There’s no doubt organizations like the NRA’S Youth Hunter Education Challenge foster a passion and respect for the outdoors in boys and girls from sea to shining sea.

A living, walking, talking, fishing and hunting testament to that is Larry Gaspard Jr. of New Iberia, among others who have been in the Jeanerette Youth Hunter Education Club. At 28, Gaspard still talks about the benefits of those years he spent in JJHEC.

“They just don’t teach you how to shoot a gun,” Gaspard said Friday morning.

The YHEC, he said, emphasizes hunter safety, ethics, responsibility and the laws, as well as orienteering and wildlife identification and, of course, the correct way to shoot firearms and archery equipment.

He learned those well during his years with the JJHEC. He qualified through state competition for nationals and attended the prestigious and highly competitive YHEC National Championship in 2010 at Mansfield, Pennsylvania.

Gaspard, the son of Larry Sr. and Sarah Gaspard, showed then he was part of the future generation of responsible and ethical hunters and outdoorsmen. He hasn’t forgotten as he gets ready to usher in another Jeanerette Ducks Unlimited Chapter general membership banquet Thursday at the West St. Mary Civic Center.

He attended his first DU banquet at the Ward 8 Recreation Center in Jeanerette at age 10. 

His days in JJHEC are driving him as chairman of the Jeanerette DU Chapter, the Cargill mechanic said.

“I just want to preserve the coast and wetlands so the younger generation has a place to hunt and fish like I did growing up,” he said, noting he welcomes girls and boys who are getting to the age to hunt and fish to the banquet.

Gaspard and his wife, Tanya Bramande Gaspard, have a 4-month-old girl, Charlotte Ann Gaspard. He wants to keep the status quo outdoors going for her, too.

His favorite motto is one promoted by Vermilion Parish Sheriff Michael A. Couvillon, which reads: “Kids Who Hunt and Fish Don’t Steal and Deal.”

Young DU members are called Green Wings and he is hopeful of seeing plenty of GWs on Thursday.

Other Teche Area boys and girls who were in that program and the Acadiana YHEC have gone on to be leaders in their respective fields as endeavors, people who are role models for younger outdoorsmen, such 2015 state Wildlife & Fisheries Agent of the Year Scott Dupre of Charenton.

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Another local bucks for ducks event is just around the corner. The New Iberia Ducks Unlimited Chapter’s annual Sponsor Dinner is scheduled for Nov. 8, at the Gougenheim Building at 101 W. Main St. in New Iberia. Sponsorships are $350 each.

The popular event will be held from 6-9 p.m. Online ticket sales end  Nov. 7, according to www.ducks.org. For more information, call Jason Foster, chapter chairman, at 637-3439.

 

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.