By Jack M. Willis
Journal Correspondent

His name is Vince Stapleton and even though he's only 44 years of age his father says he's quit enough jobs to be over a hundred years old. Humor aside, Vince does, and has worn many hats while holding down several interesting positions and pursued several interesting vocations during his relatively brief lifetime.

Vincent Earnest Stapleton was reared at Little Creek, located about halfway between Jena and Georgetown, Louisiana. After the family relocated to Jena around 1965, Vince graduated from Jena High School in 1978, and immediately spent a year attending a Vo-Tech Auto Body Repair School in Monroe. Jack Powell then employed him for about two years at his body repair shop near Jena. Meanwhile he had gotten married in 1979 and when the first of four sons came along, there also came a need for a more lucrative income, so he followed what a host of his peers has done-he headed for the "oil patch." He worked all over South Louisiana for various well drilling companies until 1986 when the oil profits started drying up and the layoffs began.

Undaunted by the scarcity of work Vince hired out as a "double-clutcher" and began driving semi's cross-country, and in doing so almost got involved in a major catastrophe in California. He had just crossed the Oakland Bay Bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco about 4:30 in the afternoon and was listening to the World Series game being broadcast from Candlestick Park, when about 5:04 the radio announcer said, "We're experiencing a earthquake!

And immediately the radio went silent. This was on October 17th, 1989 when a 50-foot section of the Bay bridge fell onto the lower deck, and mile-long section of the freeway connecting the bridge collapsed.

This nerve-wracking experience was enough for Vince and it brought on a desire to retire from the road, and making a radical departure from the norm he decided to take up the dedicated task of becoming a taxidermist. And in doing so he almost jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The business began booming and hunters were bringing in slain animals and waterfowl to be mounted causing him at one time to utilize eight deep freezers to preserve the potential mounts until he could get around to them.

He especially liked to duck hunt and won first place in a duck calling contest in the Junior Division when he was fifteen years old using a call crafted by a renowned carver by the name of J.L. Melancon. His choice of all the waterfowl as far as beauty was concerned, was the green-winged teal, and he had asked his waterfowl hunting friends who killed any of the male green-wing teal to please bring them to him so he could mount them as a personal gratification. In doing so he ended up with 28 of the birds sequestered in his outside freezer which he usually used for a temporary depository.

Then in 1992, who should drive up to his house to his carport one day but the scourge of all Federal game law violator wardens, the one and only "Pirogue Joe" Oloverio in person? This was a man known far and wide who would stop at nothing, and go to any lengths to catch game law violators including on one occasion, the use of a parachute to arrest some Rocky Mountain poachers. After the dust settled and the judge sounded his gavel in Federal Court in Alexandria, Vince walked out of the courthouse about $600 dollars lighter in his hip pocket and with a strong determination to never again mount another duck, and he hasn't until this day.

In 1997, the LaSalle Parish police Jury employed Vince as a Grade All operator, and in the last few years he was elected to the office of Justice of the Peace, and is also a bail bondsman. He still mounts about 60 to 70 dear heads per year along with about 35 to 40 hog heads, and he maintains that he had rather do hog mounts than any other species of wild game.

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