Apr 23, 2021 4 min read

We all have heroes. Last week, I told you about me playing baseball. So, you know I do love baseball and I do have some heroes there.

I also love to fish and hunt.

I think of one man who had an immense profound influence on conservation and was the founding father of the Boone & Crockett organization. In fact, one of their highest awards is called the Sagamore Hill Award. It was of course, named for his famous battle. I have always been a big fan of Teddy Roosevelt Jr.

In my younger years, I read many great stories about this man, which created my idea of him as a hero. I started with his hunting adventures and early life. Teddy lived life on the edge at the turn of the century. He was living at Elk Horn Ranch in the Dakota Badlands during one of my first memorable adventures. As the story goes, a couple of cattle rustlers were captured by Mr. Teddy Roosevelt, all by himself, and brought to justice. Can you imagine a politician today doing this? And he was very young at the time.

This led him to his famous Rough Riders days. Then he was in the military when he charged up San Juan Hill in 1898, distinguishing himself for bravery.

Almost everyone who can read knows of his works in saving wildlife through conservation of habitat. His great pleasure in meeting the preservationist John Muir was well known. They held different beliefs, one being a conservationist and the other a preservationist, but respected each other and became friends. Roosevelt established many national parks and monuments, large tracts of land as non-hunting preserves for conservation.

Roosevelt was president from the ages of 42 and 50, starting when he was elected vice president under William McKinley, who was assassinated. Roosevelt was the 26th and youngest president ever, beating John F. Kennedy by one year. At his young age, Roosevelt did so many things as president that might surprise you.

When McKinley was shot, where was Teddy? He was off hunting in the Adirondacks. From there he never slowed down or missed a beat. He broke the monopoly many big businesses had, made child labor laws, passed and developed the clean food act and mediated a war between Japan and Russia. Then he said he would never run a third time, not believing in it. But time would lead him to believe otherwise. He was doing so much work for the country and having such a good time of it that he changed his mind and decided to run a third time. He created a third party for the occasion that he dubbed the Bull Moose party.

A disgruntled person, upon hearing that Roosevelt was campaigning on a train platform, decided to shoot him. He was shot in the chest on the back of his train and could have died. Our hero, of course, had the bullet removed, returned to the platform where he had just been shot in order to calm down the crowd and continued to speak for 90 minutes. He would come in a close second to Woodrow Wilson, who became the next president.

People remember that during his time in office Roosevelt ordered the construction of the Panama Canal. One has the feeling that if the construction of this vital shortcut between two great oceans would have been shut down, then Roosevelt would have found a shovel and a bucket and been down there digging. I would have not bet against him. He was that kind of person. He never turned his back on any challenge and faced all adversity head on. That is why he gets my vote for greatness. I would not be a measurer for Boone & Crockett had it not been for the man.