Kentucky teen aims to be professional hunter

Every town has unique individuals doing all kinds of interesting things with their lives. One challenge of being a community reporter is to find those stories. The Crittenden Press, a weekly newspaper in Western Kentucky, has just such a story, chronicling the adventures of 16-year-old Katie Davies, an aspiring professional hunter who recently traveled to Georgia to hunt black bears, and whose adventures have been recorded for an outdoors television show, Chris Evans writes for the Press.

Davies "is an accomplished archer on the national stage. She has a long list of professional endorsements and sponsorships from manufacturers in the archery and hunting industries," Evans writes. "Her rigorous schedule of competitive shooting events and hunting opportunities puts her on the road quite often, out of state many weekends and sometimes during the week."

With the support of not just her family, but school officials, Davies has been working towards making her dreams come true, creating an individual learning plan for her that allows her time for her studies and hunting. Her principal, Rhonda Callaway, told Evans, "Most people don’t realize how disciplined she has to be to keep everything in balance. She is a junior in high school with professional adult responsibilities. Katie works extremely hard to perform well academically while pursuing a rigorous, junior-level schedule." (Read more) Davies detailed her hunting trip in the Press, which is a subscription only paper, but puts some stories online. It shared the text with us, and we have posted it here. Davies story can be found on the website on Oct. 23.