H.E.F.T.Y.

A Cooperative Program.
Troubled youths in today’s society are trapped on a vicious cyclone of poor study habits, social
disrespect, and troublesome judgment. Beginning with simple classroom disruption the student is
punished with detention. Detention with other disruptive student who, in kind, conspire a rebellion. This
rebellion may lead to “hanging out” at the local department store which in turn leads to peer pressure,
shoplifting or destruction of property. Punishable by community service or possible incarceration throws
the affected youth into a situation, once again, where the social setting is more troubled youths and once
again, conspiring a rebellion. This in turn leads to more contact with the “wrong crowd” and eventually
to more socially unacceptable behaviors. Eventually this cycle may direct a youth into drug use, violent
crimes, or further incarceration.
Hunters Education For Troubled Youth, (H.E.F.T.Y.) is a program designed to step in and
interrupt this cycle, to guide youth into a new environment, and mentor them into a thought process of
self respect, compassion, integrity, and high moral values. Hunters Education programs have proven on
several levels to teach and mentor most of the traits in individuals that society as a whole desperately
needs and deserves. To further set these traits into motion and create individual self esteem H.E.F.T.Y.
incorporates additional field projects to promote self worth and fulfillment.
Through the cooperative efforts with community groups such as Pheasants Forever, The Elk
Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, The Mule Deer Federation, or County and State agencies as well as local
land owners, outdoor or indoor conservation and personal projects will be completed as a group allowing
time for reflection and an insight into personal accomplishment. Working in a group to accomplish a
common goal in a mentored environment provides youth with a positive direction and creates new
activities to help remove the youth from their previous peer groups and negative roles in society.
My name is Karl Milner, I am a hunter Education Instructor, Outdoor enthusiast,
Environment protector and habitat builder, and most importantly the father of two wonderful children and
stepfather to two very bright and very self sufficient children. I have lived in the Gillette, WY area for
over 15 years now, worked in the mining and methane industry and own a game bird and poultry farm. I
am active in the community and belong to the local chapter of Pheasants Forever, a conservation and
habitat improvement group that as a local chapter we have committed our efforts to youth education and
activities. With experience in teaching photography and a vast number of hours spent in nature guiding
fly fishing and mentoring others in environmental practices I have developed H.E.F.T.Y. as an inspiration
to my part helping the environment and the community.
 Background, history, and research

“If we can teach our children to nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here
forever.”
President Jimmy Carter,
Outdoor Journal
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

“Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

President Theodore Roosevelt, a world renowned conservationist and hunter, won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1906. In 2001 He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for his
military actions, the only president to win such an honor. President Roosevelt was a world class big
game hunter whose personal hunting efforts helped supply the Smithsonian and many other national
museums with taxidermy models of flora, fauna, and insects from both South Africa and South America.

Accomplishments like the fore mentioned are extreme examples of the virtues learned during
life events such as hunting and fishing. Connecting with nature in any hunting or fishing experience
encourages and creates a deep emotional and spiritual realization that one is a small part of the bigger
universe thus creating a deep humility, respect and reverence for oneself and his or her community.
In an interview conducted for the National Wildlife Foundation John Denver spoke of the
ethereal connection to nature and where it has led him.
“my greatest inspiration has always been the out of doors. The out of doors was my first and
truest best friend and because of that when I began to try to express myself it was a perfectly natural
thing for me to use images from nature, and my songs are full of images from nature. People may not
know West Virginia but they know what take me home feels like and country roads are, I think a part of
everybody’s life, and those simple things like, sunshine on my shoulders and Annie’s song, you fill up
my senses like a night in the forest or like a walk in the rain. These are parts of peoples experience all
over the world.” He, (John Denver) goes on to talk about the environment and people talking of how big
it is and what can one person do. He states to them “you do what you can do and I’ll do what I can do and
between us we’ll do what needs to be done.” When speaking of his music he states that he can’t say that
he owns his music, the songs that he wrote are gifts given to him and the talent to sing them is a gift and
he is grateful for those gifts given to him by the nature around him.
With the woes of war, crime in the street, drugs in the schools, and violent television, movies,
and video games today’s youth have no inspiration to excel in life. Single parent homes, fathers that
loose touch with their children trying to better the Jones, gangs in the very environment we as society
have sent our youths have caused the very lack of leadership that is so desperately needed in today’s
civilization.
A great deal of research has been done regarding youths that hunt verses youths that
don’t hunt. In his book From Boys to Men of Heart: Hunting as Rite of Passage Dr. Randall Eaton
explains the history of hunting and how it was then, as it is now, a rite of passage that it is not only the
transition from boyhood into manhood but a profound realization that each of us are a small part of a
bigger universe. This realization creates within the individual all the virtues needed to become a
productive member of society. Virtues like respect, for oneself and for others, self worth, and integrity
are just a few that have been shown to be gained by a simple connection to nature and the environment.
Programs like Outward Bound have for many years turned troubled youths into productive
citizens by using this connection with nature and the elements. In the film “The Sacred Hunt II: Rite of
Passage” Dr. Eaton interviewed Dr. Wade Brackenbury, Field Supervisor of S.U.W.S.. Dr. Brackenbury
had this to say about “the meanest boy he had ever taken into the wilderness” and the transformation that
had taken place.
“There was this boy who was 15 years old, and he was a neo-Nazi. He was in a gang that
believed in white supremacy. He was just filled with hatred. I’ve never known anyone so filled with hate.
He had come to us because he had taken a shotgun and beat another boy, a little black boy, half to death.
We brought him out to the desert where we had him and other boys for about two weeks, and he didn’t
show any signs whatsoever of changing.
“One of the integral aspects of our program was that we were hunter-gatherers, but we also were
hungry most of the time, just as the Indians probably were while they were out there. I remember when
we had gone two days without eating anything, and this boy was starving- all he could talk about was
food.
“We were trying to get a marmot - a marmot is a large rodent like animal that lives in the Great
Basin Desert…. This marmot we were particularly interested in trying to get would come down out of his
hole in the morning, we’d watch him over the ridge and just as he’d come to the water we’d run after him
and try to chase him and catch up to him before he got back to the hole. And one day finally it got far
enough away from the hole that we were able to catch up to it, and that boy chased it underneath a rock.
It wasn’t able to escape to its hole. He took his hunting knife and bound it to the end of a stick and
reached up under there and stabbed the marmot and wounded it. And then we pulled the marmot out.
“I’ve never forgotten the look on that boy’s face as he looked into the marmot’s eyes - it wasn’t
dead yet. It looked up at him and there was a light of understanding or mutual empathy, then the light
went out of the eyes of the marmot and it died. And that boy started crying, he just broke down and
wept, and the reason he was able to feel that was that he watched the marmot for several days. He’d
almost gotten to the point where he understood who that marmot was, how that marmot lived. I think he
almost got inside that marmot and could see the world through the marmot’s eyes.”
That boy, several years later came back to the program to become a counselor.

