Feb 14, 2020 4 min read

As most of my readers know, a small group of my friends and family present an award, the George Block Conservation Scholarship, annually in the form of a plaque and a check to a local youngster who has done outstanding work in the field of environmental conservation.

This year, we had a very nice entries with some great work being done and I want to congratulate them all for entering. Those who entered should be proud of their great work.

This year’s top student entry was from a senior from Canon-McMillan High School, Gabriella Popovski. The young lady was presented this award at the annual sports show in the Crown Center Mall last weekend. She had her parents and teacher there to cheer her on. Congratulations to this lovely young lady. I hope you continue your interest in the environmental field. It was an honor to meet you.

Her essay was very clear and heartfelt and she shows a lot of potential to go on to be a great conservationist.

Attending the presentation were most of our committee: Mike Weber, Chet Krcil, Kathy Ward and myself. Dan Sitler was also present representing the Game Commission and I appreciate his being there. One of our other committee members, Dennis Fredericks, couldn’t be there because of a death in the family and we all send our condolences to Denny and family.

• This is the last day of the other local show, the one held in Monroeville. I am sure there are others held across the eastern part of the state but this Monroeville show is the last one close to the area.

Now comes the long winter doldrums as we wait for the April trout season to begin. Maybe it is true of other places, but it seems we in Pennsylvania have come up with some strange ideas. Nowhere can this be demonstrated better than the fact that we have two opening seasons for trout. In eastern Pennsylvania, the trout season opens April 18 but in Southeastern Pennsylvania it opens April 4. I wonder what happens if you live on the boundary and a creek flows through your property? You had better be on the correct side of the creek if you meet a fish warden.

Perhaps the game commission could learn a lesson from the fish commission and have two deer openers? It has been proven that most hunters go out on opening day, so why not have two opening days? By doing that, why there would be twice the number of hunters in the woods resulting in double the license sales. Boy, I feel like a genius for coming up with that idea.

• This is the second year that the deer-measuring program at the local sports show has been done without me. After doing it for 30 years, I think I deserve to sit back and just watch as Mathias Wenzen fills my shoes. I started this program back when the show was held at the now-defunct Washington Mall. Back then, we would tape 25 deer on Saturday and perhaps 20 on Sunday. I like to think it was a successful program, and one that was appreciated by both those who ran the show and the general public that came to see Western Pennsylvania’s best bucks.

I would be willing to bet that more people visited this part of the show over the years than any other and I am proud of my part in it.

• When the subject of buck antlers and the measuring of such comes up, I think of three weird things that occurred. First, was the man who tried to pass a mule deer for a locally taken whitetail. Second was the fellow who tried to pass a pair of counterfeit antlers off as the real thing. I must admit they were hard to detect and my great helper at the time, John Dino, spotted the seam where the mold was put together. John goes on to help and be involved today. And last, but not least, was around the 2002 when we scored 127 antlers in one year. That is a lot of deer antlers. I don’t remember how many of them were at the show but it was a lot.

James Rush of the West Middleton area had this year’s local biggest show buck. It netted 168 4/8. Our congratulations to him. It was a pleasure to sit back and relax and let others do the work.