In this episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast, host Katie Burke welcomes Michael Tarquini, the acting executive director and president of the board for the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum. Michael shares his background, detailing his connection to Havre de Grace, Maryland, where he grew up near the Chesapeake Bay. The conversation delves into the significance of hunting and fishing in the local culture, highlighting the region's rich heritage related to waterfowl and decoy craftsmanship. Join us for insights into the world of decoys and the importance of preserving this unique aspect of Maryland's history.
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Listen now: www.ducks.org/DUPodcast
Send feedback: DUPodcast@ducks.org
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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Katie Burke: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, Katie Burke. And today on the show, I have Michael Tarquini. Michael is the acting executive director of the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum, but he is the president of the board for the Havatar Grace Decoy Museum. Welcome to the show, Michael.
Michael Tarquini: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Katie Burke: We met actually not that long ago at Easton for the first time. How long have you been going to Easton for Havre de Grace?
Michael Tarquini: I would say I've been going to Easton for about seven or eight years. For the decoy museum. I used to go to Easton on and off as just a decoy collector, but not for the museum.
Katie Burke: So you've been going, yeah, as for the decoy museum. And y'all have always kind of set up around the auction and stuff. Is that kind of in the typical?
Michael Tarquini: Well, the auction set up is recent. That's only last year and this year. And, um, but I was always in the high school where the buy, sell, swap takes place.
Katie Burke: And yeah, we all moved all everybody over to the country school.
Michael Tarquini: Everything's in flux down in Eastern right now.
Katie Burke: Alright, so usually the way I always start all this, especially for someone who's new, is I do like a background situation, like, so we get into your background and kind of figure out how you got to where you are today. So, you grew up in Habitat for Grace, Maryland, correct?
Michael Tarquini: I certainly did.
Katie Burke: Okay, so what was, has it always been, I mean, or did you even realize when you were young the role that decoys and waterfowl played in that area?
Michael Tarquini: Yes, as a teenager and even a little before that, I realized that hunting and fishing are a big part of our area because we live on the Chesapeake Bay here. Havata Grace is located right where the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay. So as a youngster, I would hunt and fish just like anybody else in our area would. And then, of course, when you're a hunter, you understand the need for decoys, and then you understand how do you get them. And oddly enough, I have the closest family member I have. I was an only child, so I have a cousin who was an only child. We kind of grew up as brothers, and he is a very prominent decoy maker in our area. So I ended up working in his shop just to, I don't know, do something. And I would go over there and just do what I always called the unskilled work. And so I learned even how to make them. I never painted a decoy, but I learned how to make them. Oddly enough, I had very few decoys back during the time that I worked in a shop. And the decoy carver was Pat Vincenni. And so I… I don't know, I probably stopped working with Pat in the early 80s, I would say, maybe mid 80s. My children started getting a little older, and being around a decoy shop wasn't exactly the safest environment given the tools and those saws and all the stuff that goes on, a lot of moving parts. Yeah. And so I kind of got away from it, and in my job, I started traveling a lot, so I don't know, it's hard to be home.
Katie Burke: Yeah, so did you have the same, well it sounds like no, but a lot of like guys from your area or like the East Coast in general that hunted, they made, they started hunting and then they needed decoys so they had to make decoys. So did you do any of that or did you just like steal them from Pat?
Michael Tarquini: No, we did. Pat and I hunted together. um, we body booted in the south liner flats actually wait tell the audience what body booting is body booting is um, I always start out by saying it's a form of hunting that's not for the meek, uh You actually physically stand in the water in a dry suit um, which is like, um it It can go anywhere from an old Navy suit back when we were kids to now they have more elaborate survival suits. We didn't have those when we were teenagers, but you stand in the water. So you can imagine a hunting season is December and January.
Katie Burke: And you mean you stand to the water up to your chest?
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, you got to understand we get a three-foot tide swing here. So you have to think about what's the tide going to do. And you don't want to be moving your rig because of the tide. So if you go in on a low tide, we get a three-foot swing here in Habitat Grace. So you have to kind of plan for that. OK. You have to look at the tide charts. Doesn't move three foot every time. So Pat and I made a lot of decoys to support our hunting rig. Um, they were not the fancy ones that you go to a museum and see today. They were made out of styrofoam and things like that. Basically anything we could glue together and shape and paint.
Katie Burke: Yeah. They're not that, I mean, they don't, the ducks, we make decoys way nicer than we need to for the ducks.
Michael Tarquini: Well, with the advent of plastic, you know, and, and, and injection molding and, and, and blood molding and things like that, the, I mean, you can go to Cabela's sporting goods and you can buy a dozen decoys for a hundred, $120. So, but hand carved decoys, they might be $150 a piece. Yeah, and that's low. There's not too many people in this world that still use hand-carved decoys like you would find in a museum, but there are some, surprisingly. There are some. There are some.
Katie Burke: Yeah, there's some, and yeah, and $150 is actually pretty cheap, so, for a hand-carved decoy.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, I mean, yeah, but you don't, yeah, you wouldn't hunt over Ward Brother decoys or something. No. But, well, you'd be surprised how many local Haber-de-Grace carvers get requests to Make 100 or 150 decoys for somebody's hunting rig. It's surprising to me.
Katie Burke: And that's impressive because it's heavy to do. There's a reason why we switched over to plastic, right?
Michael Tarquini: Well, they're lightweight for certain and they're the cost. I mean, you get 10 of them for the cost of one.
Katie Burke: And then you can replace them very easily, or you don't have to repair them.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, you lose one, so be it. You go get another dozen for $100, or $150.
Katie Burke: Okay, so, yeah, so you were bodybooting, so that's, so you made decoys for that. Were you aware of, so you had Pat in your life, obviously, early on as a cousin, but were you aware of the other carvers there, too, and the other history of that?
Michael Tarquini: We were. I mean, Havard de Grace is a relatively small town. I would say back then, our population was only about 12,000, so… Okay. Honestly, if you grew up in Harry Grayson, you didn't know everybody. You didn't have a personality. So pretty much that simple.
Katie Burke: I grew up in a very tiny place, too, so I understand.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, so you knew everybody. Yeah. And related to most of them. We had some of the stalwarts of decoy making in this town, the likes of R. Madison Mitchell, Jimmy Pierce, Harry Jobes. And they all, I mean, in the case of Pierce and Jobes, they all had children. And those children make decoys today. So it's, um, you know, it's, it's a special place. Yeah. We hand it down generation to generation. I had girls, so there's no decoy makers in my film.
Katie Burke: Well, there's a couple now. Yeah, there's a couple girl decoy makers now. It's not my girls. Yeah, it's not many and they're young. Honestly, I grew up in Mississippi, so I didn't know handmade decoys is like not a thing down here. So I never knew about it until I was in my 20s and later. Okay, so how so you go through hunting i'm guessing you're hunting while you're working and everything you're staying part of that Yeah, do you continue to hunt? Yeah.
