Ben Reach was often asked for advice by quail plantation owners on hiring decisions. It was not for legal advice but people advice, or in modern parlance, Human Resources advice. Ben was known as a sound judge of human beings, of character and management skill, particularly in the quail plantation realm.
For a person to manage traditional quail hunts, horseback and mule-wagon type, the first consideration was safety. This required skill and judgment and what Ben and Sam called First Responder attitude. A person who never lets anything distract them from safety. Character was an equally important trait. Lack of it had ended the careers of many, in plantation management as in all jobs in requiring honesty, and that was all jobs.
It was March. Fly fishing for panfish was much on the curmudgeons’ minds. Ron Silver, owner of Noyankees Plantation, had asked for a meeting with Ben (his lawyer for Georgia-centric problems) and Sam (his personal physician while in Georgia). In summer Ron lived in Massachusetts where he had made and still invested his considerable fortune. He had in Boston other lawyers and physicians.
Joanne, Ben’s PIC, or “Person in Charge”, had set Ron Silver’s appointment for 4 PM on Friday.
“What does he want advice on? “ Ben had asked Joanne when he saw the appointment on his calendar.
“Hiring decision,” she answered.
In addition to being time for bream fishing and woods burning, March was the time of the “Spring Shuffle” for quail plantation hands in the quail belt, that strip of land between Albany and Tallahassee that Robber Barons of the Gilded Age had discovered early in the industrial era (around 1880) as an ideal place to escape northern winter snow and ice and amuse themselves pursuing bobwhite quail.
The Barons had bought up for $6 an acres worn out cotton fields and the long leaf pine turpentine forests surrounding them and turned them into sporting estates on the British model.
They hired local share-cropping Crackers and former enslaved folk to train, care for and handle their wagon mules, saddle horses and pointing dogs and run their winter households, cook their meals, and care for their young and their aged.
It had created a unique culture where rich Yankee snow birds made Thomasville a charming town and a place for natives to find good paying work. The culture continues until today.
In the Spring Shuffle, right after quail hunting season ended, disgruntled hands and disgruntled plantation owners, dissatisfied with their employers or employees, quit or were fired. Employees looked for “greener pastures”, and employer’s looked for better hands. It was as predictable as the emergence of green shoots in the piney woods after the controlled burns.
On Friday, Sam Nixon MD and Ron Silver arrived at Ben’s office precisely at Four. Joanne showed them to the library-conference room where clean glasses and fresh ice cubes awaited beside a fifth of The Macallan 12 and another of Woodford Reserve Bourbon (Ron’s choice).
Ben joined them at 4:15 after finishing an unexpected call from a judge lobbying him to take on mediation of a divorce case the judge did not want to adjudicate (Ben begged off because he had already tried informal mediation at the request of both parties before the suit was filed).
Ben put ice cubes in Ron’s glass and Sam poured two fingers of the Woodford Bourbon on top, then poured two fingers of The Macallan in Ben’s and his glasses. The curmudgeons would not add ice, preferring it warm with a splash of club soda. The three friends toasted one another and fly fishing and took sips.
“Boys, I have to decide whether to offer the Noyankee manager job to one of two candidates, and I am having a hard time deciding between them. That decision is what I need your help on,” Ron said.
“Who are your candidates? Ben asked.
“Billy Grimes and Frank Shaw,” Ron said.
The curmudgeons knew them well.
Grimes was a field-trial-Shooting-Dog-for-the-public handler, Shaw the same for All-Age dogs. They were sons of Lee County farmers and had known one another since first grade. They were both forty, and for the last decade had trained summers together on property near Columbus, North Dakota, July through September.
Billy Grimes had long been planning to leave the trial circuit for a plantation job when he reached forty. He had had enough of life on the road and his wife, an emergency room nurse in Albany, had given him an ultimatum. Their one child, a daughter, would enter public school in September.
Frank Shaw would have preferred to continue working as a handler of trial dogs, but his two best owners had quit the game and without their patronage Frank’s business would not be profitable. His wife was manager of an auto parts store in Leesburg and it had taken both their incomes to support them and their two teenagers, one a high school junior and one a sophomore and both candidates for college soon.
Ben and Sam looked at one another and tried to decide which of them should speak first. A minute of silence ensued, then Ben said, “You would not go wrong with either one.“
The curmudgeons had a special fondness for Billy and Frank for a role they played in the efforts of a wealthy benefactor who paid the costs of sending troubled youth to North Dakota summers to work as dog-and-horse-training helpers for three months. Ben administered the program for the benefactor so his involvement could remain anonymous.
The youths got work and modest wages and the dog handler-trainers got a contribution toward their overhead. They proved adept at “straightening out” youngsters who were on the way to ruining their lives with drugs or alcohol or idleness or all three.
Ben had let juvenile court judges know of the program and several had given juvenile accuseds a chance to work three months with Billy and Frank as an alternative to incarceration. Being tired from physical labor at each day’s end after working in the clean prairie air had proved helpful to many of the troubled youth.
“Where are you in the hiring decision process,” Ben asked Ron Silver.
“They are coming to Noyankee Monday together with their rigs, horses and the dogs they own or can buy from their patrons. They have both told their customers they are leaving the field trial game. They are going to show me the dogs, to see if I want to buy any for Noyankee’s shooting string.”
“Do they know you have narrowed your choice for manager down to just them?” Sam asked.
“No,” said Ron Silver.
This gave Ben an idea.
“How about if Sam and I come to Noyankee and ride the hunt wagon with you Monday while the boys show you their strings. We can discuss the pros and cons of each candidate while we enjoy watching the dogs.”
“That would be great,” said Ron Silver.
