Pennsylvania Game News - June 2021 - 35

transferred back to Schuylkill County as
a crew foreman.

Elk in Mind
As a young man, Bill was fascinated
with wild turkeys. He was quite good
at hunting them, even with his recurve.
He'd often guide others to spring gobbler
success and helped establish the National
Wild Turkey Federation's Blue Mountain
Chapter.
He never gave elk much thought.
But when a 26-year-old Bill and friend
Scott Sorrick traveled to Wyoming on an
archery elk hunt, the bugling he was amid
completely captivated him, and changed
his life.
He returned west to hunt elk every
other year, and he began making plans
to go north to Pennsylvania's elk range,
sooner or later.
" I had it in my mind that I wanted to
retire up in northern PA and live near
the elk, even though I had never been up
there! " he said.
Bill was far from retirement, but he'd
soon get a chance to follow his job to elk.
In 1998, Bill put in for a Food and
Cover crew foreman's position in Elk
County. It would be a lateral move, but
allow him to work with elk - or so he
thought.
Bill traveled north in pursuit of the job,
camping overnight before an interview
where he was asked this question: " Why
would you want to move up here and do
a lateral transfer? "
Simply and honestly, Bill replied, " I
want to work with the elk herd. "
It was then he learned that, while the
job he sought was in Elk County, it was
well outside the elk range at that time,

JUNE 2021	

and wouldn't provide the opportunity he
was looking for. He learned, however, of
plans in the next few years to start up a
brand-new Food and Cover crew, right in
the thick of elk range.
The next year, while attending a presentation on Pennsylvania elk held at
the Middle Creek Wildlife Management
Area, Bill assertively marched up to the
Game Commission's executive director
and announced, " I am Bill May and I
would really like to be the foreman of the
new crew, " and with that, walked away.
The director said to his deputy, " Who
was that and is he serious? "
Those who knew him realized the
asset Bill was and could become. When
he landed the job up north and moved to
Cameron County, he'd spend the remainder of his career working with the elk. And
that was only part of it.

Home on the Range
Bill and his wife, Janie, live in a cabin
along the First Fork of the Sinnemahoning Creek, and unless you cross in low
water where Bill brings across firewood
for his maple-sap evaporator and hay for
his horses, getting there requires bouncing
across a 420-foot suspension bridge that
swings 20 feet above the creek.
They live a simple life, heating only
with wood. And whenever I visit, I can
count on sleeping outdoors in a canvas
wall tent, after a wild-game meal cooked
over a fire by Bill in a cast-iron Dutch
oven, while being entertained by music
from his mountain dulcimer.
Little " Hoppy the Cowboy " had
his dream come true in Pennsylvania's
northwoods.
He gave guided horseback rides, and

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