Mimicry helps Allen to title

STUTTGART — Brad Allen of Judsonia capped the 75th annual Wings Over the Prairie Festival by winning the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest on Saturday.

Allen, who has competed in the contest since 1999, outperformed 69 of the world’s best duck callers to win the event. He won $8,000 cash, a prize package worth an additional $8,000, the World’s Championship trophy and a commemorative patch the size of a pie plate. He also got a $1,000 incentive bonus from Rich-N-Tone Duck Calls.

Finishing second was Ryan Nolan of Roland, Okla., the 2008 World’s champion.

Priscilla Rickman of Dyersburg, Tenn., won the Women’s World’s Championship. Lauren Englkes of Stuttgart was second.

“It’s hard to put into words how I feel right now, it’s very humbling,” Allen said. “I think of the guys that came before me and the friends I’ve made. When you’re young and trying to learn, you see guys that are such awesome duck callers, and now my name is on the same list as theirs. I’m very honored, but I’m also very, very humbled.”

Allen distinguished himself with a routine that relied on subtle pitch and tone variations that sounded as if he were blowing two different calls. The kicker was his feed call, which he said mimics that of three-time world champion and Champion of Champions Trey Crawford.

“Trey Crawford helped me a lot,” Allen said. “One thing I changed that really helped was the feed call. I tried to blow it a little more broken. I’m holding the trophy, but he’s still the best.”

Allen said he first attended the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest in 1988 with his father. He said he got the competition bug then, and each year reminds him of that memory.

“It was just a nice father-andson moment,” Allen said. “I hold this trophy and think about those times, and this is something I’ll always have. Hopefully one of these days I’ll have some grandchildren that I can brag to about it.”

Bill Free, chairman of the Wings Over the Prairie Festival and the World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest, said attendance was a little down for the three-day festival this year. He said a lot of people probably attended the Arkansas-LSU football game in Little Rock instead. That game, held in Little Rock every other year, was traditionally held on the Friday following Thanksgiving instead of Saturday.

“I’d say about 10,000 to 15,000 came through Stuttgart over the weekend,” Free said. “We usually have 15,000 to 20,000. They had huge crowds at Mack’s [Prairie Wings], as usual. We usually have 4,000 at the duck gumbo cookoff. We had about half that this year. Based on that, I’d say revenues are probably down about 25 percent.”