October 16th - Gary Melton

I normally avoid hotels and stay with friends, but I have no friends in Jasper Georgia, so tonight it’s the Microtel Inn and Suited and the company of a “Trophy Room Preservationist.”

Gary Melton of Bellhaven, NC on October 16th, 2008

Have you ever heard of a Trophy Room Preservationist? If you’re like me you haven’t and might be surprised to know what these guys do for work. Gary Melton of Bellhaven, North Carolina travels three weeks out of each month to trophy room’s across the country, (Maine, Washington, California), to condition, repair and prevent the damage done by bugs to the animal collections of America’s wealthiest hunters. In addition to deer, elk and sheep, Melton said he’s reconditioned dozens of elephants. Even giraffes! I know, insane.

According to Melton, 60, hi customers are good people with tons of money and a hankering for being number one.

“For all these guys it’s about being number one in some record book. They count the length of antlers to the tenth of an inch and compare scores with their buddies,” Melton said. “It’s all about bragging rights.”

Working for the wealthy hasn’t embittered Melton. In fact it’s Melton’s other job that gets his goat (pun intended) and is motivating his vote in 2008.

Melton rents single family low-income housing units in North Carolina’s Hyde County, the state’s poorest county. All of his renters are currently subsidized by the federal government’s Section 8 program, which provides rent voucher’s for qualified low-income families to live in homes like the one’s Melton owns. However, according to Melton the government has been abhorrent in allowing many of these entitlement recipients to find good paying jobs without sacrificing their homes.

Melton said that a family had been living in the one of the units for “something like 13 years” (he’s owned it seven) but was recently evicted because the mother took a part-time job and was now earning too much to live there.

“It’s more expensive to work than it is to be broke for many of these families. The feds have absolutely locked up their motivation,” Melton said. “They stop by every six months to make sure they aren’t making too much money and need to be booted.”

Melton, who is also retired Air Force, says the government needs to clean up its act and get back to simple regulation and not be so encumbered with responsibility, which he believes adds to wasteful government.

On the Issues

Section 8, Government Waste, and Crime in Memphis

The Atlantic (July/August 2008)