two of my greatest cheerleaders for my conservation work this past year. And I gained several new ones. My new wife is carrying a shotgun and after eight attempts she shot the first rooster of her life and she is totally hooked. JoAnn told me she never thought she would ever carry a gun and now peeks at the ladies’ hunting gear in the catalogs that come to the house.

We all need a calling in our lives. For me, it is wild places and the creatures that live there. For others, it’s coaching little league baseball or volunteering at church. It makes less difference what you support, but the fact that you support is what is most important. Make 2025 the year that you engage. There are those who watch things happen and there are those who make things happen. Make 2025 the year you become the latter. Whatever organization you choose to support will be better off for it.

If you think wildlife might be your passion, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com and I can get you directed to a whole bunch of conservation organizations that would welcome you with open arms.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.