The Greenwood Gene

The Dick Kirby Award was established in 2015 to recognize a turkey call maker or company that has made significant contributions to the NWTF’s conservation mission. Dick Kirby was the founder of Quaker Boy Calls. He was widely known as a turkey hunting and callmaking icon. Yet the momentous dedication, good deeds, and tireless effort supporting the NWTF warranted the prestigious award to be in his namesake.

Irving Whitt attended his first NWTF banquet in 1974, near Richmond, Virginia, when he was a senior at Glenver High School. He has been active in the NWTF ever since. Whitt fashioned his first turkey call in 1997 and achieved much early success. So much so that he quit his day job and went to work making turkey calls full time in 2001.

In 2004, Whitt entered the Grand National Turkey Callmaking Competition and won first place in both the box call working class and the carved call divisions.

In 2005, Whitt was featured in Earl Mickel’s third book “Longbeards, Callmakers, and Memories” where Mickel described him as a very talented artist and one of the finest carvers of our time. Whitt always had a passion for making things out of wood that performed a task. And to him, a turkey call is the ultimate tool where he could, “Express my artistic talent and know it is also an instrument that will make a turkey wilt with desire,” Whitt said.

One reason for Whitt’s longstanding callmaking success might be that he is from the same hometown as Neil Cost, who is considered by many to be one of the foremost turkey call makers in callmaking history. Cost is known for perfecting the boat paddle turkey call and helped write a trilogy of books about turkey call making.

“I am from the same hometown as Neil, Greenwood, South Carolina,” Whitt said in Mickel’s book. “I appreciated his work and cherished our friendship. Neil had a significant impact on my call making. He often told me not to be in a big hurry and enjoy the craft. Neil would say dedication, natural talent and time will separate turkey call makers from the novice.”

Over the decades, Whitt has made thousands of calls in more than a dozen variations of styles or categories that are highly collectible. All the while, he tirelessly built and donated many of his sought-after calls to local, state and national events as auction items. In 2024, he raised more than $15,000 with his call donations to his local Neil “Gobbler” Cost Chapter banquet in Greenwood, exceeding a personal goal. Overall, his longtime efforts have raised more than six figures to help fund NWTF’s conservation mission.

Whitt is an NWTF Guardian Life major donor. He has also purchased Diamond Life memberships for several others, including his wife, grandchildren and some chapter-member friends, to help carry on the conservation and hunting legacy he loves.

“Dick Kirby was a good friend,” Whitt said. “For me, this is like winning the Heisman trophy in football. It’s an ultimate honor. Wild turkeys are a gift from God, and I have always strived to raise as much money as possible, with the little resources I have, to conserve, protect and help them thrive.”

To win the NWTF’s annual Dick Kirby Award, one must have significant years of callmaking experience, demonstrate a mastery of their craft, be recognized as having made a profound positive influence within the callmaking community, and possess a lifetime of callmaking achievements. And to all that, Whitt is highly deserving.