Contributed Photo Mark Schraufnagel, center, Wisconsin DNR conservation warden, presents Mike Schulze, left, and John Hoeffs with watches in recognition of their 25 years teaching hunter safety courses.
Twenty-six years ago, Mike Shulze was recruited to help teach a hunter safety class. He’s been at it ever since.
Lloyd Heinz, who worked for the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department, recruited Shulze as an assistant in 1988. A year later, Heinz retired and Shulz was certified to teach the class himself.
Schulz and fellow instructor John Hoeffs were each honored for 25 years of service to the program in February by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Warden Mark Schraufnagel presented the two with watches.
“There’s not a lot of instructors that have been doing it that long,” Schraufnagel said. “I think it’s just a testament to them. They’re volunteering, they’re not paid to do this. They just think it’s important to pass on the tradition of hunting and that folks do it safely.”
Shulze said he is motivated by the young hunters wanting to learn.
“After 26 years, you get this thing about, how many more years am I going to do it?” Shulze said. “Am I getting a little tired of doing it, with all the rule changes? That all comes into it, but then you think about the young kids wanting to go hunting. There’s still a lot of interest in keeping the young kids going.”
Another positive?
“It’s still a lot of fun,” he said.
Shulze and Hoeffs have taught their class together for the last 15 years. There are four other instructors also helping the group.
“I have a really great group of guys,” Shulze said. “They’ve been real good to me. It makes a lot of difference with the group of guys I have.”
For the last eight years the class has been taught at the Navarino Nature Center. Before that it was taught at J&H Game Farm, where the class still holds its field days. Navarino and J&H, Shulze said, have been very supportive over the years.
“Once I got to their (Navarino Nature Center) facilities, they helped me out tremendously,” he said. “They have a big screen projector; I can plug in a laptop and show videos.
“(J&H Game Farm) always let us come out, and they don’t charge us to shoot sporting clays, .22s, bows, stuff like that, for our field day.”
Schraufnagel and Shulze agree one of the most important groups in supporting hunter safety has been the Woodland Deerhunters—Gresham Chapter.
“The Woodland Deerhunters—Gresham Chapter has been pretty generous,” Schraufnagel said. “They are one of the conservation groups around here that do a lot for a lot of different groups.”
The group also holds a dinner to recognize hunter safety instructors in the area.
According to Schraufnagel, education efforts led by instructors such as Shulze and Hoeffs are having a real impact statewide.
“Thanks to hunters safety, if you look at the statistics, hunting has become more and more safe,” he said. “I think that’s because of the work that they do.”
Hoeffs did not return phone calls from the Leader seeking comment.