Local efforts make program to help veterans a success
BROKEN BOW – The continued success of Elks Lodge #1688 Deer Hide Program is attributed to repeated assistance from the surrounding community.
Local businesses like Gateway Motors, Evans Feed, Merna Pack and Bow Booterie are credited with helping the lodge and its Hide Chairman, Earl Hansen, collect hides that directly benefit wheelchair bound veterans.
On Nov. 10, Hansen retrieved the first donated hide of the 2021 deer season from a collection bin at the north end of the Gateway Motors car lot. Another bin is located at Merna Pack. Both bins are cleared on a regular basis.
By mid-January, 2022, the hides collected by Broken Bow’s and seven other Elk’s Lodges throughout the state will be shipped to Tennessee where they are tanned and manufactured into gloves for wheelchair bound veterans.
“We’re going to display a pair of the gloves at Bow Booterie,” Hansen stated. “That way, people can come in and see what happens to the hides they drop off.”
Hansen said there were nearly 855 hides collected in Nebraska and around 17,000 collected nationwide in 2020. The driver who hauls the hides to a tannery in southeast Tennessee is from Missouri. His pickup truck is decaled with Deer Hides for Veterans and is attached to a sizable trailer.
Once cleaned, the hides are taken to another location where the gloves are made. Strong, soft and pliable gloves, padded for extra comfort, are created for both winter and summertime use.
Broken Bow’s Elks Lodge began taking part in the collection about 15 years ago when Hansen was the lodge’s Hide Co-Chairman and a mechanic at Gateway Motors. When Hansen retired in 2021, he had been employed with the company for nearly 60 years. Even though Hansen is no longer a company employee, he is treated like one and can use equipment there for the program.
While Gateway Motors is quick to share mechanical supplies, Evans Feed of Broken Bow, provides another necessity to ensure the program’s success - salt for the hides.
“Whether it’s one bag or 50 bags, they furnish all of it,” Hansen recalled. “Those bags are about $7 a piece and that gets to be a pretty good donation.”
After retrieving deer, elk and antelope hides, Hansen salts each one atop a 4x4-foot table wooden table made from saw horses from his garage. Once salted, hides are stored inside one of three 4x8x3 foot wooden containers in his driveway. Hansen said it takes less than 30 minutes to load up the boxes of hides for the truck driver from Missouri.
Hansen was hide co-chairman with Thedore “Ted” Sherbeck until June, 2021 when Sherbeck, who resided in Ansley, passed away. Before his death, Sherbeck bequeathed the position to Hansen under the condition that hide distribution will stay at Ansley as long as Hansen remained hide chairman.
After collecting the hide from the 24-hour depot at Gateway Motors on Nov. 10 and several more from Merna Pack, Hansen is confident Lodge #1688 will meet its annual quota for the yearly event.
“This is one of the best programs anyone could ever get into,” Hansen said. “Go down to a veteran hospital in Grand Island and Omaha and talk to someone who’s received them. Let them tell you about the gloves.”
Those interested in learning more about Deer Hides for Veterans are encouraged to contact Hansen at 308-880-1372.