While in the woods squirrel hunting in August 2022, Richard “Rick” Steward received a call from a good friend, Tim Oldham Jr.
He asked Steward if he would return to the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Grand National Calling Championship held annually in Nashville, Tennessee.
Steward, 68, who lives south of Dudleytown, last competed in 2015 and planned to retire from the turkey call making competition.
Seeing some competitors drop out for various reasons in recent years, Oldham told Steward he wanted to bring some old blood back to life.
“I laughed and said I would give it some thought,” Steward said.
The next day, he called Oldham and told him he was looking forward to coming back.
“I came home and sat and thought about it and looked around at what wood I’ve got and picked up a piece and kind of whittled on it for a few minutes,” Steward said. “The next thing I know, I called Tim up, and we had a great conversation. He’s a competitor of mine, and he said, ‘I never feared you, and I know you’ve never feared me, but I would love to have you back.’ Tim told me to step up my game and was glad to have me back in the competition.”
As he began drafting ideas, the sawdust and shavings were piling up. After putting in about 400 hours of work, he finished a box call known as 1864.
Within the first week or so of January, Steward received a call from Bob Fulcher, the competition’s commissioner. He told Steward he heard he was going to make a turkey call for the competition during the NWTF Convention & Sport Show from Feb. 16 to 18.
Fulcher said he wanted to share some fantastic news. For several years, a new program to showcase the world’s best custom call makers had been in the works, and Steward was nominated to be one of the first 32 inductees of the Grand National Competition Custom Call Hall of Fame.
“Catching me off guard, to say the least, I was speechless and humbled by this news,” Steward said. “I thought, ‘Me, one of 32 out of several thousand custom call makers is very humbling.’”
To top it all off, Steward returned home with two medals and a plaque for his showing in the competition. He placed first in the decorative box call carved (not painted) category and third place in best of class.
The box call was the 115th turkey call he has made over the years.
“I like to have a year (to complete one), and I just sat down and next thing I know, I’ve got one working,” Steward said.
He found three pieces of walnut he had traded for a turkey call. The man’s grandfather had cut it in the 1930s on the north end of Seymour.
“It laid underneath his house until his grandfather passed, and then his dad got it and used two or three pieces. He thought there were 10,” Steward said. “I whittled on it for a little bit, and it started turning into a call.”
Each call maker comes up with a theme for their competition piece. Steward kept getting calls from people asking about his theme.
One day, a man called while Steward was reading a story from 1864 about James P. Beckwourth, an American mountain man and fur trapper who was known as “Bloody Arm” because of his skill as a fighter.
“In the spring of 1864, he had killed this turkey. He lost this compass, and a compass back then was your life. He lost his turkey caller he had crafted as a young man,” Steward said. “Knowing from other stories that I’ve read, a compass was his life, and that turkey caller was probably something that he needed to kill the food for the table. It was gone forever.”
Steward told the man his theme would be 1864, and he began drawing some pictures of what his box call would look like.
He decided to incorporate a shortened version of Beckwourth’s story in the lid of the call and a compass on the top of it.
“I started looking at some older compasses on the Internet,” Steward said. “I came up with the mountains to the northeast, sun to the southeast, ocean with a ship to the southwest and the moon to the northwest and just incorporated that out of bone and did a little scrimshaw on it, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll put 1864,’ and decorated it with stippling and scrimshaw.”
He also used walnut to make a base for the box call to sit on.
Steward said it took way more time to complete than he had calculated.
“Every year, if you compete, you’ve got to bump it up just to reach for that next rung on the ladder,” he said.
Steward crafted his first turkey caller in 1976 from a 6-inch piece of 2-by-4 and an old roof slate, painted it green and used a black marker to add a camouflaged look, and the striker was whittled from a piece of hickory.
“It still sounds fantastic,” he said.
Fast forward to 2000 when he and his wife, Maryellen, attended their first NWTF national convention in Columbus, Ohio, he said they were totally amazed with the overwhelming number of turkey calls of all sizes and types crafted by some of the best call makers in the United States.
In 2001, Steward entered the Grand National Competition for the first time and placed third in his division.
“The trophy and ribbon were all it took to put me on the path to the national competition,” he said.
He continued to compete on an annual basis and had three of his award-winning pieces go to the NWTF museum, while others were sold during the live auction at the competition.
As the years passed and having won most everything he thought there was leading up to 2014 and 2015, Steward said he was overwhelmingly blessed to receive top honors as Grand National champion and Call Maker of the Year.
“With this being said, Maryellen and I thought we would step back from the competition and relax as we were moving into retirement,” Richard said. “Staying in close contact with all of our friends and watching the competition from a different perspective, some called it retiring from the competition until August of 2022.”
He had fun getting back into the competition and now is looking toward next year, having already drawn some sketches.
“Every year, you’ve got to top something if you continue to play the game,” Steward said. “I don’t know what that’s going to lead to.”
Over the years, he only has handcrafted about 120 custom turkey calls, each one being different from the next, all numbered and signed. He receives requests for slate calls, turn barrel yelpers, wingbone calls and box calls.
“Those that do make a request for a call don’t seem to mind the wait that could be a good year because they know it’s not a production-made call. It’s one of a kind,” Steward said.
Each day, he said he is so blessed with the God-given ability to handcraft calls and keep up with his honey-do list.
“My life has been a journey being so blessed with a loving family and great friends that have helped carved this path I venture onto every day,” Steward said.
“Most of my support comes from my wife, Maryellen, of 47 years, which helps provide support and a daily devotion for everything I do, whether it be woodworking, hunting, fishing or enjoying the great outdoors, and for the most part, she’s right there with me,” he said. “The friends we made, the fellowship and the learning experience we were blessed with was in itself a memory we will cherish for a lifetime.”