In 1985, we launched a program to facilitate friendly competition among youths 18 and younger that would advance hunting skills including wildlife identification, orienteering and rifle, shotgun and archery marksmanship. Today, thousands of hunter education volunteers and parents still conduct this program at the state and local level to produce safer, more skillful and more ardent American hunters.
Kansas' almost 46 million acres of farmland provide a plethora of food for the state's whitetail herd, a veritable yellow brick road paved in corn and wheat. Add to that available mast browse and relatively mild winters, and you've got the makings for big-racked bucks. Would all those factors coincide to put a giant in front of the author? Only time in a stand will tell.