Chamber names 'Hunts for Heroes' Achiever of the Year
By SHANNON CRABTREE scrabtree@leader-news.com

L-N Photo by Shannon Crabtree Helping The Heroes The El Campo Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture selected Hunts For Heroes as the 2007 Achiever of Year. Pictured (l-r) are Heroes volunteers George McKelvy, Melissa Weinheimer, Philip Urbanovsky, Jack Fisk, Kathleen Appling, Steve Appling, founder Billy Hodges, Patty Hodges, Jerry Hensley, Beverly Hensley, Teresa Treybig and fishing guide "Capt. Hank."

Hunts For Heroes, the El Campo organization dedicated to supplying wounded combat veterans with opportunities for R&R, got an official thankyou for their efforts Thursday night.

The group was selected as the 2007 El Campo Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture's Achiever of the Year.

"I am honored and humbled to accept this achievement award on behalf of Hunts for Heroes," Founder Billy Hodges said. "In the beginning our goal was to simply provide outdoor entertainment for the wounded troops, but it turned into so much more.

"We had no idea what an effect we would have on a wounded soldier, whose mind was as torn and scarred as his body. And we had no idea the effect they would have on us. We have literally seen lives changed before our eyes."

As much about healing as it is about hunting, the organization has already worked with more than 100 battle-battered men and women of the Armed Forces.

And the effort continues to grow. Backed by dozens of volunteers as well as adopted by the El Campo Volunteer Fire Department where Hodges is a retired member, Hunts For Heroes has some activity every month.

The local group works with wounded war veterans on orders to recover at Fort Sam Houston's Brooke Army Medical Center. Many have suffered second- and thirddegree burns while others have suffered from gunshot wounds, shrapnel from mortars or the nightmare of desert duty - an IED (Improvised Explosive Device).

Most of them still do therapy each day, Hodges said.

All of the hunts are free of charge to the serviceman with help provided for expenses in getting to and from the event.

And the program continues to grow.

"In 2008, we are going to start marriage weekends for couples that case workers and chaplains at BAMC identify. They will provide the counseling and we will provide the healing power of the great outdoors," Hodges said. "We have come a long way since our first fishing event two years ago in Palacios. We started with no money, no means of transportation and endless obstacles to overcome at BAMC."

An upcoming documentary on the healing efforts at the San Antonio center will also include Hunts for Heroes, Hodges said.

" While doing research for the film the producer told me one common denominator kept coming up - Hunts For Heroes," he said. "He told me we are a major factor in healing of emotional scars. Many times those wounds are worse than the physical wounds that can be seen."

Hunts For Heroes is Hodges' way of keeping a promise he made to himself in 1971.

In the Atlanta airport, a young woman requested a check-in attendant not seat her by a serviceman.

"That night in 1971 I made a promise to myself to do all I could to see that a member of the military never again be treated

the Year

in such a way as we were," he said. "I was never spat upon in airports as returning Vietnam veterans were, but all of us in uniform were ostracized in one way or another in those days."

Hodges served in the U.S. Army and the Texas National Guard from 1971 to 1979.

Since then, he became active in the national Soldier's Angels support organization which sends care packages to the troops and Operation Comfort which focuses on wounded servicemen.

His organization, Hunts for Heroes, has chapters in South Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi and California.

Whistling Wings Duck Club, owned by Steven and Ed Weinheimer, has become very involved in the effort.

Steven Weinheimer, who is on the organization's board, served the nation during the first Gulf War assigned as a scout in a Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle with the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment during Operation Dessert Storm in 1991.

Other board members include Jack Fisk, a World War II veteran, a retired four-star general in the Texas National Guard and former state representative; as well as Assistant El Campo Volunteer Fire Chief Philip Urbanovsky, firefighter Darrell Smith, Steve Urbanovsky and El Campo EMS Director Steve Appling.