We are beyond excited to announce the location and facility for the next World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships®. Coralville is a suburb of Iowa City, Iowa, and is very near to the University of Iowa. It is a beautiful hotel, one which I would call first class in every way. Its management team is very professional and the hotel and conference center are well staffed. The room rates we have been given of $135.00 plus tax are exceptional for a Hyatt Regency. This rate includes free parking (normally $8 per day) and two buffet breakfast vouchers for each room-night booked under our World Show room block.
Kathy and I visited this facility in August, and out of 14 venues we considered, it received the only A+ in our rankings. The area surrounding the hotel is beautiful and safe with a lake and very large terrace on the back side and many excellent restaurants and shops within walking distance in the front. The Hyatt has a local-favorite restaurant and a large, newly remodeled bar for night life. We will have 20,000 square feet of open exhibition area for our trade show, and over 14,000 square feet for the competition area. Large seminar rooms have closed-circuit large screen videos, and the World Championships® Award Ceremony will be held Friday, August 9 in the Coral Ballroom with seating for 600-700 attendees. We are truly excited about this show and we do expect it to be the largest we have ever produced! I promise—it will be well staffed, no food shortage, plenty of ice machines working on each floor, plenty of hot water, and no leaks in the ceiling!
We will begin our main show promotions in early 2024, but we have already received hotel booking information for the Hyatt Regency. It is my guess this 288-room hotel will fill by early summer 2024, if not sooner. There are several other hotels within a 3- to 4-block walking distance and I am working on room blocks in two of these. I will announce those hotels and rates in future show promotions.
Our daily schedule will be the same as past shows, starting Tuesday evening August 6, at 3:00 p.m. and ending Saturday August 10 at 1:00 p.m. Taxidermy entries will be accepted and trade show exhibitors will move in between 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and again from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Wednesday. Seminars will start at 6:00 p.m.Tuesday and continue each day through Friday. The World Show website should be online by February 2024 with a full list of seminars, instructors, judges, special events, and the award show.
Here is the booking information for the Hyatt Regency: Our Group Booking code is G-NCLE. Use this code if calling the hotel or going to the Hyatt website. A credit card is needed to guarantee your room booking. All rooms booked in our group room block using G-NCLE include two buffet breakfast vouchers for each room night booked and free parking for one vehicle. There will also be free parking for trailers in the conference center parking lot for attendees booked in our room block at the Hyatt. Your room key is your in/out pass. (If you are not staying at the Hyatt, vehicle and trailer parking at the conference center will cost $1.00 per hour or $8.00 per day.)
Room Rates: King bedroom or 2 queen bedroom $135.00 plus tax.
You can call the Hyatt Coralville hotel directly at (319) 688-4000 or go to our Hyatt group site to book rooms under our block. •
by Tim Gorenchan
Early in my taxidermy career I became well aware of the value of reference photos. Any experienced taxidermist will tell you one of the most important requirements to improve your work is simple: reference, reference, reference. As so, in the days before cell phones with 512 GBS of storage, I began collecting binders full of photos of every fish and mammal that seemed useful. I amassed an impressive collection, and while my work improved steadily, I never felt like I was getting a huge benefit from my reference collection, that is, until a critique from my good friend and mentor, Rick Krane, at the Michigan Taxidermy Association competition in 2016. During that critique, Rick taught me that it’s much easier to recreate something if you know what its purpose is. In other words, once you know what something is supposed to do, it’s easier to understand why that something is shaped the way it is and with that knowledge in hand, it’s much easier to make sure you’re reproducing it accurately. It is through this lens that I will approach this series of articles.
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Master of Masters and Akeley Awards from WTC 2022
Brian Hendricks
Daniel Meng
Frank Newmyer
Danny Owens
Kent Reedy
Dave Long
Richard White
Jan Fredriksson
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by World Champion Jason Krause
I have lived in the eastern section of Pennsylvania my entire life, and only occasionally did I see rattlesnakes. Only when I started actively seeking them on Blue Mountain, which is the first mountain in the Appalachian chain of mountains when heading north from southeastern Pennsylvania, did I begin discovering their natural beauty. I enjoy working with all species of wildlife, but reptiles, especially snakes, are one of my favorites.
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Featured are all entries and major awards from the 2023 NTA Convention in Sioux Falls, SD.
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