Michael Tarquini: Okay. Um, I no I don't continue to hunt oddly enough. Um You know, my career path took off in a different way. It wasn't also compatible. It wasn't all that compatible with uh You know, getting involved with hunting. Hunting's a, you gotta be dedicated for that. I mean, you, it's, it's expensive and you have to keep up the equipment and all that other stuff. And if you're running the roads all the time, I traveled a lot in my job. So travel, hunting during the week was out of the question. And then hunting on weekends, you're not allowed to hunt on Sundays. So you really only had Saturday. Oh, really? Now, Sunday in Maryland is not a hunting day. Huh, I didn't know that. So, you know, and then the conservation laws, not that I'm against conservation, but the conservation laws You were, you know, it's skinny down to, you were allowed like one goose and you had to have a secretary to keep score for ducks and all that other stuff. And it just, it wasn't worth the effort. You know, they say sometimes the juice not worth the squeeze.
Katie Burke: So, uh, yeah, in my case, that's what happened. Yeah. And your kids didn't hunt.
Michael Tarquini: My kids didn't hunt. They were girls. They're off playing sports and I'm off playing dad. So I will say that, I don't know, about five years ago, Pat said to me, we're about the same age. He's about a year older than me. He said to me, you know, we ought to get a rig together again. And I said, a rig for what? And he said, body booting. And I said, are you crazy? He needs to have his medicine checked. I said, we're having, we were 20 years old when we were standing in that water. I mean, come on. And we're 60. He's, he's just turned 70 and I'm 68. Yeah. Charles Jobes still does it, but I. Charles still does it. I think Joey does occasionally. Yeah. There's, there's a handful of rigs that go out now. It's not like it once was, you know, it's a lot of effort. And I hate to sound like an old timer, but you gotta be a, you gotta have some energy and some, some go get them to get out there and body boot, lay all those decoys out and pick them all back up. And it's cold and. I get it.
Katie Burke: I mean… It grew out of it. Yeah. And in Mississippi, we don't have to do as… I mean, look, there's a lot of work that goes into, like, managing and keeping up duck holes and farming and all that, all the off-season stuff. But when it comes to actually hunting, we take out a dozen and we stand in knee-deep water and it's 50 degrees and sunny.
Michael Tarquini: There were nights, I tell you, some of the best hunting nights that I ever experienced We used to, we used to call it, uh, for lack of a better term, we'd get the urge during the week, one evening and, and, you know, about three o'clock, we'd make some phone calls and say, let's go catch the evening dart, you know, and we take a handful of decoys and a couple, we call them stick ups. The thing you stand behind, it's like a silhouette with a. Oh, the ones that you put in the water. And we just go out there with like almost nothing. And some nights you just have the right look. And everything just comes to you like a magnet and other people all around you got hundreds of decoys and they don't fire a gun. Right. So I'd like to say we're good at it, but sometimes a little luck is the right thing.
Katie Burke: Well, okay. I have a theory about this. So I've talked about this before. So I feel like sometimes whenever the big rigs and stuff, and you go out with a little bit and they come in, I think sometimes geese and ducks both are like, they're looking at those big rigs. Oh, they've been fooled enough time by these big rigs. They're like, so when they see just a few decoys down there, they're like, oh, that's different. It's probably okay.
Michael Tarquini: There may be some truth to that. I don't think they're as dumb as people think they are.
Katie Burke: No, especially geese. They remember things.
Michael Tarquini: Well, you only need to fire the gun one time. with geese or ducks and you don't have to worry about them flying by again. I mean, so they do have a memory for sure.
Katie Burke: They'll, they remember. So I think sometimes, yeah, especially if they've been in the area for a while and they've been like going into those big groups. Like I think that a little bit, they're just like, now that doesn't, I'm not going to try that. I'll try this little group over here.
Michael Tarquini: If you fired a shotgun at me, I'd certainly remember.
Katie Burke: I would too. When did you start working with the decoy museum? And what brought that on? Why did you start volunteering?
Michael Tarquini: I started at the decoy museum in the fall of 1986. That's the birth year. I just told you a lie. In the fall of 2016 okay and um and it's kind of a strange it's a strange uh way I got tied up there you would think the president of the Digcoin Museum at the time was Pat Vincenni okay you would think that Patrick Woodham invited me to come join the board, but that had nothing to do with how I showed up. I stopped at the Harry Grace has a maritime museum, just pretty much on adjacent property with the decoy museum. And I was asked by the president of the maritime museum to consider joining their board, because I was a boater, I am a boater. And so I said, well, let me think about that, because he kind of caught me by surprise. So I was out cutting my grass one night, and one of the board members from the museum, of the decoy museum, drove by, stopped to say hi. And he says, I said, I got a question for you. And I said, I've been invited to join the Maritime Museum's board of directors. What do you think about that? I don't really know those guys too well. And the guy who actually stopped was a founder of the Decoy Museum. It's just a coincidence. But he says, well, if you have a hankering to join a board, I need you to join the Decoy Museum board. I said, well, isn't it odd that my cousin, who's been president for 15 years, hasn't called me? And he says, we meet. He gave me the meeting date. It was in some second or third Monday or Tuesday or something of the month. And he says, show up at this meeting at this time, and we'll take it from there. So I showed up, and I can remember Pat looked over his glasses and said, what are you doing here? He didn't even know I was coming. And so I said, well, I don't know. Alan invited me to come. And so they voted me in as a board member. It just so happened somebody had left the board, and there was a vacancy. And so as often happens, I kind of migrate to leadership positions eventually. We had a vice president step away, and I was asked to consider taking the vice presidency, and I did. And that was after being there about a year and a half as a regular board member. So I did, and then And then, as I mentioned earlier, Pat, or I didn't mention, but Pat, Pat got into politics. Patrick is the president of the Hartford County Council. And so his time got more and more stretched as his… you know, is business stuff for the county council increased. And eventually in, I don't know, I've been president, I just completed my fifth year. I guess in about 2018, I was asked, at the end of 18, I was asked to, would you consider taking my place if I stepped down? And I said, well, it's an election, right? I got to win an election. He said, well, yeah, but would you run for it? And I said I would. And um, and so and I think the closeness that pat and I had gave rise to that conversation because pat was Very very close to our madison mitchell. And of course the museum was founded in his honor, and he had a lot to do with getting it funded and all that stuff. And Pat was very reluctant to turn the reins of the museum over to anybody. And he knew that he could trust that, you know, I would stay on the focus of the mission and all that stuff. And that's how it happened. So I just completed my fifth year. So right after, shortly after I took presidency, we had the COVID. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, you went right in and then COVID happened.
