Susan and Bob Clark with her 177-pound black bear, taken Thursday, Sept. 15, on land owned by Jeff and Becky Mader of Park Falls. Susan’s hunt was organized through United Special Sportsmen Alliance of Pittsville and a group of local bear hunters.
Posted on 10/11/2005 4:27:26 PM PDT by SJackson
Susan and Bob Clark with her 177-pound black bear, taken Thursday, Sept. 15, on land owned by Jeff and Becky Mader of Park Falls. Susan’s hunt was organized through United Special Sportsmen Alliance of Pittsville and a group of local bear hunters.
PARK FALLS -- A 177-pound northern Wisconsin black bear may not be considered a trophy by some. A 55-pound, 15-year-old girl may not be considered a hunter by some.
Some would be wrong.
Susan Clark of Belle Plaines, KS, is not unlike other teenage girls. She is a high school freshman who loves to shop.
She has also had cystic fibrosis since birth. Only two years ago, her chances for survival without a lung transplant were slim. Though her name was on a transplant list, her doctors felt she would not survive without an immediate transplant.
Two of her uncles, her father Bob’s brothers, were found to be matches; each donated a lobe. Susan had double lung transplant surgery, and these two years later is doing very well, breathing on her own and strong enough to make a trip from Belle Plaines to Park Falls to fulfill her “dreamwish;” a dreamwish to hunt, and hopefully bag, a northern Wisconsin black bear.
Enter United Special Sportsmen Alliance (USSA) board member John Mozingo. Mozingo, a Kansas resident, had learned of the Clark family through an article appearing in the March 2004 edition of Peterson’s Bowhunting Magazine concerning Susan’s mother, Tiffany Clark.
Tiffany had found her way into the Kansas record books by taking three whitetail deer in four days. One of those whitetails happened to be a 220-pound, nine-point buck which scored out at 164-5/8 and earned Tiffany the top spot for female archers in Kansas. The article mentioned Tiffany’s desire to take up hunting as a stress reliever and as a way to spend time with her husband, Bob. It went on to say that the Clark’s three children, twins Susan and Bob Jr., and their younger brother, Logan, had all been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth, requiring daily therapy and treatment.
Mozingo contacted Pittsville resident Brigid O’Donoghue, founder and president of USSA, to see if she could obtain a kill permit for young Susan. O’Donoghue found a donor in Mark VanDrell, who, without a blink, donated his kill permit, which had taken eight years to obtain. Park Falls’ residents Bob and Donna Mader are no strangers to USSA hunters. They hosted two young men in the fall of 2004. Both were successful in bagging black bears. It came as no surprise when the Maders, their children and grandchildren opened their hearts and their doors to Susan and her dad when they arrived in Park Falls.
Due to their ailment, Susan and her brothers are undersized. Though small in stature, there is nothing small about Susan’s grit. Though uncomfortable hunting with dogs, she had no misgivings over settling into a stand with her dad on Jeff Mader’s property and waiting for a bruin to pass her way.
One did, and she calmly took it down with one shot from her .270 rifle. The Maders were called upon to help with the track. Susan had made a great hit; the bear traveled only 40 yards from the stand.
“She was real calm while she made the shot,” her dad said. “Afterward she got a little rattled.” “It was kind of scary afterward,” Susan said. “The Maders said they had a ritual for first-time hunters. I thought they were going to make me eat the heart or something, but they only smeared a little bit of the bear’s blood on my cheek.”
The 177-pound black bear will become a full-body mount, which will join other mounts that occupy space in the Clark home. Since the entire family hunts avidly, it will no doubt be joined by others.
The Clarks had nothing but good to say about USSA, the hunt itself, their time spent in Park Falls and the unique hospitality displayed by the entire Mader family. “I want it known,” Bob Clark said, “these are wonderful people.”
According to O’Donoghue, USSA had fulfilled 600 dreamwish hunts as of this writing. That number is expected to rise to 1,500 by year’s end.
Established in 2003, and headquartered in Pittsville, WI, USSA is a nationwide, non-profit Christian organization that coordinates with other organizations worldwide in fulfilling a “dreamwish.” It’s goal is to grant terminally ill and disabled sportsmen and women an outdoors adventure of their dreams. Susan’s dreamwish took four years to come true.
Never mind. I missed the part about them being undersized because of a medical condition.
Remind us, Is a .270 a necked down 30-06, or an original design round or what?
People with Cystic Fibrosis have, among other problems, difficulty with digesting and absorbing nutrients from food. Many use gastric feeding tubes to survive, by the time they reach their teens.
I've seen articles about these hunts for sick children in the NRA magazines. What a great experience for the young lady!
I believe that the .270 Win is original. I'm assuming that hers was a .270 Win, there are so many .270 variants these days, it would be hard to say what she was totin'.
Essentially, a failed military round from the mid 1920s I believe, but successful commercially.
By essentially, I believe the case may have been necked down and shortened, but I'll add the bang list to the thread, someone will know
Cystic Fibrosis. In many of these disorders the body never absorbs food properly. One little girl ate like a pig but never got more than baby-like in size, even at age 6. Many thought she was a baby until she smiled and showed all her teeth.
Looks to me to be an original, not a by-product.
But, hey, who cares!!
A great story about a great family and their brave kids!!
Big Hearted Wisconsinite bump.
I'm fairly sure it was originally designed as a military cartridge, but not accepted, but either designed, or commercialized in 1925, well before the M-1. That's not to say '06 inventory, tooling, and standards weren't the deciding issue.
122 pounds worth of equalizer in every round!
Yes, what a wonderful program. Unfortunately one opposed by a lot of folk.
Yes, it's not politically correct for a chronically ill girl to want to go hunting. Phooey, I say. We have too many bears; just ask anybody with a suburban house lot in New Jersey!
"Established in 2003, and headquartered in Pittsville, WI, USSA is a nationwide, non-profit Christian organization that coordinates with other organizations worldwide in fulfilling a “dreamwish.” It’s goal is to grant terminally ill and disabled sportsmen and women an outdoors adventure of their dreams. "
What a great idea!
It is!
I don't want to get into specific organizations, since the do work around the problem, but I understand several of the best known charities working in this area won't provide a wish related to hunting, or in some cases fishing. But under the radar they "refer" the children to hunting groups who will do the good dead. In these cases, all's well that ends well.
Good for her! I sent this on to a friend of mine who just got a black bear (187 lbs.) up in Winter, WI.
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