BGC TEAM GOES TO WORLD IN STUTTGART!

At last count, 65 callers have qualified for the 2007 World Championship of Duck Calling, including three Memphians who aren’t just competitors.

They’re also co-workers, friends and former college classmates.

To say competitive duck calling is in their blood would be an understatement for Jeremy Romain, Rich Wilkes and Todd Foxx, who have taken their love of waterfowl hunting to competitive duck calling’s highest level – a chance to display their talents on the stage at downtown Stuttgart, Ark., on Nov. 24.

Romain, Wilkes and Foxx have sharpened their duck calling skills under the tutelage of Buck Gardner, World Champion and Champion of Champion duck caller and president of Memphis-based Buck Gardner Calls, where the three Stuttgart-bound callers work as technician call tuners and videographers.

“All of us have been working on calls for a long time and blowing duck calls since we were little kids,” says Romain, at 26 the oldest of the group. “We all looked up at the guys who have blown in the (World) contest. Since I have been competing, it’s been a dream to go to Stuttgart.”

For that matter, it’s a dream come true not only for Romain, whose hometown is Kenexa, Kansas, but also Wilkes, 23, of LaSalle, IL. and Foxx, 23, of Fort Scott, Kansas. The trio met at a Ducks Unlimited chapter meeting when they were in college at Kansas State. Romaine has a degree in business administration; Wilkes studied wildlife biology and Foxx was in parks management and conversation.

“I’m excited and nervous at the same time,” Wilkes says. “It’s been great to be here (in Memphis), where I have Todd and Jeremy to help me out. Duck calling wasn’t my forte. I started out as a goose caller. Todd and Jeremy, and, of course, Buck, have really helped me to get to where I am now.”

Foxx admits he’s surprised at qualifying for Stuttgart.

“I haven’t been in the competition thing for very long,” says Foxx, who qualified for Stuttgart at the Grand American Regional during the Reelfoot Waterfowl Festival. “I really didn’t expect to get qualified this year. It was a really big accomplish for me to be able to do that.”

Like everything else, Romain, who shares a home with Foxx and Wilkes in North Memphis, says it all boils down to practice, practice. .. . and more practice.

“At this point we’ve all got our (90-second World Championship) routines established,” says Romain, who qualified for the World Championship at the Kansas City Waterfowl Festival’s Show Me Regional. “We won with a set routine and we don’t plan on changing that at this point. We’re just driving that routine into our heads.”

Wilkes, who’ll celebrate his birthday on the day of the World Championship, says “It’s going to be more of a mental thing for me. Everything changes from when you are blowing back in the (company) shop and when you step on a stage, especially that World stage. You’ve got the best there with everybody watching and looking at you. It’s all about practice and blowing the best I can.”

For sure the BGC trio spends countless hours in the company’s warehouse located off Airways in the Defense Depot Industrial Park blowing calls in an effort to make sure they are hitting on what Foxx calls “all cylinders.”
Blowing in the shop, however, can’t compare to being front-and-center at Stuttgart, where several thousand spectators – not to mention the judges – are watching their every move . . . and sound.

“I feel like I can blow pretty well out in the shop, but when I get on that stage it’s just a matter of staying focused and not letting your head take over,” Foxx says with a laugh.

All three have been to Stuttgart, but never to watch the World Championship.

Romain, who jokes that he has a PhD in duck calling from K-State, says he made a pact when he started competitive duck calling that he wouldn’t go to the World Championship until he’d qualified as a contestant.

“I’m sorta the stubborn sort and I told myself I was not going to go to the world contest until I actually qualified for it,” he says. “This year I finally get to go.”

As for Gardner, he isn’t just their boss. He’s also their coach, mentor, co-worker and friend.

“We ask Buck for advice every day,” Romain says. “That’s one of the key things that has helped all of us out is being exposed to the calling industry all the time and having Buck there to help us with the little corrections in our routine.”

It’s also about the experience, says Wilkes, who’ll also compete in the World Goose Calling Championship on Nov. 8.

“You’ve got to get on the stage,” Wilkes says. “The more you’re on the stage the more comfortable you feel up there. To me, that’s a big, big thing.”

Nerves are part of the experience, too.

Foxx, who qualified for Stuttgart at the U.S. Open Regional in Nashville in mid-September, admits to getting nervous when he gets on stage.

“We go to shows all the time and I’ll sit there and blow and it doesn’t bother me,” Foxx says. “But put me on the stage and I’m the only one standing up there and I know there is someone behind the curtain judging me, I mean, my knees get to shaking. I get butterflies. It’s an adrenalin rush, but to be truthful that’s really a reason I like to do it.”

Gardner, of course, is happy for not only the three qualifiers who work at his company, but also the three other Buck Gardner Calls Pro Staff members who have also qualified – Shane Rossen (Washington State), Nate Bowden (South Dakota State) and Rob Bevins (Kentucky State). In fact, BGC has the third most callers thus far who have qualified for the World Championship.

“This is just like having your own kids qualify to go and compete in Stuttgart,” Buck says. “All six of these young men are not just good callers, they are good folks. They make me proud everywhere they go.”

As for competition between Romain, Foxx and Wilkes, there is none, they say.

“We’re not there to try and beat each other,” Foxx says. “Obviously we all want to win, but if one of us wins, that’s good. We’re all in for that.”

One thing’s for certain – all three will be blowing a BGC’s Kryptonite Acrylic Call at Stuttgart.

“We’ve had a lot of fun with that call,” Wilkes says.

The Krypto, as Buck likes to call it, is loud.
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“It’s loud enough to wake the dead,” Buck says with a laugh. “It’s extremely loud on top and it has a big sound. It’s not a high-pitched narrow sound. It has absolutely the best bottom line duck sound of any contest call I’ve ever heard.”

Growing up in Kansas, Romain never dreamed he’d make it to the World Duck Calling Championship by way of Memphis. .. and especially with two of his best friends in the field.

“This is one of those things that materialized that you can’t explain,” Romain says. “Going to work for Buck was an opportunity that none of us could turn down. Now, it’s amazing that we’re all going to Stuttgart. I know it’s a dream come true for all us.