Mr. Orval Roberts passes on

from North Carolina. This was his first plotthound, and we all thought he was crazy. I was tasked with leading the plott in as she was not broke. I believe the little dog's name was Gal. The curs jumped a pack of hogs in back of Reggie's cattle farm in the swamp. Orval did not have a tracking system then, he was still old schooling it. He has me cut Gal in, who was a bare pup. The hogs scattered and curs as well and after a couple hours trickled back in one at a time from all directions. Only missing in action was the new plotthound. We searched for her well after dark and then I heard muffled barks from the banks of Castor Creek. There we found Gal baying a shoat in a deep tunnel into the creek bank. Gal was about all the way in the tunnel so we could not hear her most the time. I pulled her out by her tail as it was all I could reach, and the hog rolled out into my lap where she caught it. That dog was the beginning of the Orval Robert's Beacoup Plotthound legacy.

Later on he traveled to many states improving his lines, getting blood into his kennels from Grand Night Champion Sizzlin Heat for track speed and from Alabama Hammer for cold nose. I had a fantastic gyp from what I call his "Generation 1" line, "Tigger" (see photo of red brindle with Orval and his blue male Jeb). A half dozen times she stopped over 10 hogs in half a day and she barked trail. So much for the nay-sayers on open trailing hog dogs. She clearly had the track speed from Heat. Later on my son and I obtained 4 females from what I call the Robert's "Generation 2" line, much faster smaller cat-footed dogs of 30-40 pounds, looking more like running fox hounds or triggs in shape than plotts. But FAST!. We still have 3 of those, never bred them, all are double bred with Orval's blue dog Jeb as grandather on both sides. Two are blues.

Mr. Orval will be missed by scores of us and will go down in history as important to the plotthound breed as any man.