A Foundational Calling
For more than 75 years, a calling contest in northern Arkansas has impacted the sport as we know it.
With the NWTF’s Grand National Calling Championships on the horizon, the world’s best turkey callers are more than likely practicing their yelps and kee-kees as you read this, all with the hopes of taking home what is now the most prestigious award in competitive calling.
As callers prepare to descend upon Nashville for the chance to be called the best turkey caller in the country, they continue the tradition of competitive calling that precedes many of us and even the NWTF. It all started in Yellville, Arkansas, 78 years ago.
In the fall of 1946, Yellville’s American Legion Post and local community members created the Yellville National Turkey Calling Contest and Turkey Trot with the intention of bringing awareness to the state’s declining turkey population, which by some estimates was fewer than 10,000 birds.
The event grew over the years to include vendors, live music, dancing, a lip-syncing contest and even a Miss Turkey Trot pageant, featuring a Miss Drumsticks Division in which participants were judged on the beauty of their legs alone, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
A young Preston Pittman – now a turkey hunting legend and GNCC Hall of Fame inductee – remembers being a teenager in those early days of the turkey-centric festival and calling contest and its impact on conservation.
“They had a place for us young folks; it was a two-story building that we went to, and you could feel the whole building shaking from all of us dancing,” he said. “The celebration, the calling contest, going down to the creek and catching crawfish and smallmouth bass – I have very fond memories of Yellville.”
As the contest festival brought awareness to the declining wild turkey population (while also providing folks with a barn-raising gettogether), one of the event’s attendees truly wanted to make an impact.
Either in the late ’60s or early ’70s, Tom Rodgers, who would later found the NWTF in 1973, approached Pittman and some of the other contestants with a vision. Pittman recounts his encounter with the conservation mastermind.
“He came to the back when all the callers were gathering up, and he said he would like five or 10 minutes of our time after the contest,” Pittman reminisced. “He told us about his vision of an organization led by sportsmen to conserve the wild turkey. I’m not going to say he didn’t have these conversations elsewhere, but Yellville, Arkansas, to me, was the [conceptual] birthplace of the NWTF.”
A few years later, Rodgers officially founded the NWTF in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1973. As the NWTF catapulted wild turkey restoration efforts across the country over the subsequent decades, the Yellville National Calling Contest would remain a staple on the competitive calling circuit and continues to provide a platform for veterans and up-and-coming turkey callers alike.
In 1977, the NWTF hosted the first Grand National Calling Championships in Hershey, Pennsylvania, orchestrated by former NWTF CEO Rob Keck. The event has evolved to become the Super Bowl of competitive wild turkey calling and was the centerpiece of the NWTF Convention and Sport Show. And while the world’s best callers are practicing for the 47th GNCC in February 2024, the Yellville Calling Contest is similarly on many callers’ radars. It is one of the oldest calling contests in the country (slightly younger than the World Calling Contest which began in 1940), and many of the greats have their name emblazoned on the trophy passed from winner to winner each year.
Last July, the NWTF Arkansas State Chapter continued sponsoring the contest to keep the heritage alive. NWTF National Board of Directors member Chris Hinkle volunteered, helping tally scores, present awards, and he gave an opening statement about the history of the competition, paying special respects to some of the great ambassadors of the sport who have left us, including Scott Hook, Terry Durham and Gene Denton. He reiterated what makes the Yellville contest continue to feel so special after all these years.
“I grew up competing in turkey calling competitions and have been a spectator to hundreds of calling contests,” he said. “But the feeling you get in the Yellville competition is just an aura of people who have been in that place for a long time, calling to see who could be the best turkey caller. Folks like Ray Eye, Preston Pittman, Joe Drake – many of the people who have impacted turkey hunting and turkey calling have competed in this contest.”
The 2023 Open Division included Coedy Gipson in first place, James Harrison in second place and Bodie Blissitte in third place. Harrison placed first in the King of Champions, and Steve Morgenstern came in second.
As of recently, there has been a resurgence in participation in this legendary calling contest, many of whom are up-and-comers aiming to follow in the footsteps of folks like Pittman – having their name on the Yellville trophy and eventually taking home the win (or two or three) at GNCCs.
As NWTF members, volunteers and partners, we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. As we gather to celebrate the work of the NWTF in Nashville this year and to watch the GNCCs, let us assemble with vision and purpose, just like Rodgers did in Yellville over 50 years ago. The results could be just as profound.