Katie Burke: How long were you shut down?
Michael Tarquini: And that gave rise to the other thing that I alluded to. So when we came back from COVID, we lost our executive director. Okay. And so, you know, one of the bigger challenges shortly after taking the presidency was, now what do we do? Right. And what we learned was, You know, sometimes it's just best, so we went out and tried to get people, but we just didn't have anybody that would knock their socks off, you know? And so rather than hire the wrong person, we thought, let's just wait it out, learn, in my case, learn about the museum a little bit more. It's pretty hard not to learn about it when you're on the ground working. So, eh. But after well, it's been well, that was 2020, right? So right, um, it's been four full years that i've done that and um, And I just told the board that i'm looking for a i'm looking to get far.
Katie Burke: Yeah from that Yeah, we're gonna go back to being just president of the board.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, but the reason for that, it's got a solid business reasoning, is you know when you're the president of a board of anything, I mean your focus needs to be on strategy, your focus needs to be on strategic things. When you're an executive director, your focus is on tactical things. And when you're trying to focus on strategic things, tactical things become a distraction. But unfortunately, the tactical things tend to have the urgency. The faucets leaking in the ladies room, this is broken, that's broken, the elevator inspection's overdue. You know, these kinds of things, and it really takes your eye off the strategies.
Katie Burke: I've gotten to the point I need to get back to it. Yeah, as a board member and a president of the board, you're thinking, I mean, not that executive directors aren't thinking long term, but you are thinking like big picture, long term, kind of like how to get the mission from here to there. And then, whereas executive director is much having to do with more of that day-to-day operational stuff.
Michael Tarquini: and solving those problems on the ground. I mean, my job is to figure out what do we want to be when we grow up, right? Right. I mean, the museum's 40 years old in 2026. I know, y'all.
Katie Burke: I share a birthday with the museum, or a birth year, so I know exactly how old. Was it November 6th or November 7th? No, no. I'm technically older than it.
Michael Tarquini: Oh, oh, I got you. I got you. It's the same year. Yeah, in November of 26, we turned 40. And I think, you know, no podcast should go without someone like me saying that, you know, the founders of the museum did a wonderful job of building a foundation. And my job, as I come in, is a lot easier as a result of that. You know, the Alan Fares, Jimmy Pierces, Pat Vincennes, I mean, and many, many other board members, They did a fantastic job of giving us what you got there now. But my mission is to prepare us for the next 40, so to speak. And so, you know, we're in the electronic age. I mean, the days of walking into a museum and reading a storyboard to gain the knowledge is probably behind us. And, you know, the age of electronics is in front of us. and AI, and there's just all kinds of things that are at our fingertips now to enhance and make our stuff inside the museum what I would call more interactive or more immersive. And so we're doing that very thing. We have probably the most ambitious project in the museum's history is underway right now. We're doing an expansion. We're wanting to do an expansion. We will find out if we raise enough money. But we want to do an expansion. We have to make room for the future. But more importantly, what's driving it is we have the original decoy shop of our Madison Metro that we purchased in 1989. And we brought it to the museum site, but it's just sitting out in the weather deteriorating. And unfortunately, until we get it inside the house and keep the weather off of it, it's going to continue to deteriorate. So we want to design an addition to the museum where we can include that that small workshop and paint shop to, I don't know, I mean, it not only served as the site of the most prolific dig coin making in Havre de Grace, but it served as the site where our Madison Mitchell held school every day, and he taught many of the carvers who, you know, the Harry Jobses, the Jimmy Pierces, and Jimmy Pierce is going to turn 91 in May, so he's hardly a child anymore, but now he's taught his son You know, and so, I mean, Madison carried on the tradition by, it's the University of decoy making there.
Katie Burke: Well, I mean, Mitchell decoys, it's, if you look at Haverter Grace decoys, any Haverter Grace decoy, his influence is obvious. Once you've seen a Mitchell decoy and then you see another decoy from that area, that's, I mean, you can't miss his influence on decoy making in that area.
Michael Tarquini: No, I think you're absolutely right. You know, Mr. Mitchell perfected the use of a duplicating lathe to streamline the body making procedure. Prior to that, people were using hatchets to hand chop them. And so you could make, I don't know, a handful of decoys in a day's time, but you could probably make dozens of them. Otherwise. So Mr. Mitchell was not, if you will, the father of decoy making in Africa. He did not pioneer the style, but he certainly was the most prolific. He put out a lot of decoys.
Katie Burke: He did. He put out a lot of decoys there.
Michael Tarquini: And trained a lot of people. Yeah. He really, he was a generous man. He, he shared his, his talent and his vision for decoys and decoy making. And a lot of people were enriched by his generosity. Probably the best way to put it. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I mean, I used to go in there with Pat, you know, so I knew Mr. Mitchell, but I, you know, I, I didn't, I did not work in Mr. Mitchell's shop.
Katie Burke: All right. Well, this is a good spot. We'll take a quick break and then we'll come right back. All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the DU podcast. Again, I have my guest, Michael Tarquini from Habit of Grace Decoy Museum. So, Michael, I want to go a little bit more into that history of the museum. And we could go into Habit of Grace and all of that as well. But, okay, so let's start with when it was built. You said it was in Well, in memory of… So was it in memory of Mitchell, or was he still alive at that time?
Michael Tarquini: No, he was alive, very much still alive. In 1981, this is how it happened. I'll give you the condensed version here. In 1981, three businessmen in the town of Harry Grace, in the crazy idea department, had a crazy idea. With the history of water fouling on the famed Susquehanna Flats, we should start a decoy museum to honor that history and cultural heritage and at the same time we You know display decoys many of which from that time some of which more contemporary so those three guys they Not a one of them was a decoy maker. So those three guys approached jim pierce jim pierce was a decoy maker Okay, and so jim pierce who trained in madison's shop? Got on board. So the four of them embarked on this mission To start a decoy museum. Well, the first thing you need when you start a decoy museum is you need money. So, but more importantly than that, the beginning there was an old dilapidated building. that served as a boiler plant for, I don't know when you visited there, Katie, if you noticed, it was a stone hotel-looking building. Yeah, yeah. The decoy museum was the boiler plant for that structure and made steam and steam was piped in there for heat and all that. Okay. So, the city of Harry Grace owned it at the time. And so, the decoy museum I don't know if we purchased it or rented it for ever kind of thing for a dollar, but, um, it was a sight to see. It was pretty horrible looking building. Um, but these guys had a vision and they, a lot of them put their own money together and they just, they started holding decoy shows in 1982 to raise money. And and then there were donations and and the like but it really wasn't until we had to We had to go to maryland's legislature, um, you know the state senators and state delegates and and mr mitchell was the stalwart that went down there and testified in front of the keeper of the money and um, and he sold them That we needed this cash to get open. So that would have been in the I don't know mid-80s Okay, um because the decoy museum opened Not looking like it looks today, but it opened in november of 1986 Okay. Okay. So again, so in 2026 we will celebrate 40 years so Then in I would say early 90s 1991 We decided or it was decided. I wasn't part of we it was decided that um The museum would benefit from having a store with which to sell memories of your museum visit and potentially be a bit of a revenue stream And we wanted a second floor Okay second floor of that old building was not there. We put it there. And I guess the good news is the structure could support it. We didn't have to do anything out of the ordinary to support it. So again, I mean, Excitement was high, as they say, but fun grew low. And so the legislature of Maryland, again, came out of the ashes and helped us with, I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah.
