Laurice Williams – VP
Region I Representative
3631 Minnie Hall Rd. Autryville NC 28318
My wife Becky and I have been married for 48 years. We have 3 grown children. Living at home are 2 Lads, Rowdy and Dusty, a Dalmatian, 4 beagles, and King of the Roost, a Chihuahua named (“I Love”) Lucy. We have 6 grandchildren ages 4 to 23(Go Indians!).
I am a Diamond Life member of Ducks Unlimited, serving as Area Chairman of our local DU Chapter., (National Top 100) serve on the state DU committee (Retriever Chairman), Master Mason, (Past Master), and retired from DuPont after 35 years. Retirement lasted two days before I started working with DAK Americas as an Operations Manager.
I have been an avid hunter all my life. My biggest hunting passion is bear hunting with hounds. I come from a long line of houndsmen and wing shooters. Whether following behind a pointer in the field all day, wading in a beaver pond with a retriever, listening to a pack of hounds chase a coon, fox or bear, I strongly believe that a dog must be part of all hunting. Not to get into controversy with my fellow sportsmen but my relatives just didn’t hunt without a dog involved, period.
I got started in the retriever game when I decided that my Lab, a yellow talented retrieving machine named Lucky, lacked a lot of obedience and manners. I started reading books, asking questions and talking with people all with the intent of trying to make Lucky a better hunting partner. I soon hooked up with some friends who knew a lot more about retriever training than I. A few retrievers later and after making a lot of mistakes I found myself joining a “Retriever Club”. Soon I was hooked on the retriever Hunt Test Game all in the name of having a better hunting companion.
When I got into judging it was not my intent to become a judge. I wanted to “learn what the judges were looking for”, so I attended a seminar. I soon decided I would give a little back to the sport that I had fell in love with. For some unknown reason I was and still am asked to judge often. I have had the privilege of judging at all levels, from a club’s training day, to two Master Nationals, weekend hunt tests, a WC or WCX, breed specialty, state competitions and even the Golden Retriever and Chesapeake National Specialties.
I take my judging responsibilities very serious. I think all levels of the hunt test game in their own way are equality important. I believe in the AKC standards and feel we as judges have an obligation to judge to those standards. We should strive to keep the integrity of the retriever breeds at the highest level and continue to do our part to assure the breed’s progress toward improvement.
The biggest benefit to my involvement with the retrievers has by far been the friendships I have made and the people I have met. Some of the best folks are retriever people! I would never have met so many good people and created so many friendships!
Laurice Williams
