DONORS:

Friends and Family of Walter Hill

WALTER HILL, A REMEMBRANCE

by S. Kent Carnie

In the early 1980s I had been involved in selling some of my library and falconry memorabilia to ﬁnance a house purchase. In the course of

various transactions I spoke to Walter Hill, a gentleman-falconer in Florida who eventually purchased several items. In our early discussions,

Walter, referring to his age, asked the logical question as to what was to become, eventually, of the falconry materials he had amassed in his

lifetime. I was hard pressed for an answer. I ﬁnally mentioned the possibility of McGill University in Montreal as perhaps a proper recipient,

based on its particularly ﬁne library of falconry books. Based on that connection, NAFA earlier had chosen McGill as the repository for its own

corporate papers. That association with the sport, however tenuous, seemed our only choice. Walter however, practical as he was, reminded me

that as a Canadian institution, a U.S. citizen would be unable to enjoy any tax advantage should he bequeath materials to McGill.

That discussion with Walter stuck in my mind, sharpening concerns that with Bob Widmeier’s recent passing, his books had gone for ﬁfty cents

or a dollar each in a neighborhood garage sale. Even worse was the loss of all Luff Meredith’s correspondence, photos and other memorabilia. As

the “father of American falconry” the loss of those materials was truly a tragedy, gone was so much of our history. Gone as much as anything, for

want of a place to look after it. Spurred by Walter’s original concerns, the idea of a falconry archives was conceived, with the Archives of American

Falconry to be born at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho in 1986. Walter was an enthusiastic and most

generous supporter of our efforts.

Within a few years it became obvious that to support the archives’ efforts properly, on a sustained basis, some permanent means of funding was

called for, speciﬁcally: an endowment, the interest from which would provide operational expenses in perpetuity. If we could somehow cover

our operations for some ﬁve years, we could devote all the proceeds of a concerted fund raising effort to build the needed endowment. But

ﬁrst to cover those interim operating funds. Walter, who had originally planted the seeds of an archives, had proven a generous donor over the

years, as much with wisdom and advice as with dollars. In recounting his own father’s successes in fund raising, Walter had counseled me: “be

speciﬁc.” Don’t just ask for help, be speciﬁc!” So I was speciﬁc; I asked Walter for $6,000 a year for the next ﬁve years, describing the concept of a

concurrent endowment program. He said yes. A formal proposal to NAFA for similar support elicited the same answer. That guarantee of funds

kept us archiving during our focused, successful endowment campaign.

Walter had one of the world’s most complete and remarkable collections of important sports and sports-racing Jaguars.

Walter’s efforts for

establishing and

supporting the

falconry archives

are appreciated

by many.