Terry and Lillee Clark

Terry and Lillee Clark
Self-described “outdoors-y people” Terry and Lillee Clark have found their niche. The couple own and operate T&LC Gunstock Engraving and Wood Art, and for three years, they have captured the essence of the outdoors in their artwork.

Semi-retired, the couple drive school buses, and work with wood to keep busy. While Terry specializes in scroll saw work, and the pair work together to make clocks and plaques, walking sticks and engraved eggs, Lillee's gun stock engraving is the outfit’s main concentration.

Using a small “pen”, much like a dentist’s drill, Lillee works with a pattern to create relief wildlife images, etchings, and basket-weave patterns on gunstocks. Her tool operates at 3200 RPM’s, making dust fly into the air, and a little racket to accompany the dust.

She wears ear protection, goggles with magnifying lenses, and either uses a dust mask or turns on her “dust-sucker” to keep the air clear. “This one is air driven. If it were oil driven, it would be much louder, like the kind you hear in a dentist’s office,” said Terry.

The results of her work are unique images that are truly unique. She usually works with a pattern, or artwork provided by the customer, and after resizing and copying the image to transparency paper at the local copy shop, she begins her work.

Some more detailed and intricate patterns, like the basket weave, she said, “mess with your eyes,” and she can only work on them for about fifteen minutes at a time.

Most guns come standard with a “checkering” pattern on the handle or the stock. Lillee doesn’t do checkering, since it is so common, but would replace it with a pretty oak leaf, paisley, or basket weave pattern.

She often finds herself repairing guns that were damaged. “One fellow brought to me a rare Weatherby. It was damaged, along with him, in a car accident. I did a really nice pattern on the gun, and it actually improved the value, since it was a collectors item,” says Lillee.

Terry added, laughing, “And when we went to visit him, he only takes it out once a month, polishes it, and puts it back in the gun cabinet, instead of shooting it!”

Lillee said that a lady wanting to do something nice for her husband would find an engraving on his gunstock as a perfect gift.
The couple has also collaborated on some pieces, like wildlife plaques. One piece they created is cut out in the shape of a moose antler, with moose etched on the surface, and the sky cut out around them, backed with a mirror. “It’s stuff you don’t see everywhere. It appeals to the outdoors-y crowd,” said Lillee.

Josh Kinney
Josh may have lived in Port Allegany for much of his life, but his childhood was spent in Roulette. He rode bus 45 to school everyday, and played Little League. In the tradition of Ed Ott, and Don Hoak, Roulette's baseball stars now welcome a new rising star.
Josh plays for the St. Louis Cardinals AA Team, and is making his way through the ranks toward the Big Leagues.
You can read a great interview with Josh here.

J & M Elk Ranch

These two elk strut across the land at the J & M Elk Ranch owned by Joel Berkheimer. Read the below article for more information.

Joel Berkheimer

Joel Berkheimer
J & M Elk Ranch

on making maple syrup....


“When I got this stove, it had already been used for three generations of making syrup!” interjected Joel Berkheimer of Roulette, PA. Berkheimer has been making maple syrup for several years, and has had been bustling around his sugar shack for the past couple weeks, as temperatures have started to rise. A true mountain-man, he lives with his wife and daughters in a beautiful log cabin that he built himself. His property spans several acres along the Potter Game Club Road outside of Roulette.

Berkheimer has tapped more trees than ever this year, and hopes to make and sell some of the sweet syrup this year. In the past, Berkheimer made just enough syrup to give as gifts to his friends and family, but this year might yield enough to make a little profit from his labor of love. “Syrup making is like hunting. It gets in your blood, and you just can’t wait ‘till spring comes so you can make syrup!”

The syrup making process starts in the woods, where Joel has over 300 maple trees tapped. After a small hole is drilled into the tree, and a metal spout inserted, then the sap is collected either through plastic lines to a large holding tank, or in individual buckets.

If the weather permits, and the temperatures rise just right during the day, then the sap starts to flow from beneath the bark of the maple tree. Berkheimer then collects the sap and transfers it to rectangular pans situated atop an antique wood-burning stove. 30-40 gallons of sap are needed to make just one gallon of maple syrup. The fire is fueled by hardwood scraps from a local lumber mill. For several hours, the sap steams as it is boiled over the high temperature, sifting impurities out with a screen. When the sap becomes near to the consistency of syrup, it is boiled more over the kitchen stove to purify the syrup even more. Milk is then added to the boiled-down tree sap, and it draws the impurities to the surface. The milk is then skimmed off the surface, and more milk is added, and the process repeated. When the milk that rises to the surface is pure white, the syrup is ready to be bottled. After an entire day’s work, Berkheimer bottles only a few gallons of syrup.

Berkheimer also owns and operates J & M Elk ranch. He and his family raise elk for meat processing, and also offer trophy elk hunts on his property. One elk yields around 300-500 pounds of meat. The bull elk shed their antlers each year, and Berkheimer says that they grow back quickly, at a rate of nearly an inch each day. He says that he hopes to build a small cabin in the woods, with the hopes of drawing in elk-hunters who need lodging. Berkheimer welcomes folks to stop by and see the elk during the day, but he prefers that curious visitors do not drive by with spotlights at night, as it disturbs the animals.

People Profiles

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