Sports and outdoor activities have always come easy for Newport native David Hohn. He excelled as a quarterback on the football field and as a pitcher on the baseball team, and the record set with his third-place finish in the state’s decathlon as a senior at Newport High School still remains unbroken among Greyhounds.
For Hohn, now a resident of Huntsville, Alabama, those winning ways have translated to the corporate world, where he has a thriving duck-call business that is expanding to other accessories, such as his latest invention, the Duck for Cover umbrella.
“The umbrella came about as a novel concept I thought would make a great accessory item to the existing line of products,” Hohn said. “By patenting the idea, it’s given me a chance to develop it over a few years into what we have now. There was a lot of trial and error that went with it as well, from its final design and prototyping to manufacturing and distribution.”
Hohn said he eventually incorporated the duck-call business into the company known now as Duck Hollers. Hohn said he focused primarily on custom-made calls, but eventually added a plastic molded call and a variety of duck-calling accessories so he had more products to offer.
“Through collaboration with my wholesale distribution company, we plan to offer the two most popular umbrella styles: a golf size and a telescoping one,” Hohn said. “There’s also a variety of fabric patterns to choose from, such as camo and other solid colors. The duck-call shaped handle can also come in polycarbonate or traditional wood.
“However, the introductory model is a telescoping umbrella with a dark hunter-green fabric with the same color polycarbonate handle, with the Duck for Cover logo displayed on it. It’s a very versatile umbrella. As a telescoping umbrella, it’s lightweight and easy to carry and store, but when it’s opened up, it expands into a strong, sturdy, almost full-size golf umbrella.”
Hohn’s duck calls are a family tradition going back more than 50 years. Hohn grew up in Diaz, a small community just outside of Newport, where duck hunting and duck calls were a big part of the community.
His father, Blount Hohn, was an outdoorsman and worked with a number of kids growing up in and around Newport giving lessons through local duck-calling clinics or one-on-one sessions. He also had his own brand of duck calls he called Hohn’s Choice, and he continued making calls and sharing his waterfowling knowledge until he died in 1992.
“Making my own calls seemed like a natural progression from years of participating in calling contests,” David Hohn said. “In the mid ’80s, I bought my first lathe and began to set about developing my own design and style of call.
“The first ones were pretty rough, but it was still fun. I still have all those early rough calls; the pristine ones were always spoken for. I would toss the discards into a bucket, and there’s quite a few of them over 30 years. I dig through them now and then, and they’re really
not that bad, but for reasons I don’t recall, they went in the bucket.
“As my dad passed on a collection of antique calls that were second to none, my collection of discards is what I’ll pass on.”
Hohn’s older son, Wes, is 24 years old and has the same love as his father for sports and outdoors activities. Wes won the Alabama State
Junior Duck Calling title, and Hohn’s younger son, Canyon, and daughter, Lindsey, each have that same love for the outdoors.
After a brief college career at the University of Tulsa and at Arkansas State University, Hohn earned an engineering degree from the University of Alabama. He has been employed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, since 1991.
The Duck for Cover Umbrella should be available in retail outlets in the near future. For more information, contact Hohn at davidhohn@hotmail.com.