Scouting, Volume 70, Number 2, March-April 1982 Page: 10
58, 24, [32] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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FLY AMY HOME
BY BILL SLOAN
Photographs by Gene Daniels
WHAT'S THE NEAREST thing to
a cavalry charge in mid-air?
According to the members of Post
625 of Southern California's Great
Western Council, it's the feathered
explosion that takes place periodically
during the warmer months of the year
when more than 12,000 racing
pigeons are released at the same
precise moment from a station on the
California-Oregon border.
Then, streaking southward at
average speeds of 50 miles per hour or
better, the flashing "homers" use
their uncanny inbred instincts and
painstaking training to find their col-
lective ways back to their own home
lofts some 600 miles away.
When they reach those lofts and
the waiting hands of their trainers,
rubber bands on the legs of each bird
are quickly removed and placed in a
time-clock, which stamps the time of
their flight on an official paper.
"The time of the flight is recorded
down to the second," says Rusty
Williams, a life-long pigeon fancier
and Advisor to Post 625. "If it's good
enough it earns the bird's owner a
diploma, certificate, or trophy."
Pigeon racing isn't much of a spec-
tator sport, since almost nobody sees
the racers from the time they burst
from their enclosures at the starting
point until they approach the "finish
line" hours later. But anyone who
thinks the pastime is "strictly for the
birds" doesn't belong to Post 625
obviously.
Among them, members of the
post—about 75 teen-agers, both male
and female, who live in the San
Fernando Valley near Los Angeles
—own no less than 7,000 to 8,000
racing pigeons. They care for them in
much the same way as racehorse
enthusiasts care for their finest thor-
oughbreds. They feed them special
diets, build elaborate special lofts for
them, and thrill to a special kind of
excitement and drama when they see
their birds returning from hundreds
of miles away.
The big winner in the post since it
was organized in 1980 has been Kurt
Stearns, a 17-year-old senior at John
F. Kennedy High School in Granada
Hills, Calif. Kurt has won a total of 75
diplomas or certificates—exactly one
for each of his 75 racing pigeons—as
well as several trophies. He is the
number one winner in the Foothill
Concourse Racing Pigeon Club,
which is the chartered organization
for Post 625.
"I've been raising and training
pigeons since I was about 12," Kurt
recalls. "I got started after I noticed
some of them flying over my house.
Later, my dad brought a few home,
and I just got attached to them."
Racing or homing pigeons are very
unique birds, according to Kurt.
"Each one has its own personality,"
he says. "Some have good habits;
Above, hundreds of
homing pigeons are
released by Post 625
Explorers who later record
the exact time the birds
return home. Left, Ron
Williams shoos returning
birds into their lofts.
Exploring 10
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 70, Number 2, March-April 1982, periodical, March 1982; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353582/m1/80/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.