Purebred Pigeon SepOct 2024

44 – Purebred PIGEON 50 Years with My Family of Rollers Article and photos by John Johnson This is my 50th year of non stop breeding my family of Rollers. I received my first from Bob Clark back in late 1973. When Bob left the hobby in 1985, Chuck Hayes and I were invit- ed over and given every Roller Bob Clark still had. We took turns picking individual birds. When we left on that sad but exciting day we each brought home 37 more of Bob’s Rollers. Bob had switched families of Rollers and received from Bob Evans of San Mateo, California. Rollers from his 1957, 1959, 1960 and 1962 breeding seasons. These were the old dual-purpose Rollers. Over the 50 years of my having this family I have brought the size down. I joined the Minnesota Flying Roller Group in late 1973 and have been flying in our club flys ever since. I have flown in the World Cup Fly since 1992. I won our World Cup regional in 1996 back when our region – besides Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin – also included Kansas and Missouri. I placed over the likes of Willie Silvey, Bob Westfall and Dave Gehrke. I wanted to show that it wasn’t a fluke. So I invited all present who wanted to come back the next day to watch the same kit again. They did even better but ended up overflying and lost a third of them. So when Don Ouellette came to judge my finals kit I ended up placing 25th. I have flown in the NBRC National Fly since 2000 and even won our 20 bird regional that year. In the beginning of the Minne- sota Flying Roller Group most of the flys were portable loft flys. Parents and three of their offspring HHL21-34 Blue Check Beard WF HHL 22-114 Blue Check Near Bald WF