Katie Burke: Okay, so I have a question. Yeah. And this is maybe, like, too museum-y and, yeah, maybe I'm too into career, but How was it difficult, or do you know, like, okay, the Ward Museum is existing in Maryland and Salisbury at the same time, and convincing there should be a second decoy museum, did that help or did that hinder, do you know? I think that, um,
Michael Tarquini: I think looking at museums is probably like looking at restaurants, you know? If you own a restaurant in an area and a new restaurant opens, everyone tends to think it hurts the business of the first restaurant. It actually helps the business. There's an initial, everybody tries the new place, but now people go out to dinner twice a week instead of just once, because now they have choices. So choices sometimes encourages, you know, business.
Katie Burke: No, I agree. And there's obviously enough decoys and history and all of that for two places, particularly in the state of Maryland.
Michael Tarquini: Well, think about it this way, too. The Word Museum's story to tell was Lem and Steve Ward. Yeah. And the many masters of the Crisfield era, right? And Delmarva. I mean, they're right on the Delmarva Peninsula. Haverty Grace's story to tell was the hunting history and cultural heritage of the Susquehanna Flats. Yeah. Both market gunning, sport hunting. I mean, sitting presidents came to the Susquehanna Flats to hunt. I mean, it was an extremely popular area. Oh, yeah. So we have two different stories to tell. Yeah. And a lot of people don't give enough thought that the Dequay Museum, whether it be the ward or whether it be Haverdegrace, it's more than just coming in and seeing a bunch of wooden ducks. I mean, there's a story behind those ducks. And the stories are different. You know, if you go, I'm sure the story at Peoria is different than the story in Aberdeen Grace. 100%. Because no one can tell the story of the Susquehanna Flats. It's our story to tell. But it's Crisfield's story to tell and Salisbury's story to tell about the War Brothers. And you go to other places and there's other stories to tell. I mean, it's everywhere. Midwest, Oh, yeah. No, I agree.
Katie Burke: I was just wondering like when you're you know how it is when you're getting funding from the state like and if you're having to convince them of giving you money.
Michael Tarquini: Let's be clear. The Harry Grace Museum got a few dollars to get started and a few dollars to put on an addition. We were not on the state's payroll. Yeah. Okay. Word Museum had a different situation.
Katie Burke: Their university situation.
Michael Tarquini: They were hooked into Salisbury. They were a line item in a budget every year. As much as we'd like to be that, um, I think we're happier as we've grown that we're not that.
Katie Burke: Yeah. You have more freedom to, for example, with your, uh, expansion. Yeah. Like you have freedom to raise funds as you wish. And yeah, no, it makes sense. It's, it's, it's interesting. And you're not having to answer to someone or to a university about the content. And there's a lot that goes with that.
Michael Tarquini: That's right. And I'll tell you a very important thing that goes with our situation. When the founders and the locals built it and funded it and worked hard to keep it, we manage it financially as if it's ours. Yeah. I might surprise you to say that the Decoy Museum in Havre de Grace, at 39 years old, has zero debt. And that's because we manage it like it's ours.
Katie Burke: Yeah, so that was my other question, which is very unique to your, well, in terms of waterfowl museums. I mean, you're very much centered in this small town, in this community that has Not just because of the museum, but as you mentioned earlier, the history going back in the Susquehanna Flats and Haberdasher Grace goes all the way back with decoys. It's a long history. And being in that town, I'm guessing the support you get from the people who still live there has always been there. Is that kind of like— You're part of a community. You're a community staple, right? Like, that's a very different— We are. We are—
Michael Tarquini: We are a major tourist attraction for not only the city of Howard. Yeah, Hartford County in the state of Maryland. Another thing that makes us a little different than some, we are open every day, except for a handful of holidays. There's only four holidays that were closed. Yeah, I feel you there and uh, and so, you know when you're open every day You're offering a tourist opportunity every day And there's some days are slower than others and some days you probably write a check versus make a check but um, you got to take the good with the bad um, and so I don't know. I just think, well, look at where we are today. Yeah. I mean, you know, the unfortunate circumstances around the Ward Museum has really opened the door for the Haverty Grace Museum to step in, step up. And we are getting opportunities to display rare artifacts. I mean, the phones ring in every week. And our toughest job right now is to manage the queue of the exhibits than to worry about what's next.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I mean, especially in your, yeah, like, not to, like, beat a dead horse about, but that geo, that location on this, in this country, it is, it's as ducky as it gets, like, so.
Michael Tarquini: And think about it this way, too.
Katie Burke: The collections are there.
Michael Tarquini: We're located right off of Interstate 95. We're sandwiched between say the Washington DC Baltimore metropolitan areas and the Philadelphia New York City metropolitan areas and I there's a lot of folks in that corridor. Yeah, um and And I think it's important to say, I think over the years, the actual support membership is you'd be surprised. I'm surprised. So you'd be surprised. Our membership comes from a lot of different places. I would not say we're overrun. with members from Havre de Grace. I mean, we have some for sure. And when you look at the founders and the people who are charter members and all of that, certainly the scales tip towards Havre de Grace. But one of the missions we have at the museum is we are expanding our service area. Right. And we're expanding our service area with the following strategy. We have four major temporary exhibit cases that are 20 feet plus each, okay, in length and hold a lot of artifacts. And We have three active decoy clubs in our area. One's from New Jersey, one's from the Delmarva Peninsula, and one's from the Potomac Decoy Collectors Association. They're sponsoring rotating exhibits And you know what we don't we don't tie their hands and say oh you gotta have this one. You gotta have that one Yes, and that's important by what shows up and it's it's always better They make a better decision than we could of what to put in there.
