Besides a spot to stage 62 mounted game specimens received from a Juneau natural history display, the American Bald Eagle Foundation also is looking for a spot for 72 eagle-themed commemorative plates.
Foundation executive director Cheryl McRoberts said the organization recently received the lifetime plate collection of Big Rapids, Mich. resident Bill Kennedy, which is impressive, but also a bit of a challenge.
Kennedy is okay with the collection being sold or auctioned to raise money for the foundation. Foundation founder Dave Olerud would like to see the plates on display, but that many plates would take up a lot of space, McRoberts said. “It’s such an impressive collection, but it’s not so educational,” she said.
In a phone interview, Kennedy said the collection – which includes 10 eagle-themed beer steins – just kind of happened after a day in 1982 when he saw 75 eagles through a spotting scope at “Eagle Day,” an event at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri.
“Pretty much from that point on I started buying eagle plates, watches, paintings, just about everything with eagles on them,” Kennedy said.
The commemorative plates include ones from the Bradford Exchange, Franklin Mint and the International Wildlife Foundation, Kennedy said. “Once you get on a mailing list, it’s hard to get off,” he said.
A retired Department of Motor Vehicles official for the state of Missouri, Kennedy now lives on a small lake in Michigan, where an eagle is carved into a post on his deck. He watches a nesting pair of eagles every day. He has witnessed eagles mating and has spotted ospreys. “Birds of prey never get old to me.”
Kennedy said he gave away the plates because he thought they could help the Haines foundation, and his family isn’t enamored of them. “I just kind of had them. I thought my boys would want them. My wife wasn’t as fond of them as I was.”
Kennedy said he’s hoping to come to Haines some day, and is encouraged by the rebound of eagle populations in areas he has lived. “It’s amazing to see how many more eagles there are now than when I was a kid.”
Kennedy grew up in Mendon, Mo., on a Canada goose flyway that eagles would occasion to prey on geese. His high school mascot was the Eagles. He also published a newsletter called “The Eagle Eye.”
For his donation, Kennedy has been awarded a lifetime membership in the eagle foundation and a foundation jacket, McRoberts said.
The Juneau-based Southeast Alaska Museum of Natural History recently donated its entire collection of game specimens to the eagle foundation, including animals from Africa, Asia and North America.