The world of hunting, conservation and wildlife management lost a giant Friday in the death of 94-year old Kit Shaffer, a legionary Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist whose career made Virginia a better place for the hunter and hunted.

I first met Kit when I was a freshman at Lynchburg College. He was on campus to present a program about bear research the DGIF had undertaken in the late '50s. He looked like a guy who could wrestle bears. He projected a craggy appearance, tall, broad shouldered, a strong chin, piercing eyes, hair combed straight back like plumage. He had played center for Franklin & Marshall College and had some teeth knocked out by football legend Vince Lombardi.

He became a frequent subject during my 36 years as outdoor editor of The Roanoke Times. He was the kind of guy a writer loved. Most every word out of his mouth was colorful and quotable once you edited out the risqué seasoning.

When I wrote my most recent column on Kit, which appeared on this site June 30, I labored over what to say about this great man. Nothing I could muster would be adequate, so I simply let readers experience his wit, bite and experiences by stringing together some of his quotes that I’d recorded through the years.

The one I like best was on the rigors of turkey hunting. Kit had this to say:

“You remember Havilah Babcock, a Virginia boy who lived in Appomattox? He wrote a book about how his health always improves in November. He was a quail hunter.

“Well, as a turkey hunter, my health deteriorates. I can’t sleep. I set the alarm for 4 a.m. and wake up at 2 a.m. By the end of the season you are a zombie. You are irritable, you have lost weight, your eyes are sunken, your body is scarred, you have neglected your family, your friends, your job and your church. You can’t help it. You are an addict. Once that turkey buy bites you, you are helpless.”

Kit loved humor. You had to work hard to top him. For several years, I would call him in the fall for story material, asking: “What kind of turkey season can we expect?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Kit would say, then laugh like crazy.

After doing this three seasons in a row, I began an article in The Roanoke Times this way: “When asked what kind of turkey season hunters can expect, state wildlife biologist Kit Shaffer said, ‘Hell. I don’t know.’” It was something only a good friend could get by with.

Kit’s work in wildlife biology involved numerous species, including elk. He and his wife, Janet, spent six rugged months trapping raccoons on a wild, bug-invested island near Back Bay as research for his master’s degree which he earned from Virginia Tech in 1947. That was pure dedication on the part of Janet, because she was a lady of the arts more than the outdoors. She preceded Kit in death after 64 years of marriage.

There was little question that turkeys were Kit’s favorite wildlife species. He helped prefect trapping and relocating practices that were the key to establishing turkeys in every county of the state, although he always gave credit to his helper, Andy Huffman.

He went against fellow game officials when he supported either-sex hunting in the fall, and he was point man for a spring gobbler season which was an extremely controversial idea in the '60s. One DGIF board member told him in a public meeting, “I wouldn’t even shoot a Kennedy in the spring.”

Some groups were so opposed to spring turkey hunting that Kit wondered if they had tar and feathers set aside for him. He would travel the state diffusing the opposition by inviting the loudest critic to go hunting with him. Spring gobbler hunting grew to become one of the most popular of the hunting sports.

Kit was an expert at managing turkeys and those who hunted them because he was a master hunter himself. He loved to pursue turkeys in the fall with a dog, and he bristled at anyone who thought dog hunting was somehow less than honorable. One of his dogs, Chris, was credited with 228 flushes.

“We use dogs in every type of hunting, why not turkeys?” he said.

Kit got to the point that he seldom carried a gun when turkey hunting. He put aside his old L.C. Smith and toted a walking stick, preferring to call in turkeys for others. For this, he declared himself to be a “turkey pimp.” Like Aldo Leopold, he saw no conflict between hunting and conservation.

I remember proudly holding a gobbler up for him to see and Kit said: “Once you kill one, what do you have? You have feathers, guts and blood. I am not squeamish. I believe in game harvest, because you can’t stockpile wildlife. But if your objective is kill, kill, kill you misrepresent what turkey hunting is all about.”

Kit was an excellent writer. He put together one of the best collections of Indian artifacts in the state. When he retired, he took up golf and won an out-of-state tournament. He raised boxwood trees and taught my wife, Katherine, how that’s done. He made decorative walking canes. He helped organize the National Wild Turkey Federation. Late in his life, he read the Bible through nine times, talked about the power of prayer and was certain to send you on your way with a “God bless you.”

In Kit’s last hours, his family sang to him, read him the 23rd Psalm and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Kit breathed his last while listening to an article he wrote, his favorite, called “Old Blabbermouth.”

“The story is about a legendry turkey near Leesville Reservoir that became Kit’s personal grail or Moby Dick quest,” said his son, Criag. “He took his last breath on the words ‘King Turkey.’ How ironic that he was known always to the Shaffer Family as ‘The King.’ ” Kit’s life will be cele

brated today, 2 p.m. at a memorial service at Timberlake Pavilion in the Lynchburg area. Friends are being encouraged to wear an item of camouflage or blaze orange and to bring a turkey call. This won’t be an ordinary funeral, but, then, Kit wasn’t an ordinary man.