Katie Burke: They know it better. So I deal with this I have I did the same thing so um I get a ton of people through our little space just because I'm inside a Bass Pro Shops, that not necessarily be decoy people. So we have big numbers in our museum. That's great. But I will say going in… People are usually surprised with the Ducks London Museum how much of it is on loan from private collectors that are in the decoy world, but I don't think anybody in the decoy world would be surprised by that. And each exhibit is done by a private collector or a group of private collectors. And I let them decide for the most part. They pick what they want to display. They pick the story they want to tell. You know, I do have the luxury of being in the middle of the country, so I do everything. Sure. I can be, you know, I can go from Canada to California to the East Coast. Like, I don't have to really pick an area, but Yeah, I, they, the collectors and the decoy carvers, they hold all this information. Right. And it's, you're silly to think you know more than these people.
Michael Tarquini: And what we've learned, what I've learned, I'm going to speak for me, what I've learned the most is that most of that stuff, history is kept close to the vest. And if you don't cuddle up with some of these guys and ladies, you're not going to learn. And it's going to leave with them.
Katie Burke: That's the whole goal of this.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, I mean, I just completed, we just put a brand new exhibit in from the New Jersey Decoy Collectors Association of Bob White. I don't know if you know Bob White. I do know Bob White. Bob White's in Tullytown, Pennsylvania. He's a great guy. Very talented. Very talented. And 85 years old, Bob tells me he still swims an hour and a half a day.
Katie Burke: I met him for the first time in person this year at Easton. He is the fittest 85-year-old person I've ever seen in my life.
Michael Tarquini: He swims an hour and a half a day. And um, I mean gosh, I'm I I will be him when I grow up but um so I one of the jobs that I enjoy the most is i'm the editor of our Quarterly publication called the canvas back and that allows me I started uh, I don't know if I started it, but I continued And and in britain enhanced it when we put an exhibit of somebody in a museum I go and spend time with that person And unearth the story behind the birds, you know, right and and that is so valuable I think I mentioned to you that I met george trump that way. I met cameron mcintyre that way I i've met bob biddle that way i've now met bob white that way And there have been a few others and and so I kind of feel like it's my job to tell the story that Some people know but not the masses Yeah. And it's great. It's one of the most rewarding things that I do for the Avery Grace Decoy Museum. And I thoroughly enjoy going to all the decoy club events. I think I'm a member of all of them. And I just joined the North American Decoy Club. Oh, yay. Met Rick Sandstrom at an event recently. And he and I exchanged memberships. He joined us, and I joined him.
Katie Burke: Are you going to come to Chicago?
Michael Tarquini: I it's the week before our show. It's hard to oh, that's hard to do. I am going to do it someday I probably just like come on the wednesday. Yeah, I may not do it this year, but I don't know. Let's never say never. Yeah, never um, I I traveled for a living so I know how fast you can get an airline ticket. Yeah, that's right. It's just Chicago, I think, man. So I just uncover some of these seldom told stories. And probably the best example, the best example, I mean, Bob White, people know Bob White. I mean, but in this area, people don't necessarily know Bob White.
Katie Burke: No, no, he's a little farther up from you.
Michael Tarquini: We had a crazy idea inside the museum. It wasn't just my idea. It was a handful of folks. We never, in all the decoys that are inside our museum, there are no examples of decoys that have been produced by African-Americans. Yeah, none and and so we actually had a visitor one time that said you guys don't tell the whole story and he felt that We purposely didn't have decoys from african-americans. Well as as history has proven that there were no decoy black decoy carvers in Our region in the nine-year region and that's how that museum started was just to have her to grace reeds. So I took it upon myself, honestly, to go figure out why. And a couple of things fell into place. Lo and behold, my daughter's father-in-law served on a city council in Milford, Delaware. And one of the council people at the time was a black man named Douglas Gibson, who was a black decoy carver.
Katie Burke: Oh, wow. Go figure.
Michael Tarquini: Now, that's surprising in itself. It is surprising. Mr. Gibson turns 102 in February. Wow. So I said to my daughter's father-in-law, if you called Mr. Gibson, would he answer? And he goes, oh yeah. And I said, can you put me in his house? And I was invited to go down. I've been to Doug Gibson's house probably a half a dozen times now. And so he was the inspiration to help me go find the next black decoy carver. And I located a guy outside of Chincoteague, Virginia, who learned to carve decoys from Grayson Chesser. who lives not too far from there. So you probably know Grayson.
Katie Burke: I do, and I bet he remembers. You probably get the whole, he remembers everything.
Michael Tarquini: I did. And so I went down and spent a couple of different days with this guy's name is James Johnson. And so I'm starting to get stories that are not told. That's awesome. And so at the end of the day, another very close friend of the museum, a guy named Henry Stansbury, he was an um an aficionado if you will on lloyd tyler who's one of those crisfield carvers down there uh that made uh with the word brothers and um there was a black man that worked in lloyd tyler's shop named um sherman jones well you go if you if you read about it sherman he had a lot more to do with lloyd tyler's decoys than most people realize. I mean, Sherman, he was an employee. He worked, he chopped those bodies for Lloyd Tyler, and his hands were all over those decoys. His father made a handful of decoys. Oh, wow. And so you start piecing this story together, and it's pretty remarkable. Mr. Gibson told me his father made a few decoys only to hunt over. Right. We went from not knowing anybody to positively identifying five. that we know of, and they didn't know of any others. They didn't know of each other, which was kind of surprising.
Katie Burke: It's a little sad, though. It's just lost history.
Michael Tarquini: It was a failure to document. I don't believe for a second that there weren't other black old big boy covers, but there's no way to find them. So that's what gave rise to that black or African-American exhibit that you probably saw during your visit there. That's what gave rise to it. That's why there's a Lloyd Tyler showcase there because, and a picture of Lloyd Tyler. And the first question everybody asks me when they look up at the backdrop, they say, well, he's not a black guy.
Katie Burke: I need to do a podcast with one of these guys.
Michael Tarquini: But I said, I said the guy who made a lot of the decoys that came out of his shop was the black man pictured next to him. And so you gotta tell Lloyd's story to tell Sherman's story. Yeah. And I did locate, I did locate, have you ever heard a fellow down in Crisfield, Oliver Toots Lawson? Yeah. Toots worked shoulder to shoulder with Sherman Jones in Lloyd Tyler's decoy shop. If you could have seen the expression on my face the night I went to a lecture given by Toots Lawson and heard him say that, I was collecting all this information at the time. So I became the only guy in the room asking questions because I was looking to figure the story out. I don't know. It's just it was a fun project and and it helped unearth a little bit of history.
Katie Burke: Well, it's it's it's important because before I mean besides I can only think of a two and one's um And one's questionable. There's a debate on him in Massachusetts. And then the other one, well, is LaFrance from Louisiana. Oh, now Louisiana has a handful. They have a handful because there's a few because of the Cajun and Creole.
Michael Tarquini: There's like 22 African-American carvers. But then you got the Cajuns and the Creoles. And I, in part of my research… There's a different area of the country. I got have you ever met or heard of cal kingsmill.
