By Kylie Blanchard, Staff Writer
This weekend marks the fourth annual Hunting Dakota with Roosevelt event, which honors the state's military, raises money for the fight against cancer and incorporates the North American Model of Conservation on the very land where Theodore Roosevelt lived and hunted.
The weekend provides military returned from deployment the opportunity to reconnect with other veterans, and also supports patients battling cancer, thanks landowners, volunteers and sponsors, and builds camaraderie among a group of connected individuals through hunting.The photo above, taken by Monte Rogneby, shows the 2010 Hunting Dakota with Roosevelt participant.
Military personnel mobilized more than 30 days after September 11, 2001 are eligible to participate in the event. North Dakota National Guard soldiers are sent letters to submit an application online and soldiers of various ranks are chosen. Sponsors, landowners and master huntsmen also volunteer their time; along with military attache, military participants who return as volunteers. The group has also been joined by Tweed Roosevelt, the great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Ted McKnight, former Kansas City Chiefs running back.
The event begins with a banquet and social on Friday night at the Bismarck Elks Club. Early Saturday morning participants travel with their hunting teams to western North Dakota to hunt and the day concludes with a banquet in Medora to honor the event's landowners and volunteers. On Sunday the teams again hunt and then travel back to Bismarck where the event wraps up with a grilled lunch.
Hunting Dakota with Roosevelt was the brain child of Roger Krueger, a former American Cancer Society staff executive and current president of the Great Plains Benefit Group, after he began thinking of ways to combine his passions for the military, the fight against cancer and the sportsmen/landsmen relationship.
In 2008 he asked Jon Hanson, a retired North Dakota Army National Guard colonel and current North Dakota Game and Fish hunter education coordinator, to join him in putting together the event; and, along with the support of the Bismarck Cancer Center, sponsors and volunteers, 10 Army and Air National Guard members on five hunting teams participated in the first annual event.
Since that time, 44 military members have been honored through a weekend of hunting and camaraderie in western North Dakota and more than $100,000 has been raised for the Bismarck Cancer Center Foundation with the help of a growing number of sponsors and volunteers.
This year's event will host 16 military members on 11 hunting teams. Event sponsors and hunting partners are traveling from across North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Minnesota, and Maryland to participate. It is also expected close to 140 people will be in attendance at Friday night's banquet and over 150 individuals will attend the landowners recognition banquet in Medora on Saturday night, where over 20 landowners will be honored.
This is truly an event that is making a lasting impact on many individuals in North Dakota and will likely continue to do so well into the future. "We started out to give our participants the hunt of a lifetime," says Krueger. "But I think we may have given them a bit more."
Hunting Dakota with Roosevelt is featured in the Fall 2011 issue of North Dakota Horizons, on newstands now. Be sure to pick up a copy to learn more about this great event. For additional information you can also visit the event's website at www.huntingdakotawithroosevelt.com.