After Ron left Ben’s office, chauffeured by his hunt-wagon driver, Andy Blevins, who also served as Ron’s Designated Driver, Ben explained to Sam what he hoped to convince Ron Silver to do on Monday.
For years Ben had been trying to get Ron Silver interested in field trials, but without success. Noyankee Plantation would make ideal trial grounds. Its hunting courses could easily be converted to six one-hour trial courses, and its wild quail population was good, year after year.
“Sam, Ron should hire both Billy and Frank, Billy as his resident plantation manager, Frank as his private field trial handler and bird dog developer. He can easily afford both, and there are times when he needs two hunt managers working at Noyankee, like at Thanksgiving and Christmas. A trial string can also serve as a second wagon string for quail hunts. Electric training collars strapped on signal to a trial dog to search at a hunting range and pace. Billy and Frank can demonstrate that for Ron Monday.”
Sam said, “But you have told me Ron is not interested in Field Trials”
Ben grinned. “But he may be after Monday. He loves good, classy wagon dogs.”
Monday turned out perfect. The weather was cool. and clear. It was too windy for controlled burns, so they were not bothered by smoke.
Frank Shaw’s owners, who were quitting trials, had given Frank their dogs. Among them were two Champions and a coming derby Frank was very high on.
* * * * *
At the end of the day Monday, Ron offered the Manager job to Billy Grimes and a new position for Noyankee Plantation, head dog trainer, to Frank Shaw. Ron made it clear both men would be expected to manage hunts and develop dogs. They could continue to train together in North Dakota July through September to develop Noyankee’s shooting string.
On Ben’s advice, Billy and Frank did not mention Field Trials during the hiring process. Nor had Ben raised the issue with Ron Silver. The clincher with Ron for Ben’s idea to hire both candidates was the quality of the dogs they could make available for Noyankee’s wagon string. Before that Monday Ron had believed the Old Wive’s Tale that trial dogs could not make good hunting dogs.
Now it was up to Ben, with subtle help from Billy and Frank, to make Ron appreciate Field Trials. They believed the Georgia-Florida Field Trial Club could be the key to that. Ron was a member, as had been the prior owner of Noyankee Plantation before him. But to Ron the membership was a social thing, a way to get to know other quail plantation owners. Only plantation owners could belong to that club. He had never entered the lottery to secure a spot for a Noyankee dog in the annual Owners Trial, run every Presidents’ Day since 1916, except war years.
Ben, Billy and Frank conspired to interest Ron in entering. Ben started by saying to Ron on the fateful hiring Monday, “Several of these dogs would make ideal entries in the Yankee Trial” (what Georgia natives called the Owner’s Trial). After Ron hired Billy and Frank, they would from time to time casually mention what they were hearing from other member-plantation hands about dogs they were preparing for the Yankee Trial. This awakened Ron’s competitive instincts.
After their first season working for Ron Silver, he was very proud of Noyankee’s wagon string, which were much better than any dogs he had ever owned before. He made it a point to invite Ben and Sam to observe the dogs in workouts after Frank and Billy returned from North Dakota training them. To Ron’s delight, the curmudgeons heaped praise on his dogs. Ben said, “Ron, you owe it to your boys to try for an entry spot in the Yankee Trial.”
On their drive home in Sam’s car, Sam said to Ben, “It is Ron’s pride that will make him enter a dog in the Yankee Trial, if he does.”
In the third hunting season Billy and Frank worked for Ron Silver, Ron drew an entry spot in the Yankee Trial. He had not told Billy and Frank he was trying. The dog they would enter was the coming derby Frank had brought to Noyankee, now a favorite in the shooting string.
When President’s day rolled around, Ron, Sam and Ben rode in the Noyankee mule-drawn shooting wagon, piloted by Andy Blevins, to watch Dr. Sam compete in the Yankee Trial. The dog had been named “Dr. Sam” in honor of Sam Nixon MD. It scored five perfect finds and earned first place. Ron Silver was finally converted to a field trial fan, as Ben had been hoping for so many years. Next on Ben’s agenda was to make him a field trial devotee.
The Yankee Trial was not a FDSB (UKC) sanctioned trial, so Frank entered Dr. Sam in a local weekend trial without Ron Silver’s knowledge. His purpose was to earn it a placement so it could be entered in the Continental Championship, run every third week of January on Dixie Plantation (now owned by Tall Timbers and renamed at the insistence of Woke directors wives Livingston Place.) Dr Sam won first, so was qualified to enter the Continental Championship.
Up to now, Ron Silver had not authorized Billy and Frank to enter Noyankee dogs in trials other than the Yankee Trial. They both, but especially Frank Shaw, wanted to enter Dr. Sam in the Continental. It was rare to have a dog good enough to be a contender in it, and they knew Dr Sam was that good. They went to see Ben Reach and explained their problem.
Ben conferred with Sam, who said, “If Ron thinks the dog has a real chance to win, he will authorize its entry. He respects your judgment on that issue. You are the one to go to Ron about it.”
So Ben did. And Ron consented. And Dr Sam was called back for the finals, Frank handling, Billy scouting.
Ben and Sam rode the dog wagon during the finals and watched Dr Sam win Runner-Up. That win made Ron Silver a field trial devotee for life. He offered Noyankee Plantation as grounds for the Yankee Trial, the first trial held there.
Then with Ben’s encouragement, Ron Silver held there a trial featuring three stakes, an Open Derby, an Open All-Age and an Open Shooting Dog. The entries were large, many handlers wanting to run on the storied courses, until then private to Ron and his friends.
Ben felt a great sense of accomplishment and pleasure, having converted a quail plantation owner to a trial sponsor, a rare accomplishment, for most were interested only in quail shooting. Ron began entering Noyankee dogs in piney-woods-area trials regularly, Frank handling, Billy scouting.