Like many men from rural southern Illinois, Jim Dawe started hunting as a boy with his dad. For nearly five decades, he collected scores of trophies without accident—until 2005. Now 63, the retired U.S. Army first sergeant recalls the November morning he set out on his property, as he often did, hoisting his compound bow and climbing the steel ladder to the 12–foot platform to await his quarry. But this time Dawe began feeling uneasy, lightheaded. Preparing to descend, he slipped from the ladder’s top rung and fell backwards to the ground, breaking his spine. Without cell phone or the ability to move, he was stranded for 14 hours until neighbors found him. He spent the next several months in a hospital.
“I didn’t know if I was going to live, let alone hunt again,” he says.
Dawe did survive, but not unscathed; he’s paralyzed from the waist down. But he can still bag an 11–point deer, thanks to Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, on the northern edge of the Ozark foothills west of Marion, IL, not far from Dawe’s home. For the past 24 years, the refuge has hosted a whitetail deer hunt for the disabled the weekend before Thanksgiving.
“It’s something we really look forward to,” says Dawe, who has participated the past four years.
His hunting partner Ron Reed lost a few toes to diabetes, which makes walking difficult. “I always say, ‘Between the two of us, we’ve got one good leg,’ ” quips Dawe. “But he’s a hell of a friend. He carries my gear. He really works his butt off.”
As do the volunteers who organize the program.
“If we need any help,” Reed says, “we just call ’em up. They’ll help track a deer, field dress it … they’ll even load it up for you at the end of the day.”
Managed entirely by the refuge’s volunteer program, the hunt would be impossible without the individuals who work so tirelessly. They maintain blinds and mow areas around them to facilitate access; they camouflage the blinds before the hunt; and they help any way they can during the hunt.
“Everyone’s assigned their own blind, and they have to stay there, but the area is ideal—there’s a lot more deer there than the rest of the refuge,” says Robert Bush, a retired coal miner who has led volunteer efforts since the event began in 1988.
Bush conceived of the special hunt after the refuge manager asked for a favor. “He knew I liked to deer hunt and asked if I’d take a handicapped guy out with me,” he says. “So I did, but we couldn’t find a good place close to the road. We didn’t get any deer and were both a little disappointed.”
Bush suggested the refuge could improve access for disabled hunters; the refuge manager put him in charge; the program was born. “And it’s just been growing ever since,” says Bush.
Crab Orchard Refuge has provided fertile ground to nurture its growth. Much of its terrain suits the program. Flat roadbeds that date from World War II—when Dawe’s former employer, the U.S. Army, owned the refuge land and manufactured munitions on it—offer plenty of wheelchair–friendly acreage.
The refuge also encompasses much cropland, thus emphasizing the value of hunting as a management tool. “The hunt helps keep deer populations healthy while protecting farmland,” says refuge park ranger Neil Vincent. “We benefit, and so do the hunters.”
Bush says the success of this mutually beneficial arrangement wouldn’t be possible without Vincent’s willingness to accommodate the volunteer effort. “Everything we’ve ever asked for or needed, there’s never been any hemming or hawing,” says Bush. “Neil’s been able to provide.”
With the hunt growing in popularity, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources now runs a lottery to determine 25 individuals who participate each year. Dawe has been lucky to have been drawn the past few consecutive years. Still, he’ll soon prepare his application for the next one—the refuge’s 25th—and is as giddy as a kid about to hunt with his dad.
“I sure hope I get to do it again,” he says.
For those of us who can, let’s keep our fingers—and toes—crossed for him.
Ben Ikenson is a New Mexico–based freelance writer.
