Longtime hunter ed teacher turns 100

He was born Hollister Pat McVay 100 years ago.

“I was in the third grade before I could spell [Hollister],” McVay joked during a recent interview. “So I always went by Pat.”

If a life is judged by the number of people a person has a positive influence on, then McVay’s life is rich indeed.

McVay got his first .22 rifle at age 6 and shot his first deer at age 10. He shot a trophy elk in the Missouri Breaks at age 88, when most people are eyeing retirement home living or worse.

Over the years, he’s taught thousands of youths the proper way to hunt ethically and how to properly handle firearms. He started the 4-H shooting program decades ago and pioneered hunter education in the state.

In the fall of 1956 he heard of a hunter safety program being taught in the East. He wrote to the National Rifle Association and they sent him the material and he taught his 4-H small bore shooting group the program.

Because of McVay’s effort, the Montana 4-H shooting program today includes over 700 young shooters and is one of the largest programs in the United States.

For 62 years he taught young people the value of hunting and the shooting sports, retiring in 2014 at the age of 92. He always said “time spent teaching a child is never wasted.”

McVay was born outside of Great Falls and moved to Eastern Washington in his youth. He worked on dairy farms as a teenager.

“I put myself through high school pulling teats,” he said with a laugh.

He had to work to help support the family. His father died when he was 12. One farmer he worked for wouldn’t even let him in the living room and they eventually fired him.

“He eats too much,” McVay said, recalling what the farmer said of him.

McVay also ran mule teams pulling a combine. Twenty-two mules. Six-6-4-4-2 was the setup.

“It’s easy to remember when you look at them every day,” he said.

During World War II McVay was a machinist in the Air Force. He served three years, five months and 29 days, he said, remembering it like it was yesterday.

McVay’s grandson Cody Voermans recalled a gift from grandad from his time in the war.

“He gave me a belt buckle that was made from a piece of the firewall plate of a Japanese bomber that dropped a bomb on Pearl Harbor before it was shot down,” Voermans said. He cherishes his experiences with his grandfather.

“I’m very lucky; we have a close relationship and I’ve had fantastic hunting experiences with him well into my 30s,” Voermans said. “He’s just a treasure. He told me stories of when he was young and he’d hear stories from a stage coach driver who had fought in the Civil War. Just so many stories!”

After the war he found work at the Grand Coulee Dam, which led to a job as a dam operator at the Hungry Horse Dam. He transferred to Hungry Horse in 1952 and retired in 1975.

“I started the first generator at Hungry Horse,” he said proudly.

When he wasn’t working, he was in the woods.

In 1938 he bought a .300 H&H Magnum Remington Model 70 for $64. It took awhile to save the money. He was working at a lumber company making 35 cents an hour.

“Old Maggie. I hunted with it every year,” he said. “It was a good gun, a killing gun.”

He shot a deer with it last year, at the age of 99.

There is a lesson in every hunt.

“The beauty of the hunt is hunting. Enjoying the country and beauty and wild and everything that goes with it,” he said. That’s what he aimed to instill in the many young hunters he taught through the decades. “Pull the trigger and the work starts.”

He recalled that aforementioned Missouri Breaks elk. He was with Cody and they put the sneak on two bulls out in the sagebrush, but they spooked and ran away. Some other hunters came by and said they saw the bulls cross a road and go down into a canyon.

McVay and Cody snuck as close as they could, but the bulls were still 425 yards away.

They glassed them over and McVay gave the shot some elevation adjustment and pulled the trigger. He hit the bigger bull in the shoulder, but it didn’t go down. He shot again, saw the dirt puff up from where the bullet hit and made a quick adjustment.

“I punched a whole in him and he dropped right there,” he said.

Cody dressed out the bull ,but McVay said the kindness of strangers helped him get out of the canyon. A couple of hunters gave him a ride on a four-wheeler as he tried to get up the slope.

“I was 88 years old and had a little trouble walking,” he said.

In the summers, McVay often took pack strings into the Bob Marshall Wilderness with the Sullivan family. Over the years he traveled thousands of miles in the Bob and wildlands in Idaho. He once found a crashed airplane that had gone missing deep in the woods near Little Salmon. He just happened to see something red shining down the hillside. The remains of the occupants were gone, save for a few teeth. The full story is chronicled in author John Fraley’s book, “Rangers, Trappers and Trailblazers.”

Fraley had high words of praise for a man he considers a mentor and a friend for decades.

“He has an amazing teaching ability and the kids that learned from him cherished him,” Fraley said. “He has a special connection with kids. They always had a birthday party for Pat during the course.”

Fraley believes McVay’s passion for hunting carried into his teaching.

“It really translated,” Fraley said. “He has a great memory, too, and you will get the unvarnished advice from Pat.”

McVay’s favorite part of the Bob Marshall was the North Fork of the Sun River, with its wide fields of wild timothy and herds of big game.

McVay rarely hunted in the Bob, however. Those were pleasure trips, “just to see the country and do a little fishing,” he said.

McVay built his own house on 40 acres, where he still lives today. His secret to longevity? He eats two cloves of garlic every morning and a shot of whiskey and water at night.

“Four p.m. every day,” he said with a smile.