Waterfowl Festival a success

A local youth browses a duck call vendor's booth at the 2nd Annual Missouri Waterfowl Festival. Staff photos by George Anderson

The festival kicked off on Saturday, Oct. 24, with a 5K run, which was won by local 12-year-old, Zach Johnson.

"People couldn't believe how well attended the 5K was," said Event Chairman Charley Hilburn.

World Champion Duck Caller Butch Richenback, right, hosts a Youth Duck Calling Seminar during the Missouri Waterfowl Festival.

Following the run, the festivities began at the American Legion Building and Delta Fairgrounds.

Patrons were able to enjoy nearly 30 vendor booths with items including duck calls and decoys, ATV equipment, and more.

Event-goers were also able to sit in on seminars from some of the sports greatest names, including Butch Richenback and Ralph Duren.

"The Missouri Waterfowl Festival is planning to sponsor a youth duck calling clinic in the early spring," Hilburn said. "Butch [Richenback] will be involved with it. He does the same thing in Stuttgart, Ark. He is the best at teaching kids to blow a duck call that there ever was and, of course, he has the World Championships to prove it."

Contests were open for those wanting to show off their skills, including duck calling contests, retriever contests, archery contests, kids decoy painting contests, and more.

"We had more [entries] in the duck calling [contest] this year," Hilburn said. "The retriever contest was a big hit again. The archery contest was a big hit. I think it will do nothing but grow. We just got to get more people to know what is going on with it."

Raffles were held with winners receiving an Arctic Cat ATV, one of two shotguns, and a wildlife print.

Hilburn said the rock climbing wall was a huge hit, and the bb gun shoot was very popular with more than 5,000 being shot.

According to Hilburn, the event had a crowd comparable to last year, and possibly bigger.

"We were tickled to death," Hilburn said. "The event went great. Lots of people from lots of states were here. We had a comparable turnout to last year, maybe a little better."

Hilburn noted that Cajun Country Cookers, who catered the event, ran out of food on Saturday.

Hilburn said he wanted to thank everyone for coming out and enjoying the event.

"That is why we work as hard as we do to put this thing on," Hilburn said.

It is for the people.

"The underlying deal with it is we want to promote waterfowl in this area. Us waterfowlers promoting waterfowling in this area is not for us. It is for this area. The best thing we [waterfowlers] could do is not tell anybody about it and just save it all for ourselves."

Hilburn said the 3rd Annual Missouri Waterfowl Festival is being planned for the same time next year.

Note: Event winners were not

provided at press time.