I would like to dedicate this historical account of Peasants for Pheasants to my father, Warren Michener Sr. Because of him many hunters have hunted the northern plains of South Dakota and had good hunting and great fellowship. Dad so much loved South Dakota and its people that he truly wanted other people to have the wonderful experience of taking part in the pursuit of its state bird the Pheasant. I would also like to give special recognition to Bernice Michener, Warren’s wife, whose Irish memory is still sharp at eighty-eight and provided many of the names and dates that I just did not know. By the way, she also let Dad travel to his beloved South Dakota whenever he felt the need to experience one of his favorite past times-HUNTING.

In the spring of 1943 CPT Warren Michener was transferred from Oak Ridge Tennessee to Chicago Illinois to secure refrigeration for the atomic energy program. The refrigeration was to be sent to Oak Ridge to store something called “heavy water”. For those of you who knew Warren Sr. you can easily understand that it didn’t take long once he hit Chicago to find a few people who would like head west in October to hunt in this wild land known as South Dakota. As a member of the US Army Engineering Corp he had access to shot shell ammunition and during the war this was something few people could find. So with a “few “ cases of shot shells he and the first group of five headed to South Dakota. The first Fab five were Warren, George Russell, Bernie Halperin, Estes Smith and Ack Miller. They drove just over the border in north eastern South Dakota and landed in a little farming town called Bryant.

In 1943 hunting was a matter of knocking on doors or finding a friendly bar or café and asking people if you could hunt. The group of five staked themselves out in Bombacks Café and there they met Selmer Vorseth (remember the name Vorseth because it becomes very important later on in the story). Selmer turned out to be a life long friend who not only let the boys hunt but also housed them until the group got so big they had to move to the Bryant Hotel. The boys would repay Selmer and his lovely wife Margarie with a gift each year. Those gifts included such things as toasters, a mixmaster and oh yes, shot shells. The Vorseth’s had a son by the name of Marvin and he and his wife Doris took over for the older folks when they were no longer able. Doris past away some time ago, but Marvin past away only last November. All of the original Vorseths’ were wonderful people who played a large part in the early hunting history and are very much missed.

The story goes that during the early years you were allowed five roosters and two hens a day. I don’t really know about those two hens a day. It always sounded to me as a way to cover up shooting mistakes. In any event the original limits were more generous than they are today and apparently they were obtained each hunting day. Both my mother and father would tell me stories about the boys driving back to Chicago with a few days limit of unclean birds and my mother’s and father’s small apartment became the cleaning station. This only happened a few times and my mother put an end to three or four weeks of pheasant feathers flying everywhere in her small living area.

During the early years the name Peasants for Pheasants came to be. When the majority of the group was in the service they had little to no money but always found a way to have just enough to go pheasant hunting. And that’s how Peasants for Pheasants got its name. Each person who reads this has seen the Peasant for Pheasants logo. I’m not really sure when it was created however I think it was in the middle fifties. One of the most frequently asked question is about the hand and ear on the logo. It came about when Warren Sr. was explaining how they were going to hunt a farm one Sunday in October and began to swear and use the Lord’s name as it was not intended to be used on Sunday. The farmer who owned the farm (not the Vorseth’s) came over to Warren Sr. and grabbed him by the ear and led him off the property and told him because of his bad language on Sunday he and his group could not hunt. Apparently this was such an event it became part of the heritage of the group.

After 1945 the group began to grow. Warren Sr. moved to St. Louis after the war and joined Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. Mallinckrodt was working on nuclear medicine and some of the guys from Oak Ridge came to St. Louis to join the project. From this business connection he met numerous people from the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and began using pheasant hunting as a customer entertainment. Mallinckrodt began to pay for the hunting trips. It truly was no longer PEASANTS for Pheasants. The group now included John Francis, Joe Gorman, Andy McAlister, Frank Crimes, Ted Wamstead and John Autenreith. John Autenreith was Warren Sr. roommate in college and along with the rest of the group worked in either the chemical or pharmaceutical industry. As I understand it, they all became great friends and much business was sealed during those early hunting trips.

The group stayed pretty much together and hunted the Bryant area until the birds began to disappear in the early 1960’s. Andy and Warren Sr. then began a quest to find a new hunting area that had birds. They settled in Roscoe South Dakota just west of Aberdeen on a farm owned by a very interesting character by the name of Ed Roesch. Ed had a beautiful farm with tree groves and Soil Bank fields everywhere. Peasants for Pheasants were once again in the birds.

