The Pied Piper of Stuttgart

By Gary Koehler, Senior Writer
His handcrafted calls have waylaid countless mallards in the heart of Arkansas duck country and have been used to win numerous world calling championships, but to Butch Richenback, the most special melodies of all are those he shares with pint-size pupils

Pepper, a nine-year-old black Lab with a graying muzzle, lounges contentedly on a tattered green couch. When her master, Harold "Butch" Richenback, begins a spirited discourse on what makes a good duck call-his voice becoming more excited with every word-the dog rises slowly, gingerly crawls off her perch, and assumes a sitting position in front of the stranger.

Her ears are begging to be scratched, and there is no choice but to accommodate the appeal.

"She just wants to see what's going on," Richenback says. "I start talking to anybody, and she thinks she's got to be in the middle of it."

Little wonder Pepper's face is weary and her eyes droop. Richenback receives plenty of visitors at the world headquarters of Rich-N-Tone Duck Calls. It has been that way for years.

When time comes to discuss duck calls, he is seldom at a loss for words. "And, uh, you're sitting in her recliner," Richenback says. "She's probably the only dog in the country with her own couch and recliner."

Otherwise, the shop is devoid of pretense. No frills. Just a cluttered mix of tools, varied lengths of acrylic and wood, two TV sets, a couple of stools, a refrigerator, and a powdering of sawdust.

Adornments include dozens of photos of competitive duck callers; plaques recognizing Richenback's community service; thank-you letters from two U.S. presidents, a former South Carolina governor, and an Arkansas senator; and a wooden sign proclaiming Ducks Quake at the Sound of My Call.

Prominently displayed between two doors is a gallery dedicated to young people who have distinguished themselves on Stuttgart's Main Street stage, site of the annual World's Championship Duck Calling Contest and a number of similar competitions. This is the workshop where champions are made. And Richenback taught many of them.

The smiling face of John Stephens, a two-time men's world's titleholder (1995 and 1998), is among those on the crowded wall of fame.

"I was nine when I first went to Butch's calling clinic," Stephens says. "I remember that when I went to the first few classes, man, I didn't say nothin'. I was scared to death of him. But once you get to know him, you see that Butch is awesome with kids. If anybody has an addiction, his is kids. He loves kids and he loves working with them.

They respond to him. And they like him. He can get his point across when he's working with someone learning to blow a call. That's why he's so good with kids, because he gets them to understand it so easily."

Putting on a gruff exterior, or running a bluff some would say, was the way Richenback operated during the 25 years he managed the Stuttgart Youth Center, an independent agency fueled by private donations and fund-raisers. The facility still serves as a meeting place for the town's youngsters on Friday and Saturday nights.

"We didn't allow any cussing, or smoking, or fighting-nothing like that," Richenback says. "But kids could come to the youth center and play pool, Ping-Pong, or basketball. We had tumbling mats. They could go outside and play touch football. There was a TV room. Or they could just sit around, drink Cokes, and talk. All I did was control them."

At the same time, Richenback ran the youth center's peewee football program, coordinated the city's boys' baseball and girls' softball leagues, umpired many of the games, and maintained the playing fields. Somehow, he also found time to manage the local American Legion baseball team for 18 seasons, including a remarkable 1992 Class AAA state championship summer.

Then there were the duck calling lessons, begun, history says, in collaboration with Chick and Sophie Major, local legends whose Dixie Mallard duck call established a standard of call-making excellence.

When the Majors could no longer participate because of health reasons, Richenback carried on. He's been teaching kids how to blow duck calls for well over 30 years now, some lessons predating those first conducted at the youth center.

Were the entire cast assembled today, the students would number well into the thousands.

"I had 80 kids last year," Richenback says. "We start in October and meet for 20 minutes four nights a week until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. That's when we have our contest, which is really more of a test. You take that 'con' part off of it. The kids are judged on how they've improved what they've been working on. There are no losers."

The lessons, now sponsored by the local chamber of commerce and held in an auditorium, have culminated, the past five years, in a grand finale on the same stage where world champions battle for bragging rights and substantial prizes later in the week. The kids' crowd rivals that of the big show.

On the Road with
Butch and the Boys

John Stephens, a Stuttgart native, won the Junior World's Duck Calling Contest in 1985 at age 11 after having spent two years taking private lessons from Butch Richenback.

"When I was growing up, there were about four or five other kids about my age who would call in contests, too," Stephens says. "Butch gave us all lessons and would drive us around to the contests. At that time, they had junior contests, but they also had men's regionals that you had to win to qualify for the world [title]. They didn't have any age limit to them.

"So Butch would take us around and we would blow against these men. I remember those men; they would call us the Kiddie Patrol because we were all about 12 or 13 and they were in their twenties and thirties, or whatever. It'd burn them up to get beat by a little kid. We did really well. And it was a lot of fun. Butch has done that for a lot of kids."

Richenback has coached an untold number of calling contest winners. And more.

"He has been instrumental in keeping our heritage of call making and duck calling going," Stephens says. "He has probably taken that a step further than anyone else.

Butch has gone out of his way to sell our tradition of duck hunting to other people, and to teach people about it, so it can be carried on to the next generation. He has done a tremendous amount."