March 27th, 2010 50th Anniversary Hunt Ball

     
     Pre-Ball                             Dinner                        Dancing                   Historical Photos

The picture below shows how we hauled the hounds to the hunt fixture when the hunt started. The license plate on the trailer shows this picture was taken in 1963. The first kennel was on Dr. Dilley's (sic) farm on Wilmington Pike. Then the kennel was moved to a place Harry Jones owned in Bellbrook. Around 1963 the Whalens and Helen Sproat purchased Locust Wood Farm which was the hunts home as long as I was hunting. Hounds were hauled in a trailer until the hunt moved to Locust Wood Farm. At that time Jack Reeder came up with a "hugh" trailer for hauling the hounds. Eventually Herb Whalen and I built an enclosure for Herb's pickup truck. I don't know how long the Whalen's pickup was used, but it is only one of the ways they helped the hunt. Regards, Dave Striley

From Dave Striley - Our First Huntsman

I graduated from college in June and the initial meeting for organizing a hunt was held in August. When I graduated from school I had been married for two years and my wife was expecting. Apparently Chet N. was going to the meeting because Peter knew him at Wright Paterson. Chet was an aircraft mechanic as a result of his service in the Army Air Corp in WW II. I knew Chet because he had worked at Camargo when first discharged from the military. Chet was able to get a job at Wright Pat. Occasionally, when Chet was in the Cincinnati area he would stop at the stables. When Chet found out I was a co-op at NCR in Dayton, he invited me to come to his house for dinner at times during my work sections. Chet was the one who called me and told me that I needed to attend the meeting. Since Chet was my only contact about the meeting you can see it was almost an accident that I was there. At the meeting I offered to help in any way I could. With no money, I expected to be a pair of hands on the ground. Much to my surprise, I got a call and was told that I was the honorary huntsman for the newly formed hunt. I had many years experience with horses, but all my experience hunting was on green horses at the back of the field and mostly during the cubbing season. I called down to the Camargo Hunt and got permission to ride with their huntsman for several hunts to "hone" my skills. Howard Lewis was working for A.J. Long at this time and gave me mounts for this training. The next problem was a horse to hunt. Fortunately Chet had a big chestnut gelding that I had been on several times while visiting for dinner and he was available. I hunted Bright Midas for a year and then Herb Whalen purchased him and hunted him for a number of years. The second year I hunted Phyllis's old horse Colonel and Honey Hammer's mare Ashes. For the third year I purchased a horse I named Credit. A friend at work and I went on our lunch hour at NCR to see a horse advertised in the Dayton Daily News. I was penny less, but fortunately my friend was a bachelor and allowed to carry money and financed the deal until I got to the Credit Union. After several years Credit was sold and that's how we get to the horse in the picture. At the time of the Dayton Horse Show I still needed a horse to hunt. Howard Lewis, who my now was in Chagrin Falls, agreed to loan me a horse for the hunt season. The picture was the day I brought him from Cleveland. The horses name was Wings of Fire and is being held by Stephanie Harlan in the picture. I was lucky that Stephanie went with me to Cleveland to pick him up. While there Howard offered to give me a big horse that had come off the track and kept going sore when they tried to work him. I asked Stephanie if I had a place to keep him. She said yes and this was without her parents permission. However, there was no problem because the Harlan's were glad to let me keep the horse on their Hillsbourgh farm for the winter. Note, also in the picture that the trailer used belonged to "Granddad" Karl Wildason, who took good care of me by letting me use his trailer until I later bought my own. Also, the white Ford Station wagon is one of three that I purchased from Herb Whalen. These were great buys because Herb really-really-really took good care of his cars. The give-me horse that I named Beyond Belief but called Big. I hunted for many years and Jack Heck had several good hunts on him as well Hope this is not so long it got boring.

Photos by Herb Whalen