Katie Burke: I do know of him.
Michael Tarquini: I haven't For you to interview you should think about that. But anyway, cal kingsmill Talked me into uh I interviewed Eric Hutchison. Eric Hutchison. His whole family was decoy carvers. His dad, his uncle, and then Eric. Eric's, I think, the only living one. And he's in his 60s. He's a very good guy. He talked to me for hours on the phone. He's right in New Orleans. They all lived in the Seventh War.
Katie Burke: Yeah, well because that area of the country just kind of led to it being more What the way that career was it was a? waterman's career kind of one added on to Those jobs which were shared by many different people whereas in the rest of the country like It didn't make sense that that we were right you were right asking the right questions because it didn't make sense that there weren't any but There's always been this like, oh, well, it just, they just, there weren't, you didn't have, no one really knew why and what the answer was there.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, if you think about it, I mean, there was a rich history of blacks work in the Chesapeake Bay. And don't we, don't we all realize that some of the greatest carvings came out of Africa? I mean, there was woodworking and wood and carving. African africans were among the best at that. How the heck did it not translate? I don't know.
Katie Burke: Yeah, no and it it also like that's part that they ever made since is like decoy carving especially in your area where it was market gunning, like the way this was, it would have been a multi-man effort. It would have been carving in downtime for tools to be used on a cheap, to save money, to kill more ducks. Like, it just doesn't make sense as a career that white people would be the only people involved.
Michael Tarquini: Yeah, no, I'm 100% in agreement with you. But I asked everybody that came through Mitchell's shop, and that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. And nobody was aware of a single African-American that worked at Mr. Mitchell's. And there were some characters that came through that shop, but no black decoy carvers. You know, I'm pretty close to several of the shops in town here. In fact, I'm close to all the shops in town here. They're all very staunch supporters of the museum in whatever way they can be. And there was just no knowledge. Just wasn't there. You want to talk about fishing? There's all kinds of stuff written about African-American fishing.
Katie Burke: In general, like there's so many carvers that we'll never know about just because the, the nature of that hobby or career or pastime or whatever you want to call it, whoever, what it was for that person. They just, it wasn't, they didn't think of it as a value at the time like that. It was something that people would ever care about. when they were doing it.
Michael Tarquini: So I mentioned, I want to throw in this point before we wander into something else. I mentioned that, you know, we've partnered with a lot of these decoy clubs, and they've brought exhibits from their region, and it really What it does is it draws people from those regions to the museum, who then are exposed to our region. But they wouldn't come just for that. They come to honor someone from their region, but at the same time they leave shaking their head thinking, man, why didn't I come here before? I mean, I never knew this existed. It's the most common word that because slogan we hear but more importantly and and you know this as well as I but I'm going to say it out loud as other folks that aren't decoy club members, and I'm going to use Guyon and Dieter as the perfect example, have also looked at the Havard& Grace decoy museum. John Dieter has looked at the Havard& Grace decoy museum and said, you're the last man standing in the state of Maryland. And he has been nothing short of instrumental in helping us be all we can be. And as a result, and you probably saw it, We have the Ted and Judy Harmon collection that's in there right now. It's probably the most valuable collection that's ever been assembled there.
Katie Burke: So I have questions about this. I think I asked you this in person, but so currently you have how many decoys from the Harmon collection?
Michael Tarquini: I think we have about 160.
Katie Burke: Okay, so when he goes to sell in the spring, will they put more in? Or like, how's that gonna, is it gonna rotate through?
Katie Burke: John told me he has at least another hundred.
Michael Tarquini: Okay. Down in St. Michael's. And when he, he's not gonna sell them all at once.
Katie Burke: No, he'll sell them in pieces, yeah.
Michael Tarquini: He'll sell them in pieces, and as he withdraws some, he's gonna make every attempt to replace them. with other things you know another thing and I have to give him a plug for this John has you know he publishes these pretty exotic books about the big auctions and um John has allowed the decoy museum to be the sales arm of those books oh that's nice and and he And it's so we we make a few dollars to support operations And and john's been furnishing the books and and I mean these are the kind of things he's been doing and and can't say enough Just get that wonderful things for us too. So like yeah, I mean we talk, you know, we try to keep keep on each other's radar and um and um I don't know. We're just very thankful. And I think as long as we continue doing the right things, I think John Deere's name will pop up on the phone more often. I think he's just trying to be helpful. I mean, it's good for him too, right? I mean, we're trying to raise the industry a little bit here.
Katie Burke: Yeah, it is. And you are. You are the last man standing in that area, and that area has to have it. With the war museum in its current situation. There's not another one in that area. Um No, there's nothing something's got to take this take that I mean, I guess you don't have to take that spot, but there are displays of decoys around.
Michael Tarquini: The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has a decoy. Yes, has something. But their focus is maritime. And then there's the Northeast.
Katie Burke: Tuckerton has something, right? They have like a little something.
Michael Tarquini: Tuckerton is in New Jersey, yes. And in the Northeast Maryland, which is just 10 miles up the road from us, they have a maritime museum that also has waterfowl decoys. And they play into the history as well. I mean, Northeast was Not a very long boat ride away from where the Susquehanna Flats were either. So, you know, Charlestown, Maryland was a hotbed for some of the, you know, John Grams and the likes of decoy makers.
Katie Burke: So all around that Susquehanna Flats heritage.
Katie Burke: And before y'all, what I mentioned, and thank you for letting us come for National Convention,
Michael Tarquini: oh yeah it's uh that's gonna be fun um patty kempke and i are kind of working out ironing out details and i think john's coming for that too to help out and talk or something of that nature good and um we're um i think we're gonna do on a wednesday of the national convention okay and um we've set up two different sessions in the morning and then we're going to Half of the group's going to go to Charles Jobs's shop, and the other half's going to stay at the museum. And then the bus is going to swap them. And then they're all going to come back from Charles's at the end to the museum, and we're going to have lunch. There for them that ducks unlimited is supplying but but we're We've agreed to host that and let them overlook the flats and we'll it'll be may so i'm sure in the spring It'll be delightful. Yeah, that's a good time to be there. So Yeah, you always have to apologize for that view of the susquehanna flats when people come upstairs. So And uh, he's being sarcastic of the chesapeake bay that exists um, so the perfect place for them to honor the heritage of the Susquehanna Flats. I couldn't pick a better building.
Katie Burke: No, it'll be a good event for them.
Michael Tarquini: I think so, and good event for us too. We've begun to draw a little closer with Ducks Unlimited. We co-host a clay shoot together on an eastern shore. I work with the Queen Anne's chapter down there, and the Talbot guys kind of help out too. So Talbot County and Queen Anne's County Um, we also, you know, the decoy museum also has a very good relationship with Delaware fell. Delta Waterfowl has been good to us, too. They're actually a partner in our annual show, which is first weekend.
