Pat McVay, noted hunter and educator, dies at 100
Pay McVay at his home south of Columbia Falls.
Pat McVay, the man who was instrumental in starting the state’s hunter safety program, died peacefully at his rural Columbia Falls home May 18.
He was 100.
Hollister Pat McVay got his first .22 rifle at age 6 and shot his first deer at age 8. He shot a trophy elk in the Missouri Breaks at age 88, when most people are eyeing retirement home living or worse.
Over the years, he taught thousands of youths the proper way to hunt ethically and how to properly handle firearms. He started the 4-H shooting program decades ago and pioneered hunter education in the state.
In the fall of 1956 he heard of a hunter safety program being taught in the East. He wrote to the National Rifle Association and they sent him the material and he taught his 4-H small bore shooting group the program.
There was a bill in the state Legislature that would codify the hunter safety program, but it didn’t pass until January of 1957. Hungry Horse News editor Mel Ruder called McVay from Helena to tell him it had passed.
For 62 years McVay taught hunter education, retiring in 2014 at the age of 92.
“He made everyone feel like they were special,” said John Fraley, who was the hunting education coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 1 for 28 years. Fraley worked closely with McVay, both professionally and personally. The two were good friends and Fraley visited him often.
McVay’s grandson, Cody Voermans, hunted with McVay for more than 30 years.
One of the most memorable hunts, Voermans recalled, was when McVay shot a big bull elk in the Missouri Breaks at the age of 88. It was a long shot — 400-plus yards — across a canyon.
But McVay put the bull down and Cody helped him get across the canyon and up to the bull, carrying him in a couple of places.
It was McVay’s last bull elk. When they got to the elk, McVay took out a bottle of brandy and threw the cap away.
McVay successfully hunted deer every year until he was 98, he missed just one season when he was in World War II stationed in the South Pacific, Voermans said.
After the war he found work at the Grand Coulee Dam, which led to a job as a dam operator at the Hungry Horse Dam.
He transferred to Hungry Horse in 1952 and retired in 1975.
“I started the first generator at Hungry Horse,” McVay said in a recent interview earlier this year, just before his 100th birthday.
Services for McVay will be held at a later date.
“He always said he’d live to be 100 and get shot by a jealous husband,” Voermans said. “We were very proud to have him as a patriarch for so long.”