by Mike Guenther

On Sunday, February 7, 2010 family friend Sharon Weidmayer was walking her dog on her 10 acre parcel in Lenawee County, Michigan. She stumbled upon a deer carcass with an enormous set of antlers. She called my father-in-law Ron Waldron to come take a look and to see if he wanted the rack. Not thinking too much about it, he waited two days before he did. When he first saw the deer he exclaimed, “That’s not a deer, that’s an elk!”

That evening, Ron called to say he was bringing a rack for me to see. When he brought it to my back door, I knew it was something special. I immediately told Ron, I think this may be a state record!  I called my friend and neighbor, Mike Sheats who is an avid hunter and has hosted a local big buck contest for over 20 years with his brother. We took the deer over there and called a few more friends. Everyone was pretty amazed to say the least. We got a tape out and started to measure the deer. We were all taking bets on a score. When we finally finished scoring the deer, the initial score sheet was full and nobody was even close. Our first unofficial score of 257 2/8 gross was pretty to close to the official score of 257 1/8.

The next morning Ron called the local sheriff to obtain a permit to possess the deer. A few days later, Ron went out of town and left the deer with me. I wanted to keep things low key until we had it officially scored, so I only called a few close friends to come over and take a look. Apparently, word spreads quickly in our small community and by the end of the day over 200 people had shown up in our barn to see the deer!

photos & story courtesy of  Mike Guenther