Pennsylvania Game News - February 2009 - 34

Maynard became a foreman and remembers working under land managers Bill Cox, Ray Dorsenbacher, Gilly Bowman and Nick Rugh. He worked with a crew of five or six, sometimes seven other guys (today, a crew of that many is rare). “We used to help out the Fayette County crew a lot,” he remembers. Later, as a Farm Game Manager, he spent countless hours visiting with landowners over a cup of their coffee at their homes; it was often with the wives because the farmers were working their fields. Maynard delivered ringnecks to holding pens for farmers who’d raise them with food provided by the Game Commission. The bird’s wing feathers were brailed to keep them from flying off, and there were four to five hundred in the pens. They also had birds in pens up at New Florence where they crated them and sent them to other counties. “The farm game managers knew where to put them,” he states, “for put – take hunting.” Then he adds, “They also raised turkeys up there in New Florence then, in holding pens like pheasants. They used to catch those turkeys with a rocket net and the district man knew where to send them.” Back then the office was on the same property as it is now. The old wooden building is still there but a newer building now houses the offices. Maynard didn’t care much for office work: the monthly reports about how many contacts he’d made with farmers and what he’d done on which property, the seedling orders, the frequent truck and tractor maintenance and fuel reports and so on. He preferred to be working outside in the field. He traveled all over the state but he knew everyone in town and they knew him, too. Once he and a few officers headed into the field, dressed as 34 hunters, in hopes of tracking down some violators they had a lead on. They recognized him half-way across the field and welcomed him by name. “Once I came upon a family of young kids with guns and no licenses. They were all under age. I took them back to their home and had a chat with them and their parents. I gave ’em a warning instead of pinching. You gotta give and take, I don’t care who you are or what you do,” Maynard nodded. “The last guy I pinched just up the road here,” he pointed. “He was shootin’ deer. I took the car up and parked. Two guys came up carrying a white sack. I said, ‘What’s in the sack?’ The guy had just gotten a new gun and wanted to try it out. He’d taken only its hind quarters and that made me mad.” “One time a landowner called me to take care of a dead buck lying in his field and starting to smell. He said he was tired of the stink, so I dropped two tires on it with some gasoline and set it a fire, then lymed it,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was all about providing a service. Maynard reminiced, “Bob Parlaman got called to serve for a year and he called me to take over as District Game Protector while he was gone, so I moved to Washington County for a while. I had my picture in Game News then, in 1946. And, once I had to drive to State College to pick up a biologist, I think it was John Blair, from the university and take him to the training school to teach the officers in training. “I went for trainings at the school, especially for undercover training. The FBI and other feds and the state police would come to teach us about waterfowl and other stuff. “We had special undercover badges. Our guys used to call me poker face.” He went by Bud, the bread salesman back then. “You have to know what you’re talking about undercover or you’ll get busted. An outlaw from the pipeline busted GAME NEWS

Pennsylvania Game News - February 2009

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