Lanie Hutcheson Is Driven

Lanie Hutcheson and former Georgia State Duck Calling Champion Charles Petty after a successful duck hunt in Arkansas.

So much to see, so much to do, so many places to go…

When you’re 18 years old, expanding horizons is what you do. Not many, however, push toward new ones as steadfastly as Lanie Hutcheson. This extremely sharp, charismatic, vivacious—and BUSY—2023 Treutlen County High School graduate and current nursing program enrollee, who also maintains a 40-hour work week, got an early start. She’s been hard at it ever since.

Oh, and did I mention that the girl hunts and fishes on the side? Or maybe it’s all that other stuff that should be filed in the sideline category…

“When I was little, we’d be having birthday parties or something like that at the house, I’d go missing and the grown-ups would start asking where I was,” she laughs. “I’d be out back, fishing in the pond.”

Lanie laughs a lot. And lights up a room in the doing.

Just like Sue.

You see, I have a long history with the Hutcheson family. Top to bottom, they’re about as solid a bunch of folks as I’ve ever known. And it would be impossible to introduce Lanie without first getting to know a little about them.

The James Gang Haircutters in Dublin Mall? That would be her granddad, James. In these parts, he’s spoken of with soft smiles and unfettered respect. Straight-up guy, and I don’t say that a whole lot.

When I look at Lanie, I see her late grandmother, James’ wife, Sue. There’s an old Irish saying: “She turned my head not once, but twice.” When Sue Hutcheson entered the building, you knew she was there. No pomp, no fluff; just special people. There was a peaceful purity that shone from her eyes, evincing confidence and genuine concern for those around her. And should there be such a thing as a smile transplant, she would be the one woman to get one from.

Oh, I saw her cry, too. Part of my job. She was telling the heartbreaking story of how her son had his life turned upside down 10 days after high-school graduation when a dirt bike dumped him head-first into a ditch and left him paralyzed from the waist down…

That son happened to be the single most inspirational person I’ve ever met. Name of Jeff.

He has his own chapter in my book, Rabbit Stompin’ And Other Homegrown Safari Tactics, and we fished, trapped and hunted from here to yonder, including a 4,000-mile road trip from Treutlen County to north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, trying to get him a bear. (Before we figured out Okefenokee bears were closer…)

This tale can’t be told without him, because Lanie and Jeff were tight. I’d give a heap if some of his comments about her could be included, but as I write, he’s been gone for four years and two days. Her dad, Jon, explains it best.

“She’s kind of like her Uncle Jeff, who had two speeds: Stop and Wide Open,” Jon remarked. “When she was little, she had a two-seater go-cart. One day we stuffed and stashed Jeff’s big ol’ self in there with her and they started doing laps around the yard—pedal to the metal. I finally hollered to get them to stop, but they had to have one more lap. They ran flat out through a big old pile of dog mess, slung it all over both of them and never slowed down, just howling laughing. Lanie and Jeff kind of hit it off from the start, and they were always close. Like him, Lanie doesn’t meet a stranger; she’s the life of the party.”

Jon and wife JoHanna have two more children, 16-year-old Chloe and seven-year-old Drake.

“Daddy started me out bass fishing, but he’s always been into the offshore ocean trips, so we would book a few charters and do a little inshore/offshore fishing,” Lanie says. “If we go on vacation, we carry the boat. I like the big stuff out on the ocean—and there’s some big stuff out there. After Uncle Jeff died, we went down to Islamorada in memory of him and have done it every year since, taking the boat all the way down there. We catch yellowfin tuna and snapper, and tripletail are fun, too. I’d much rather eat something other than tuna! We also go to St. George Island or Indian Pass.”

Islamorada, in the Florida Keys between Marathon and Key Largo, happens to be known as The Sportfishing Capital Of The World, while St. George Island is just off the Florida Panhandle in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Slightly south of Port St. Joe, Indian Pass is another sportfishing haven.

When it comes to hunting, ducks are at the top of her list. Like, uh, Uncle Jeff—a former state chairman and treasurer of Georgia Ducks Unlimited. By the way, forget any mention of paralysis or the fact that he was in a wheelchair, and remember “busy.” Among his many hobbies were hunting, fishing, trapping, scuba diving, falling out of airplanes with legs strapped securely together and a parachute overhead, golfing—don’t ask—metalworking, woodworking… and he retired from Warner Robins Air Force Base as a Division Security Branch Chief.

“Uncle Jeff had no fear whatsoever,” Lanie remembers. “One time he got stuck in the woods out behind our house and didn’t have his phone, or no service. He climbed down off the golf cart, scooted his way back on his butt, got to the pond, swam across it instead of going around and scooted on up to the house. Never tell him there was something he couldn’t do. He’d figure it out.”