In 1967 many of the old group had either past away or were just too old to hunt. Andy and Warren Sr. decided to begin to bring in new blood with younger legs. Dad made a call to Fort Riley Kansas and asked if I would be interested in joining the group for my first hunting trip to South Dakota. I was recently married and was somewhat concerned about leaving my new bride all alone on an army base. She convinced me to go and I hopped a Piper Cub from Fort Riley to Kansas City and from Kansas City to Aberdeen. Dad picked me up and drove in the middle of the night to an abandoned farm house in the middle of the prairie in north central South Dakota . The name of the abandoned farm house was lovingly called the “ Roesch Hilton”. As already mentioned our host was quiet a character. Inside the “Roesch Hilton” was an endless collection of church organs. There were so many that it was very difficult to get around. When we went up to the main farm house for breakfast it was not unusual to have one of Ed’s miniature horses in the kitchen as an invited guest for the meal. (Yes, this was long before I started drinking).

The pheasant hunting was always pretty good, and we always enjoyed the extra bonus of Hungarian Partridge shooting. These little birds are fast fliers that provided everyone with excellent sport and excellent table fare. But, as often happens, the Pheasants went away along with the Huns and the group again moved. The primary reason for the birds declining in the Roscoe area was due to the end of the Soil Bank program and consequently the end of the habitat.

Once again Andy and Warren Sr. went on a road trip to find the birds in 1979. They originally were interested in finding hunting land near Redfield which had been known as a real hot spot for a good number of years. However, as luck would have it, they began knocking on doors in the Mitchell area which turned out to be the best thing that ever could have happened.

One of the farms families they approached were people who knew Doug and Sharon Koch and also were aware that they maybe interest in having hunters. Andy and Warren Sr. were directed towards the Koch’s farm and met with Doug and Sharon and from that day forward there has been a great friendship with the whole Koch family and probably the best hunting of my life.

When the PFP group descended on Doug and Sharon they were just married and living in an old two story farm house that had been moved from another farm to a location just about thirty yards to the east of their current home. Everyone, hunters and family alike, all stayed in the same house. For those of you who have been lucky enough to hunt at Doug and Sharon’s you will certainly recall the wonderful breakfasts. It was a great way to start a day. Then the hunt would begin. In the early years we would start hunting on public land and often would limit out before we went anywhere else. After five or six years the hunts began in Ed Artz’s square shelter belt. Up until 1993 most of our best hunting was in the area that went under water during the flood and has remained unsuitable for hunting to this day. That single act of nature certainly changed the dynamics of the great hunting we enjoyed at Doug and Sharon’s.

In about 1985 the area around the Koch’s was hit very hard by a severe drought. The birds were few and far between that year and Warren Sr, being the excellent leader he was, decided to see if he could develop an alternate plan for hunting. His idea was to go all the way back to the beginning and hunt the Vorseth’s in Bryant. He called Marvin (Selmer and Margarie had passed away) and got permission to hunt his land. The hunting in Bryant was not much better and Marvin mentioned that his son Jeff was working on a ranch in Winner, South Dakota owned by a family by the name of the Mill’s. He also mentioned that Jeff said there were a lot of birds. Those words were magic to our ears. We contacted Jeff and got an invitation to drive to Winner and hunt the next day. The Mill’s farm looked much different in those days and I’ll never forget the first time we rolled into their farm yard. As we entered a half dozen roosters erupted from a little tree grove that was right on the edge of the driveway. Everyone knew we had found pheasant mecca.

The hunting at the Mill’s was always good up until recently when the farm began to be leased for row cropping. Most days we hunted the Mill farm we limited out. We normally would travel from the Koch’s to Winner one or two days per trip, depending on the birds in Stickney. It was always fun but the group did tire of the two hundred mile trip, especially if we had to clean birds when we got home.

In about 1993 Dad and I stopped hunting together and it really changed the make up of the group. Dad continued to hunt with the Koch’s in Stickney with his group of PFPer’s. In 1993 my son Jeremy and I went up later in the year and hunted the Koch’s and thanks to a borrowed female setter by the name of Camie we had a great hunt.

