The Rebecca Romero Hunting Legacy Award and the Montana Hunter Mentorship Program

After a week and a half at Elk View, the Goerz’ cabin outside of Philipsburg, Montana, it was now time for my wife, Donna, and I to head back home to North Carolina. We would take home shared experiences and memories that were gifted to us over the two weekends we spent with the mentors and mentees of the Montana Hunters Mentorship Program.

This year in particular was a big year for the program which was celebrating its 10th year. Last year, I made the trip out to the Hunter Mentorship during the second of its two weekends and was able to be an observer on one of the hunting teams. During this year’s program, I was able to purchase an OTC Deer B tag and go on my first whitetail hunt. Day one consisted of a morning outing and then a late afternoon hunt with James Goerz, the leader of the program. The next outing was a morning hike with Bodie who had gone through the program as a mentee and was now my mentor for my first experiences hunting big game.

Walking along roads and through the fields as a light snow fell, trying to quietly walk over the deadfall, amazed at the quietness of the land. Then standing after silently moving just a few inches at a time to find myself a mere thirty to forty yards from a group of mule deer. Watching
them quietly forage and then walk off without seemingly noticing us in the quietness of the trees was almost magical. Yet, the path towards having this opportunity was anything but magical. 

In the fall of 2013, our youngest daughter, Rebecca, had begun attending the University of Montana. Her plan was to complete her bachelor's degree in Wildlife Biology. She came to Montana as the stereotypical California “tree hugger”. Yet the land she now lived in, as well as the classes she took, opened her eyes to not only the various means by which conservation was achieved, but her part in that effort. Entwined with this budding understanding was the wider hunting culture that many of her new friends, who had grown up in this culture, were inviting her to experience first hand. Over time, she not only learned the basic skills of handling rifles and handguns, but found she enjoyed the challenge of hiking into the mountains that surrounded her.

In the fall of 2015, Rebecca was invited to participate in one of the first formal Montana Hunter Mentorship weekends. Not long after returning back to Missoula, we got an excited call from her sharing her experiences out in the field and how intrigued she was with quartering, packing
out, and then processing a deer. She was amazed at the new tastes she encountered from the cooked deer and elk others had managed to take. She was hooked on it all.

In the middle of her senior year she announced she was planning to stay in Montana over Christmas Break so she could work extra hours at the university in order to complete her Hunter Safety training and hopefully purchase a big game license so she could hunt during the next season. While surprised, we supported her choice and subsequently saved money of our own so she could purchase a hunting rifle as an early graduation gift. We again vicariously enjoyed her experiences out in nature stalking deer. More importantly, we could hear the growing
self-confidence that came with these experiences.

Life went pretty quickly during her fifth and final year of college. Another hunting season with new stories of her out stalking her elusive elk. Working towards a game warden internship program, deciding to join the Montana State Army National Guard with plans to train in the military police program, and finally her graduation on Mother’s Day weekend of 2018. It was a fantastic weekend with us arriving a few days before and having a chance to tour the new facilities for the Wright Zoological Museum on campus. She had chosen a late entry into the National Guard so that she could spend the beginning of summer helping prep the large collection the university had for transfer into its new home. Graduation on Saturday was a chance to celebrate all of the hard work and tears to accomplish something she was not sure she could do in the first years of arriving in Montana. Sunday was a family celebration with her grandmother attending. Finally, we all left to return to our lives. After a month of calls and stories of the challenges she was overcoming at both the lab and her early field training with the Guard, Father’s Day quietly arrived. Then,a knock on the door announced the arrival of two county sheriffs and the news that Rebecca had been killed. She had been walking home in the early hours of Sunday morning after helping a friend prepare for a research trip to Colorado, and had been struck by a driver who had been out drinking with several friends most of the afternoon and evening, and had been speeding home on the back streets to avoid any police
who might be out.

Our trip back to Montana, and the days spent speaking with investigators, attorneys, and retrieving her belongings, were the most difficult ones in our family’s lives. But as we were met by her friends and professors, we began to understand how much Becca had fallen in love with
Montana. A letter shared with us by her best friend in California explained how sad Becca was to realize that after all the years of looking forward to returning back, she couldn’t because she had found a place where she finally felt she fit in and could call home. The letter confirmed
what we had seen while collecting the pieces of her life left behind, and in the words of the friends she had made: She was not a child who had spent time hiding when not in class or work, but a young woman who had found a place she could make her home and explore in it confidently. We left her ashes in the trees and mountains of this home.

About two months later our family received a text from a friend of Rebecca’s and the UM BHA vice president, Mateen Hessami. UM BHA had been awarded a grant from the Patagonia Company the spring of 2018 to promote hunting with a specific focus towards undergraduate women in a collegiate setting. Part of the grant was to be earmarked for a scholarship to help pay for out-of-state students to get their hunting licenses. The hope was to offer three or four of these awards each year. UM BNA had contacted us to ask if they could name this award after
Becca, who they felt personified the type of new hunter the program was meant for.

And so, the award was officially introduced as the “Rebecca Romero Hunting Legacy Award” in time for the 2018 fall hunting season. In its first year, it attracted thirteen applicants and three awards were handed out. In the six award cycles since then, we have had well over one hundred applicants and given awards out to twenty-six undergraduate students at the University of Montana. While the initial reason for choosing to support the UM BHA club in this endeavor was to find a path through the loss of Rebecca, it has become much more than that. It has given us an opportunity to connect with students who are often, like Rebecca, trying to find who they are as they navigate a landscape often hundreds of miles from their homes. It sheds light on how individuals with limited or no experience in hunting are provided the skills and understanding of how hunting is an integral part of conservation. It allows them to be role models and spokespeople for ethical hunting, not just in Montana, but back to the various areas of the country they came from. It also gives our family a chance to see the impact these awards have on other families who may not have a hunting culture, or have one that might have died out if not for the chance for their daughters and sons to take on such a challenge as Montana big game hunting.

Now, sitting here after returning home, I am reflecting on one of my cherished memories from this year's visit to the Montana Hunters Mentorship Program. It was during my Whitetail outing that last weekend when Bodie offered to take me to see if I could fill my deer tag. We talked a lot about our families, and about Becca. I mentioned how Becca and I had planned to go out hunting after her graduation and how I appreciated him taking his time to mentor me on my first hunt. His response was that his dad was never really into hunting and so Bodie was never likely to have that experience with his father.

In that moment, it seemed that we both had found someone to share a time we might never have had.