Katie Burke: Conservation is conservation. Conservation is good.
Michael Tarquini: Everybody's moving the needle. That's all that matters. I just have to be smart enough to take advantage of all of it and be what we can be for who we can be it with. So, you know, May 3 and 4, we have our annual show, which is the week after Lombard. But, you know, it's an annual event we hold, and we draw maybe 1,000, 1,100 people in over a two-day period, and has carving competitions. It's a traditional decoys show.
Katie Burke: You have people on site carving. Do you have anyone carving on site, too?
Michael Tarquini: You know, some of the exhibitors actually do bring rigs to carve. Charles Job is one of them. Yeah, he always loves to do that, yeah. I mean, well, you sell more, I think, when you show a little action. Draws people to the table, you know? I mean, so Charles does it, and I know sometimes Brian Boat does it, and a couple others. I don't remember everybody, but… There's a lot of resellers too that come to these decoys shows and so obviously they may not even make decoys so um But I think most of them enjoy having clean clothes on for three days and they don't have to get the dust all over them. So, to come and make a mess… Do you work with John Sullivan, I'm guessing, as well? I do. John's a very, very… He's a very good resource. He's a very good supporter of the Decoy Museum.
Katie Burke: Yeah, and talk about, like, those people who are wealths of knowledge that know more than anyone.
Michael Tarquini: Oh, absolutely. John is… He's your man. He is. He's been a historian his whole life, I think. If John Sullivan doesn't know it or doesn't know who knows it, then it probably isn't known. Exactly. Yeah, because he he doesn't claim to know everything but he knows who doesn't know what he doesn't know, you know, exactly Yeah, he's uh We're very fortunate john john helps me out a lot with the chemist back magazine. He writes stories and articles of you know, scholarly articles that Who knew that you know kind of stuff? Who would have thought that you know, and he just comes up, uh with some just pretty Bizarre stories, you know, of, I bought this decoy and the person I bought it from wanted to take it back and I gave it back to him. And 40 years later, it showed back up in my house, you know, kind of thing. Those kinds of stories. I mean, who are them?
Katie Burke: He's been at it a long time. You know, he's one of those few that started collecting really, really early on and. When you could when it was a little bit of a different ball game.
Michael Tarquini: Yes, and he's very fortunate that john iii his son, um Has taken up the same thing.
Katie Burke: So, you know Oh, that is good.
Katie Burke: That doesn't always happen.
Michael Tarquini: It doesn't always happen. In fact, it seldom happens You're right. It's seldom and so I mean John's house is I mean i've been fortunate enough to see that it's it's a museum in itself and um And to know that his, and to be comfortable that his son will carry that on. It's got to make John feel good and comfortable that this won't be sold at a yard sale.
Katie Burke: Right, or he's not gonna have to, which the smart thing would be is, you know, to, to, um, start selling it himself. Well, I think he's protecting the collection for John. But they don't have to do that, which is nice, you know. A lot of these guys will start, you know, cutting their stuff back while they're alive and so that they can manage it.
Michael Tarquini: I don't think John is losing a step in the collection business. I don't think so. I mean, I was, I was amazed at my visit to his home, uh, my first visit there and, um, I mean, who has a sink box set up in their basement? A full-size sink box. John Sullivan. And two bushwhack boats. I mean, who has that? I mean, that's, we only have three bushwhack boats and a museum and one sink box. I mean.
Katie Burke: It's hard to, it's hard to, I've been offered many a boats. It's hard to say yes to boats. They are awfully big. Yeah. Boats are large and they do provide. They're large, they take up a lot of space and they're hard to display. Yeah, they are um, I have a question And I don't know if you know that you might have a roundabout. So How many artifacts do y'all have on in your life?
Michael Tarquini: That's a common question that people ask and it didn't give me a roundabout.
Katie Burke: I'm just curious a couple of things
Michael Tarquini: You know, that varies. That comes and goes with the collection you're already in.
Katie Burke: Yeah, but in permanent collection. What would you have in permanent collection?
Michael Tarquini: The permanent collection may have $1,500 or $1,600. But then we have stuff in storage, you know, and who counts everything all the time?
Katie Burke: Yeah. Are you, do you actively collect as an institution or do y'all like kind of go about using your connections with these decoy clubs or kind of something in the middle?
Katie Burke: I think it's a hybrid of all of that.
Katie Burke: If it's something that's uniquely, you know, worth your while to preserve and keep.
Michael Tarquini: We're certainly interested when something comes along that's, you know, valuable and museum worthy. For every box of things that comes along that's museum worthy, there's 10 boxes that end up in the store for sale. Um, because I mean, how many of certain types of decoys do you need? It's not that we don't, we don't think they're good. It's just that how many do you need?
Katie Burke: And I don't know if I have a popular opinion about this. Um, and I do think it's unique to the decoy world, but. You know, we don't really have a permanent collection. I mean, I have a permanent, a permanent collection of ducks and limited related history and whatever do you related history comes about, which we did not keep. I am interested in it just because I would like, you know, to save our own history to be able to tell our story, but we have very few things that are in a permanent collection for us, but once I got to know this community of collectors and carvers, I, I can, John and, you know, Steve O'Brien and stuff at Copley too, like, these collectors are such good stewards of these artifacts. They take care of them. I don't feel the need to stick them in museum storage and preserve them and them not be seen, but to continue the collecting community and the support we get from the collecting community Yeah, I feel like it needs to go back out and change hands and continue that community to thrive because they support us ultimately with loans and knowledge and that sort of thing. I don't know if that's a popular museum thing to say.
Michael Tarquini: But I think most of what we have in storage are things that we probably inherited. You know, people pass on and their will says we should have this. And, um, we don't, although we have a very active collections committee of which John Sullivan sits on, but, um, we, we don't actively go knocking on doors, looking for this particular species, because we recognize when you do that, you got to find a place to put it. You either put it in a collection somewhere, or you put it in a room and close the door. And you have to take care of it. You got to learn to say no sometimes. And, and we, I think when you start from nothing, which is what we did and we didn't have a big paycheck from anybody. I mean, the money that the, uh, the state of Maryland helped us with that was to build, that was to get a roof over our head, sort of speak. Um, we never had, you know, a great deal of money. in a budget every year that somebody was just giving us as a line item. I mean, there's some museums that can have that. We're not one of them.
Katie Burke: You weren't the Walton family in the Crystal Bridges Art Museum? Yeah, we were not. You didn't have the Walmart money helping you purchase?
Michael Tarquini: No, I would like it to have been, but I'm looking for that person to help me with this addition report.
Katie Burke: We'll give the Waltons a call, see if they're interested in decoys.
