40 Nebraskaland • November 2020
T
here might be a few high school kids who hunted
more than Blaine Dorn and Kobe Clevenger. Or harder.
Or more passionately. But there can't be many.
From the start of the archery deer season in September
through duck and goose seasons to the end of goose season
in February, these two members of the Chase County High
School class of 2020 in Imperial hunted every chance they
could. They were back in the field for the spring turkey
season, first with bows and then shotguns. They spend the
summers fishing or bowfishing.
"I'd rather be hunting than doing a lot of things," said
Blaine.
Kobe said, "I like the challenge and the adrenaline you get
from it."
Don't bother talking to them about the latest video games,
though. Neither has much use for them. "I'd rather build
fence than play video games," said Blaine, who does plenty
of that in his job at a feedlot near Wauneta. "It's much more
fun being outside than it is sitting on a couch."
Their passion is understandable. Both were raised in
hunting families and started at a young age.
"I don't remember the first time my dad took me duck
hunting, but I know I wasn't very old," Blaine said.
His father, Chad, has a better recollection, recalling Blaine
was about 4 years old when he built a brush blind so he could
take his son turkey hunting. Blaine shot his first turkey the
following year with a .410 shotgun. "When he was younger,
he could do hen clucks with his voice really good," Chad
said. "In the late season when the birds would get call shy, I
could take him along and he would do it with his voice, and
he could call in birds for us." Pheasants, waterfowl and deer
followed.
Kobe's father, Kelly, got Kobe a shotgun for Christmas
when he was 8 or 9. "We started pheasant and dove hunting,"
he said. "Then when he was 13, he shot his first deer and that
kind of took over a little bit. He's hunted turkeys and ... you
name it, they've hunted it."
Classmates and friends since pre-school, the two started
hunting together with their parents when they were still in
grade school. Once they turned 16 and could drive, you could
bet that when they weren't in school, at sports practice or
Chad and Blaine Dorn and Clevenger laugh at a video
Blaine captured of his father harvesting a turkey.
