As a certified volunteer Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Hunter Education Instructor and certified 4-H Shooting Education Instructor I have had the pleasure of working with Muck Boots.

The partnership that has formed allows me to teach children and young adults shooting sports, hunting and outdoor skills through both the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (as a volunteer Hunter Education instructor) and through the Cedar Mountain 4-H Shooting Sports Club in Culpeper Virginia. The partnership allows me to teach with state-of-art accessories with the class participants and their parents. The kids are exposed to Muck boots, through the classes and club activities that I teach. All this takes place in the class room and outdoors.

I typically teach anywhere from 250 to 500 kids a year through DGIF and I have a base of kids in the 4-H club. After seeing the Muck products in action (I wear and talk about the boots during the classes and the outdoor learning sessions) they kids will ask “where can I get these boots”. I have referred hundreds of parents to your boot line and make countless indirect sales. In addition to the teaching that I do with the DGIF and 4-H, I will be doing a youth upland game hunting workshop this fall. My intent is to allow kids who don’t get to enjoy the outdoors to get into the outdoors and teach them about upland bird hunting and the environment. We will start by teaching the kids and their parents’ gun safety and ethics. Then we will instruct the kids on how to safely and ethically shot a shotgun. We will do this using clay targets. After lunch we will take the kids on a pheasant hunt with a dog and give them the opportunity to harvest two pheasant and enjoy the outdoors. This will be done with 20 youths.

The pictures that I have attached are of my 4-H Shooting Sports Club. I teach leadership and life skills in 4-H and use the shooting sports as an instrument for the kids to learn. Following the 4-H motto, we “Make the Best Better”. The pictures are from the recent Department of Game and Inland Fisheries annual Hunter Education Challenge competition that is held in Appomattox Virginia at Holiday Lake. The Cedar Mountain 4-H Shooting Sports Club fielded two teams. One was a junior team and the other a senior team. Both teams competed in 3D archery, sporting clays (shotgun), rifle, outdoor skills (compass and map), and an ethics trail. The competition was completed with a written Hunter Education test and animal identification test. The senior team placed second overall in the competition in rifle and third overall in Hunter Education knowledge and animal identification. The junior team finished third overall in rifle.

I look at Muck boots as true partners in helping me teach the shooting sports and leadership to the children of Virginia. I can’t say enough good things about them. I can sum it all up in two words…thank you.

Sincerely,

Glenn Waleska
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Volunteer Hunter Education Instructor #5640 and Cedar Mountain 4-H Shooting Sports Club – Adult Leader