Michael Tarquini: I, you know, I'm going to tell you, I watch, I read and watch things and I, I hear about, you know, people donating $20 million for this and a hundred, someone just recently, I just read, donated a hundred million dollars to something. And I'm thinking, man, I only won about five.
Katie Burke: It was to Ducks Unlimited.
Michael Tarquini: Well good for you It was for the family I guess conservation, uh in the prairies I couldn't remember where but I I only need five to build this bill
Katie Burke: Yeah. No, there's not many folks that can do that. But yeah, no, that was, uh, that was like, yeah, it was awesome.
Michael Tarquini: I think it's difficult to embark on a, on a project like we're trying to do to modernize the museum and to expand it. But I think we feel, it's going to sound kind of crazy, but we hear the calling that we've got to come out of being a local museum and become a regional, super regional museum. Because if we don't take that opportunity while it's here. Somebody else is going to do it. Or it's going to go away.
Katie Burke: Or it's going to go away. Or another museum is going to pick it up.
Michael Tarquini: They got a half-life, you know, they got to find a finite time. And you either answer the bell or you're knocked out. It's that simple. You're out of the fight. We're not going to be out of the fight, but it's a very ambitious target and um What's exciting? I don't know. You got to go into it with a positive attitude that we're going to give it a shot Well think of it this way.
Katie Burke: Here's your glass. I'm always a glass half full person all right, you have this big ambitious goal and even if you only get 50% of it, you're still going to do something with that. Like, it's still going to expand.
Michael Tarquini: It's still going to… And we'll probably have to then consider a plan B or something.
Katie Burke: Yeah, there's still… Or maybe it's a step one plan B, and then there's step two to plan B, where you get there. You know, you never know.
Michael Tarquini: You're absolutely right. I don't want to exhaust myself and others With plan A, B, C, D, E. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. We're going to give it a shot with plan A. If you don't try, nothing will happen. This is what several years of thinking and planning have done and have come up with. And here's the forecasted cost for, this is just to build the building. This is not to do all this electronic stuff inside. But you know, sometimes you can pay as you go with that. Um, I just need to get that Mitchell shop out of the weather inside the house and get that extra square footage. We'll, we'll make do we'll put some boats in there that takes some boats in there.
Katie Burke: I know, I know some, I know where some good boats are.
Michael Tarquini: There's a lot of boats. Yeah.
Katie Burke: All right, is there anything uh, michael that we haven't talked about that you want to talk about? Um Anything we mentioned didn't mention?
Michael Tarquini: Anything you got coming up that people should know about well, you know again, we have our our annual show That's that's a may event. So it's so what's the dates for that may 3 and 4 so may 3rd and 4th 2025 it's at the star center in havard of grace, which is um a facility that once was the gymnasium and auditorium of the former high school site. It's a great venue for us, and we have carving competitions on the third. There'll be an old decoy contest, which last year drew like 120 odd pieces, and then we have a decorative carving contest, and then we have a floating contest, like gunning birds, and they're all run by volunteers, and it's a great day.
Katie Burke: When do they have to put their entries in?
Michael Tarquini: They can bring their entries day of. Okay. We have like a two-hour period in the morning, Um, and then, you know, judging will start like, let's just, so let's just say from 10 or from nine to 11, you can enter birds. And then from 11 o'clock on though, you know, people are dropping them in tanks and starting to measure the characteristics of a winner and eliminating those from contention. Um, it's a good time for all. I mean, it's not a high spirited thing by any means. It's a good time for all. And, um, And then we award the customary ribbons, which carvers are very eager to take home. Well, it's a fun event. I mean, if you're on my side of the event, it's a tiring event. Well, anything like that is tiring. It's long days. Sunday evening, you're pretty happy because it's over. But it's a necessary, we have to do fundraisers. And one thing we're going to do, I don't know which year we're going to start it, though. We've got an investigative committee out now. We have realized, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of special funding that's out there for things, but what's, what's lacking, or at least it's lacking for us, is, is finding operational money. Money that you can operate with.
Katie Burke: Yeah, like unrestricted.
Michael Tarquini: I mean, most of those special funds, funding opportunities are for specific projects.
Katie Burke: Yeah, they're education related, they're exhibit related. I mean.
Michael Tarquini: But you know organizations like ours are struggling I don't know struggling's maybe a little stronger word, but we're really challenged to Find operational money because you know, I mean the light bill's going up.
Katie Burke: They're just like everybody else's house and Yeah, you gotta pay people Inflation on pay eating you gotta eat in place.
Michael Tarquini: You gotta cool the plate. You have to maintain an environment for these artifacts I mean, this is not a inexpensive deal. No, it's um so we we're probably gonna You know, start thinking of the traditional things of how do we raise some cash? We do a play shoot. We, we partner with talks unlimited for that actually down Eastern shore. That's an October event. Um, we do the show in May. We're thinking about like a sportsman's evening. I hate to call it dinner, but a sportsman's evening with. the traditional things that come with that, auctions and games and that sort of thing. We're thinking about maybe November timeframe, and we thought, why not do it around our birthday? And maybe the first one we'll kick off will be during our 40th year. We don't know yet. I think it's a little soon to try to cram one into 2025. Because I've got some D you guys that are really helping plan this. And they said, man, you gotta, you should have started working on this the day after the last dinner, which would have been, you know, a while back. So we'll see, we haven't written off 2025. Um, we're going to try, see what we come up with.
Katie Burke: So what is the website for the museum?
Michael Tarquini: The Decoy Museum website is decoymuseum.com. OK. It's pretty simple to remember.
Katie Burke: Easy.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Easy. And of course, you're in Haverdegrace, and you're open seven days a week.
Michael Tarquini: Seven days a week. Sunday has abbreviated hours. It's only open from noon to 4. But other days, we're open from 1030 to 430. So it's plenty of time. Haverdegrace is a great little town. or spend some time on the water and good restaurants, good dining, places to stay. Hartford County is a great place to come spend time. So, you know, the Decoy Museum is only one thing you can do when you come to the town. There's many other things, many things in Hartford County. So I would take advantage of that tourism opportunity.
Katie Burke: Well, thanks, Michael, for coming on the show. I appreciate it.
Michael Tarquini: Well, thank you for having me. It's a privilege to have, I don't know, earned the right or been invited to participate.
Katie Burke: Well, you know, us museums, we got to help each other out.
Michael Tarquini: You know, there's nothing more true has been said. I think all the decoy clubs, that's why they're so eager to help us. You got to keep the brand alive because it'll go by the wayside if you don't. It's like a brand of anything. I mean, every company that has a brand name product, if you don't reinvent yourself every so often, you only have one way to go. And it's down.
Katie Burke: Yeah, not good. Thanks again to Michael for coming on the show. Thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac, and thanks to you, our listener, for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.