It brings me the utmost pleasure to write you this letter today. My name is Katie Bales, and I am 26 years old. My father, Robert Bales, has been one of the Whitetail Institute’s most loyal customers for almost 20 years. My father is without a doubt the hardest working person I have ever known. He has made a living as an auto mechanic, owning and managing his own shop, some weeks working every day. He also spends a lot of quality time with our growing family, setting up decoys in the backyard to teach his granddaughters how to shoot a bow and arrow. Somehow, every year he still manages to spend countless hours throughout the year working on the 886-acre hunting property. It is because of the countless hours that he spends working on the hunting property, deer season is always successful for him and all of the members of the hunting club.
One of my father's coined sayings is, when life gets tough “anything worth having is worth working for,” which I have applied to every aspect of my life, especially deer hunting. Deer hunting is not for the faint-of-heart. It’s early mornings, long days and a ton of hard work in between. But it is most definitely worth every moment. This past deer hunting season, I was determined to get my first deer. Finally, my big moment came this past season. I got my first doe! I will forever cherish these moments, spending quality time with my dad out in the woods. I cannot thank Whitetail Institute enough for everything they do to not only make the sport of hunting successful for their customers but also providing a means for tradition and values that is instilled within the sport of deer hunting. Currently, I am a doctoral candidate pursing a Ph.D. in vision science. I can say without a doubt, that the lessons I have learned while hunting can absolutely be applied everywhere else in life. So the saying reigns true, “anything worth having is worth working for.” 