Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Merrill Gilfillan holding a hunting rifle

It was 1977, and as a young state wildlife officer, I had just been assigned to duty in Morrow County in north-central Ohio.

I had heard of Gilfillan’s stellar professional reputation, so I decided to pay him a visit. I had no knowledge of his wry sense of humor when I knocked on his door. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet me and invited me into the living room of his home in Mount Gilead saying, “Sit anywhere you’d like.”

Yet as I started to sit down in a straight-backed wooden chair, he quickly stopped me. “No, don’t sit there!” he cautioned. “That’s the preacher’s chair.”