THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996 TAG: 9611120233
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: 52 lines
This time, world champion goose caller Brad Privott can truly say he did it all on his own.
The 15-year-old from Bells Island in Currituck won the Junior World Championship Goose Calling Contest in Easton, Md., over the weekend. And he did it the old-fashioned way, using his voice instead of a mechanical device.
Privott became a national celebrity when he first won the world title in 1993 and appeared on various television shows, including ``Late Night with David Letterman'' and ``The Jerry Springer Show.'' He even hired an agent.
Back then, Privott earned his standing with the aid of a call, a device to help create realistic waterfowl sounds.
The teen had planned to do the same in Saturday's open contest on the Eastern Shore.
``Then I started playing around with calling with my voice, and I got pretty good with it,'' Privott said Monday.
``I'd tried before and couldn't do it. Then I started getting a little cough, and it turned out good.''
His father, Currituck County magistrate Bill Privott, also thinks adolescence played a role. ``He's 15 now, and I guess maybe with his voice changing, it came to him.''
Last year, the junior world championship went to a teen from Kentucky who used his own voice. He came to Maryland on Saturday to defend his title.
To psych out his opponent, Privott walked around all day wearing his Tim Grounds call, though he never intended to use it.
After he got behind his blind, Privott unleashed a repertoire of voice-generated goose calls that the judges decided were more convincing than the other seven entries.
``I had two senior world champions who were there come up to me, and one of them said that when he (Brad) called, it sent cold chills down to their toes,'' Bill Privott said.
Himself a former world champion waterfowl caller, Bill Privott said it's getting harder to win contests by voice because of calls now on the market.
``Those calls now sound really good. It's really gotten hard for a voice caller to get in there and be a real competitor,'' he said.
For his winning effort, Brad Privott received a $500 scholarship, a Mossberg automatic shotgun, a wooden commemorative goose decoy, a camouflage hunting coat and hunting shirt, and a special edition Eastern Shoreman goose call.
The teen-ager is still making public appearances, too, though much closer to home these days.
On Sunday, Nov. 24, he'll appear from 2 to 4 p.m. at The Cotton Gin Open House in Jarvisburg. Two weeks later, on Dec. 8, he'll be appearing at the Core Sound Decoy Festival at Harker's Island, N.C. by CNB