The Program and the Proposal

 H.E.F.T.Y. is practically what it sounds like. Hunters Education For Troubled Youth, with a
further twist of an project to be done as a group. Youths with minor offenses involved in the court
system, or youths that are in trouble with the school system are especially qualified for this program.
Essentially the program is designed to get youths, in groups of 10 to 20 students, away from the peer
pressure and bad influences and into an environment with structure, education, and mentored self
evaluation.
As structured, Hunters Education is a 12 hour course with topics covered including Hunter
Responsibility, Firearms and Ammunition, Firearms Safety, Specialty Hunting, Wildlife Identification,
Marksmanship and Shooting Fundamentals, Basic Hunting Techniques, Hunting Skills, Game Meat Care,
Wildlife Management, Outdoor Survival, and Hunting in bear and Mountain Lion Country. At the end of
the course is a test that each student must pass with a score of 70%. At the conclusion of the 12 hour
Hunter Education Course will be an additional course promoting the outdoors. This course will be
seasonally planned requiring a minimum of 8 hours and consist of projects such as reclaiming a habitat
for better wildlife propagation, building a fly rod or spinning rod, nature photography trips, nature hikes,
nature trail building, local crises cleanup, and community volunteer programs.
The intention of the combined programs is to teach new hobbies and habits encouraging positive
roles as a citizen. Each student will gain self worth and self respect by reflecting on the completion of
short term goals. Youths will be mentored in a positive environment while being introduced to new
programs and outside groups such as law enforcement ride along, Boy Scouting, local conservation
groups, and city, county, and state officials involved in nature and nature conservation. Guest instructors
and mentors will include officials from DARE, Game and Fish, Community groups like Pheasants
Forever, Turkey Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, and National Wildlife Federation.
Shoplifting, property damage, destruction, alcohol or drug offenses are all crimes punishable by
detention or community service. Within the school system habitual misbehavior is corrected with in
house detention and extra assignments. As an alternative to these punishments I would like to suggest
H.E.F.T.Y. ,a 20 hour new direction course. Youths enrolled in the H.E.F.T.Y. program will be evaluated
upon completion of each phase of the course, these evaluations will include meeting the required
attendance, class participation, and successful completion of tests and projects. These evaluations will be
forwarded to the official enrolling the student in written form or personal appearance of myself and the
student.
At no cost to the participant, funding for the H.E.F.T.Y. program comes in the form of donated
materials and funds from companies and community organizations such as Cabellas, Rocky Mountain
Discount Sports, VFW, Elks, Eagles, County Weed And Pest, County Environmental Planning, City and
County Police, Game and Fish, and local business and land owners. With strong mentoring and equally
strong community support H.E.F.T.Y. will be a success to a great many youths.
 “Every child has inside him an aching void for excitement and if we don’t fill it
with something which is exciting and interesting and good for him, he will fill it with
something which is exciting and interesting and which isn’t good for him.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Karl Milner
86 Coyote Trail Rd,
Gillette, WY 82716
(307) 686-5705
(307) 299-2084

A special note of thanks needs to be given to Randall L. Eaton Ph.D.. Author of a vast
number of books, conductor of countless hours of award winning movies, and mentor to many
young and old hunters and outdoor enthusiast.
Without his undoubting wisdom and advice this H.E.F.T.Y. program would not be what
it is. His many hours of mentoring, counseling, and guidance is greatly appreciated as well as the
vast amount of research material he has freely given.