During the flood year of 1993 Dr. Dave Maddsen, the gentleman from whom I borrowed the little setter, asked if I would like to go to southern Illinois and hunt quail. Never turning down such an offer we headed towards Litchfield Illinois and I was introduced to Jim Brubaker and Earl Schmidt. Jim introduced me to quail and Earl introduced me to the deadly “HOMER”. This single introduction of these two gentlemen once again changed PFP. Jim and Earl provided great quail hunting weekend after weekend. I really felt guilty because hunting my spots in Missouri was an exercise in futility and I needed to come up with something to repay these guys. Pheasant hunting was my answer. Earl was not able to go the first year, 1995, but Jim could and we had a great hunt with the Koch’s. Jim had never seen the concentration of bird he did on that trip and when he got home he sold Earl for the following season. This really began a new era. Earl , Jim, Earl’s son Todd and I went up one October and had a great time. Birds were everywhere and a group of ole quail hunters had little trouble harvesting a limit each day.

With Jim and Earl excited about South Dakota our ranks now began to swell. Norm Ruhl, Herb Robinson and Lyle Hart joined the group as well as people from Malinmor Hunt Club. We originally stayed at the Buffalo Trails Motel in Winner(not worth the price of the room). We then moved to a bed and breakfast just south of town(again, not worth the price). By this time Jon Hittman had joined the growing group of hunters and was adding great value in dogs and shooting skills. Also Jon had ferreted out some “modern “ homes in Calome to rent. Ten men and one bathroom was not what we wanted, and the next year the Holiday Inn Express in Winner opened and we staked claim to some rooms. As a side note, many years earlier Warren Sr. had been kicked out of the Holiday Inn in Mitchell and I was always concerned they may draw a parallel to my name through the national reservation system and give us trouble. Fortunately that never happened and we are treasured guests to this day.

In August 2000 Chuck Mills called me and said he knew of some land for sale and he was of the impression it was fairly good hunting. My wonderful wife Cathy and I drove to Winner in the August heat and drove around this beautiful farm we now own. It’s a miracle we decided to purchase the land after standing at the house in a thirty mile an hour wind and 104 degree temperature. But we decided to adjourn to the Peacock Bar where we could view this deal in more favorable surroundings with adult beverages as an aid. The rest is history and we have been happy with our decision ever since.(Great decisions can be made in funny places).

By this time my father and I had began to hunt together again and he decided to leave his group in Stickney and join us in Winner. These were the final years he hunted, and the final years of his life. I like to think Dad was happy his final hunting in South Dakota was on land owned by his family. He sure looked happy those final years and I really hope he knew the profound influence he had over the last sixty year of so many people enjoying the sport he so loved. Don’t we all hope we can climb fences and hunt well into our eighties. After Dad left his PFP group from Stickney I have lost all touch and I really don’t know anything to report on that group. They are no longer hunting in Stickney.

The Winner group began hunting at many places to include the Mills’, The Heritage Farm and various other places where we would purchase one day hunting rights. This became very important as the number of trips tripled and the group got pretty large. The most interesting new relationship we have is with the The Heritage Farm people. They have a very similar philosophy to us and are just good guys. Hopefully we can expand our relationship and that is being work on currently.

As mentioned, the number of groups tripled. PFP wanted the original group to hunt opening week, but we also wanted to have a trip for fathers and sons or fathers-in-law and sons-in-law so we could introduce young blood into the aging group. After that group was set up and established we also wanted more of a winter hunt so now there is a December trip for those who just can’t get enough.

In May of 2006 Jon Hittman, Dan Bean and I formed PFP Holding Company LLC for the purpose of purchasing hunting and farming land in the Winner area. Since then two pieces of property have been purchases and have been hunted by the group every trip since. In addition to the land purchases an additional partner has been added, Joel Leyden. Joel was the perfect fit for our group as he has the same philosophy on conservation and the overall protection of the environment and he lives in the community.

This pretty well explains the history up to today. Where we will go in the future is really anybodies guess. Speaking personally, if it takes us to Bryant, South Dakota or to Winner, South Dakota I really don’t think it matters as long as we have the great fellowship and great memories. If five roosters pop out of the prairie and Earl and Jim harvest all five or if we get the chance to hunt with our kids or if Max, Billy, Coeur or Jake make one of those unbelievable retrieves, that really is what is important Here’s hoping, with a little Irish luck and help from the Almighty, we can all live the history for a long time..