Ralph Henderson of Penn Township tells the stories at his home recently of how he acquired some of the animals he had stuffed. He shot the animals on the approximately 20 hunting trips he has taken over the course of his life. Among his trophies are a bison, a buffalo, a mule deer, elk, mountain sheep, a caribou, two bears, wolves and an alligator.

PENN TWP — Walking into the Penn Township home of 83-year-old Ralph Henderson is like walking into a natural history museum.

The former big game hunter has his kills from over the years stuffed and decorating his home.

He does not discriminate, saying that he will hunt almost anything. Bison, buffalo, mule deer, elk, mountain sheep, a caribou, two bears and an alligator are among his trophies.

Henderson has been on trips around the world including, Canada, Africa, Iran, China and Australia. He also has visited every state with the exception of New Mexico. And he has a story for all of his hunting adventures.

Henderson recalled flying into Alaska and facing a grizzly bear.

“Those bears aren't afraid of anything,” he said. “The bear came charging and the guide said, 'You better take him. You better take him.'”

Not wanting to shoot the bear in the head, Henderson waited until the bear veered off just enough to shoot it in the shoulder.

It is one of the two 900-pound bears that now stand in his office. The other is a brown bear he shot on the same trip.

He also has a moose head mounted on his wall that he got on one of his trips to Alaska.

Henderson said he was climbing over a hill with his guide when they spotted 19 moose on the plateau at the top of the hill.

“When we got to the top of the hill my guide just stood up,” he said.

When Henderson voiced concern that the guide might spook the moose, the guide said that the moose had never seen a white man before, so they would not run if there were no quick movements.

The guide then picked out a moose for Henderson to shoot, but after the shot, the moose just stood there.

“I'm jacking another shell into the gun and the guide said, 'You don't need to shoot again, you got him,'” Henderson said. Sure enough, the moose took one step and fell over.

Henderson also recalled a time he was in the Arctic Circle hunting black wolves.“When you're hunting black wolves, you look for caribou because the wolves follow the caribou looking for a weak one or young one,” he said.He did not get a black wolf on that trip, but he did go home with two gray wolves. He said the guide had asked him to pick them up so he could get a picture.“It weighed more than I could pick up and I was a farm boy,” Henderson said. “I was used to lifting 100-pound bags of feed.”He said he has taken his family on hunting and fishing trips. On one hunting trip he took with his family, they were down south where he got the alligator that now stands in his living room.Henderson said the only animal he wishes he bagged but didn't was a desert sheep.“There's what they call the four sheep, if you get the big four you can get some kind of trophy,” Henderson said.He has the other three sheep found in the United States, but never went on the trip to get the final one.,Henderson said that he has been on nearly 20 hunting trips nationally and internationally, but he gave up hunting a decade ago, when the trips became to difficult for him.Henderson has always traveled, it seems. From 1948 to 1952, Henderson served in the U.S. Navy.“That was one of my greatest adventures, living on a submarine,” he said.He was able to travel all over the world with the Navy, and when he came home and was stationed in Washington, he got bored.“All I was doing was standing guard on a decommissioned escort carrier,” he said. “I told them I don't want this shore duty; I got to get back to the sea.” That night he was on his way to Connecticut.

Henderson said he stopped at home on his way up to Connecticut and asked his wife, Sally, to marry him. They were married in 1951.Sally said that one of the neatest things happened while her husband was stationed in Philadelphia. “We went down to the train station and Gen. Douglas MacArthur was standing on the back of a train,” she said.When Henderson's time in the Navy was done, they moved back to Butler County. Henderson said, except for his Navy service, he has lived within miles of his childhood home his whole life.Sally said they also went on camping trips with their friends, who were known at the Saxonburg Six.“We had buses that we would travel around on,” she said.She would decorate the bus, and with five other couples, they would go on trips around the country.He said out of all of his trips, his favorite was the one that he took to Africa with his son.His son skipped his high school graduation to go on the trip. They flew to Europe and made their way south, eventually taking a flight from Sicily to Johannesburg, South Africa.Whether it was for leisure, hunting or work, Henderson said he enjoyed all of his adventures, and he has a story about each one.

Ralph Henderson with some of his animals he had stuffed a his hoem in Butler .