The Streamlight Challenged Hunter of the Year Award is the first nationwide recognition program established to honor physically challenged hunters based upon what they have done to help others. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to overcome a significant disability and to get oneself back into the mainstream of life. But a select breed of impaired hunters do not stop at personal success. They feel obligated to reach out and help others, as they have been helped. George was even featured in Field & Stream magazine.
The Streamlight Challenged Hunter of the Year Award will honor this group of heroic citizens each year. With that said, Buckmasters American Deer Foundation and Streamlight are proud to announce this year's top recipient: 43-year-old George Bolender of Ontario, New York. George was nominated by his wife, Julie; his son, George Jr.; friends Joe Kirkpatrick and Mike Roy; and his personal attendant Shelly Smith.
George Bolender became a quadriplegic (paralyzed from the neck down) after a tragic automobile accident in 1991. But George Bolender wasn’t out of the hunting game. Still in rehab, he heard about programs for disabled hunters. Organizations such as Buckmasters Ltd. and the NRA’s Disabled Shooting Services department help support a nationwide network of clubs, organized hunts, financial-aid options, and consulting services for disabled hunters and shooters.
After a six-month hospital stay, George came home with one thing on his mind: being able to hunt again. It took more than a year to develop a plan and a means by which to shoot. Julie drove Bolender to Syracuse, New York, where a man built adaptive bow rigs for severely handicapped hunters. Within 15 minutes of trying out a bow, Bolender was sending arrows into a bull’s-eye.By 1993 George was back in the woods again, and took his first real "challenged" deer the following season with a shotgun. 1995 dared George to try to shoot a bow again. He took the bet and harvested two deer with his bow rig that season.
“I kept looking around at Julie, like, I just can’t believe this,” he says. “A light went off for me. I could see a world of possibility that I thought had been shut off forever.”
He’d lost his job as a contractor and faced daunting bills and an uncertain future, but he sold a few guns to pay for a $750 PSE bow and rig. His brother-in-law, Russell Zaft, a welder, upgraded the bow with camber adjustments and an elevation screw. (Zaft has since built all of Bolender’s hunting rigs.) In November 1993, Bolender killed his first deer “from the chair,” he says, a small buck he took with a 20-gauge shotgun. He’d missed but two deer seasons and has not missed one since. To date, he has taken upwards of 35 deer with both bow and gun, plus a 6-foot 7-inch Newfoundland black bear arrowed from a ground blind at 14 paces.
Throughout his endeavors, George could not stop thinking about how hard it was to find equipment, and someone to put that equipment together into a workable apparatus. He began passing his newly discovered success along to others, helping other quadriplegics find parts and components to build their own gun and bow rigs. In many cases George even helps arrange fabrication if the person needs that sort of help.
Because of his unselfishness, George has been recruited by many organizations to help with aiding disabled hunters. These include, but are not limited to, New York Department of Environmental Conservation and New York Bowhunters. Spending a great deal of his own time and money, George is in contact with challenged hunters all over North America by email and telephone daily. He not only assists people with equipment, he also provides encouragement and valuable mentorship.
What is George doing when he is not helping with equipment or lifting someone's spirits? You might find him organizing one of the many disabled hunts or accessible archery shoots that he puts together each year. In the early fall you might run into George as president of the Outdoors Unlimited Buckmasters Chapter organizing his annual fundraiser banquet to benefit disabled hunters. But if you want to see George and the New York archery season has already started, you better be a good hunter if you plan to find him. He'll be silently perched upon his camouflaged electric wheelchair like a Marine Corp sniper, with his bow apparatus at full draw and waiting. He will be looking for deer. But after getting to know George Bolender, we can guarantee you that his thoughts will be centered around someone else and how he can help get them back into God's great outdoors.