Her duck hunting started all the way back in 2021.

“My first duck hunt was at Black Creek Plantation in Wilkinson County. I got into it really good with a group of girls—no guys—and we went pretty much around home hunting wood ducks. We would go before work or school every morning, really cold mornings, and we went back to back to back. One of Daddy’s friends always included me in his duck hunts, and this past year my old high-school principal invited me to go with him. Right now, me and Daddy have two Boykin puppies we’re working with, so that’s pretty cool.”

And her own duck hunting education continues as well, as far-reaching as Arkansas.

“I’ve told her she needs to learn to blow a duck call,” Jon says with a grin. “I got her a duck call, and we gave her lessons in Jonesboro. She had three of the best duck callers I know in Charles Petty, Clint Shipman and Scott Hodges, but I think she got a little embarrassed. Knowing Lanie, she’ll  get it.”

Petty and Shipman, by the way, are former Georgia State Duck Calling Champions.

The ducks may get a little break during deer season, when she’s busy chasing something larger than the 8-pointer already on the wall. A trophy hunter at 18, you ask?

Well, sort of.

“I won’t kill another buck unless it’s bigger than that one,” she asserts. “We had some pretty good ones on camera that outsmarted us, but they’re still out there. I will kill a doe for venison, and we DID go on a doe spree last season, doing a bunch on management with does because there’s so many. We donated quite a few to Hunters For The Hungry.”

Above is Lanie’s benchmark buck. After killing it, she won’t shoot another buck unless it’s bigger. However, she has no problem working on an overpopulation of does.

Jon still laughs about the early days.

“Her and Jeff would go deer hunting, and we’d just about have to take the bullets away from them because they would want to shoot everything,” he recalls. “I had to tell Lanie it’s deer hunting, not deer killing. But she has matured a lot, and it’s been fun to watch the process.”

The hunting is done mostly from ladder stands on and between food plots, with breakthrough roads splitting thick stuff leading to water holes. But not always.

“Uncle Jeff had this custom, long-range deer rifle that is as pretty as it can be,” Lanie says. “It’s super heavy and super nice, the best of the best, which is what he always had to have. He had a hydraulic deer stand that he could roll into, and it scissored up so he could hunt off the ground. We put up a tower stand back there last season, and I killed a doe with his rifle at his spot, so that was pretty cool.”

She’s right: that is one heavy gun! Jeff bought a Remington .308, discarded everything but the action and had the rifle hand-built to his specs. Atop it sits a Swarovski scope about as long as your leg.

When she’s not on the water or in the woods, Lanie will be behind the pharmacy counter at Dennard Drugs, in Soperton, or in class at Southeastern Technical College’s Registered Nursing program in Vidalia.

“I did most of my college core in high school, so all I had was two classes before I could enroll in the program. I was recently called and told I had a seat. I like working and making money, which is why I stayed home instead of going off to school somewhere else. I’m taking things one day at a time, but there’s a lot of opportunity for traveling nurses on a temporary basis all around the country. You sign a contract for a certain length of time, then decide if this is the place for you.”

I knew there had to be more from the impish grin.

“While you’re at it, you can check out all the hunting and fishing in the area,” she laughs.

Jon is a proud dad, of course, and for a lot of obvious reasons. But sometimes, even he’s left scratching his head.

“I don’t know how much sleeping she did during those duck hunting and school and working mornings, but there was no slowing her down,” he says. “Her work ethic is just crazy. At Dennard’s, she moves around wherever they need her. She wants to get her RN, then bridge over into another field on down the road, I think.”

Lanie’s dad said she doesn’t get very much sleep during duck season, going straight from the duck swamp to work or school.

New horizons…

“She’s on an ambitious path, and if anyone doesn’t share her drive, they’re not going to be around long,” James Hutcheson says. “I love the fact that she’s an outdoorsman. Most kids wouldn’t do all the things she does, and certainly not most girls. She was inspired by her Uncle Jeff, but then, most people were.”

If you’re reading this the first week of June, Lanie and her family will be in a boat somewhere around St. George.  After that?

“Well, Daddy has kind of promised me a trip back to Arkansas…”

And one more thing.

Maybe I shared a little TOO much about slogging the swamps, carrying Uncle Jeff on my back, huffing and puffing toward a treed bear.

Her parting remark?

“Sign me up!”

Jeff Hutcheson stuck in the mud with his hand-controlled golf cart. Going nowhere—but always with a smile. Niece Lanie pulled him out.