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Helmet – Page 28 – Purebred PIGEON
Breed of the Issue - Helmet
My Short FacedCrestedHelmets
by Dennis Manning
I
first began attempting to raise Short
Faced Crested Helmets in the mid
1980s. We were living in southwest
Washington State at the time and I bought
a pair from Myron Berger. I believed I was
ready to manage the young, fostering the
eggs out and helping the babies along. It just
didn’t quite happen that way.
I managed to raise one or two over
several years. I competed with what I had
– maybe only a couple times by the end of
the 1980s. Around that time I also started my first stud of Short
Face Plainhead Helmets.
My career took a hard turn pigeon-wise in the very early
1990s and I was forced to give up my birds. I was on the road
four days a week and my kids had no interest in my birds. By
1997 I was able to stop traveling as we had moved with the
company to North Central Texas.
As you can imagine the first thing I did was start building a
coop. I was determined to not raise Helmets again. I acquired a
few pair of Domestic Show Flights and picked
up more at Louisville. I met a few of the
breeders that had joined the Helmet club since
my departure and saw a few of the older guys
that had been around a while. I found Charles
Hanna who was living just a few miles away
from my new home. I also had a chance to get
connected again with names I had known for
years but either had never met or maybe once
or twice.
First off was Gerald Butler. Gerald had
been kicking around the AHA for a while but had gotten out of
Helmets and was raising Pouters. I soon visited with Gerald’s
traveling partner Don Phy. I had met Don at the 1987 Port-
land National and sold him some of my Plainheads. Don had
also gotten out of Helmets and was big into fighting cocks at
the time. Eventually I met Bob Davis of Texas Helmet fame.
Bob asked Charles and I to come to his home and haul off all
his Helmets. It was sad but at the same time I was once again
bringing home boxes of Helmets. I kept a few of the Plainheads