Pennsylvania Game News - June 2021 - 34

Bill May and schoolwork never got
along.
Instead, he dreamed of adventure, the
Wild West. As a young child, Bill wanted
to be a cowboy and played cowboy all the
time. Wearing a sombrero with a feather
stuck into it, and carrying his wooden knife
in a cardboard sheath, he'd sit entranced,
watching TV westerns like Hopalong Cassidy. His sisters nicknamed him " Hoppy, "
and to those who know him best, he is Hop
to this day.
Bill discovered the woods and wildlife when he was 9 years old. Up until
that point, his father had been an Army
lifer, and Bill had moved back and forth
between Germany and the Washington,
D.C. area. But when Bill's father retired
and moved the family to a 42-acre farmette
at the foot of the Blue Mountain near
Bethel, a new world opened to Bill.
Bill's parents gave him the freedom to
roam. The woods were his playground.
He slept in the forest every chance he got,
sheltered by a lean-to he built and warmed
by a campfire and woolen blanket.
He spent nearly all his free time
outdoors, observing and learning from
wildlife. Already skilled in the ways of
the woods, he harvested a deer with his
recurve bow at 13. That same year, he
scored his first summer job, at a Boy
Scout camp where he slept in a canvas
tent, learned to cook and ran the archery
range, teaching Scouts to shoot.
Soon a teacher of Bill's, noticing
him gazing out the window at the Blue
Mountain instead of into his textbooks,
began to supplement Bill's studies with
North American School of Conservation
coursework in timber management, habitat
development and wildlife law enforce-

ment. This not only improved Bill's
grades, more importantly, it lit a fire in him.
He was chosen to take part in the new
high-school program, " Careers in the
Environment, " spending half of every
school day in specialized study, which
included field trips to nurseries, greenhouses, fisheries, and state game lands.
To complete the course, students had
to volunteer at an agency, and Bill landed
with the Game Commission in Berks
County.
Two months after his graduation in
1975, Bill took a job with the Game Commission Food and Cover crew in Drehersville, and the rest is history.
Four months after my chance meeting with Bill on State Game Lands 110,
I finished the 2,100-mile Appalachian
Trail, and moved to a rented farmhouse
at the base of Hawk Mountain. I was out
for a walk one day when that same dark
green truck pulled up beside me. Bill,
wearing that same unusual-looking hat,
stuck his hand out the open window and
reintroduced himself.
We became lifelong friends.
After my father died, Hop became my
hunting buddy. He taught me so much
about wildlife, and our hunts always were
successful, no matter whether anyone
pulled the trigger. The high ethics, wide
knowledge and extreme respect for
wildlife that paved the way for his career
always were evident.
After five years in Dresherville, Bill
joined Berks County's Food and Cover
crew, then five years later was elevated
to Farm Game Manager. He worked with
the owners of 500 farms who, through a
Game Commission program, opened their
properties to public hunting. In 1991, he

Pennsylvania Game News - June 2021

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