Norman Call,

Our 2006 PNKCA Bronze Koi Award Recipient

 

By Linda Montgomery

 

This year at the 2006 PNKCA Convention, a very deserving Norman Call was awarded the Bronze Koi Award. This was no surprise to many of us as Norman gives so much to this wonderful hobby and is extremely generous with his time not just to his own club, but to many koi clubs nationally. This is a hard article to write, Norman has done so much for this hobby, it will be impossible for me not to miss several important accomplishments or attributes he has made, but I will do my best.

 

Norman has been involved in koi keeping for many years, I have no idea how many but at least 23 years, (probably more). He moved from San Francisco, California to Roseburg, Oregon in 1995 but even before that he was a member of the Northwest Koi & Goldfish Club (since 1993). He founded the Oregon Koi & Watergarden Society in 1998 and served as newsletter editor for 7 years. He also has served as the Show Chairman for the Oregon Koi & Watergarden Society Koi Show for 6 years. For many years Norman helped to judge many koi shows in the area and then in 2001 he became an official Certified AKCA Judge. In that same year he enrolled in the first KHA (Koi Health Advisors) class and became a Certified KHA in 2002. He served as Vice-Chairman of PNKCA in 1998. He also has served as both AKCA and PNKCA Representatives in past years. He has been selected by his club to receive the Ed Fujimoto Award for 4 years (1999, 2000, 2005 and 2006). He has received the AKCA Koi Person of the Year for two years (1999 & 2005). I am sure that Norman has the honor to have received those two awards more than anyone else in the hobby ever has.

 

Norman’s talent as a graphic artist has been well known for many years. He has designed many logos, show pins, T-shirts, show posters for many clubs throughout the United States and I will venture a guess, internationally also. I have heard from many different people at many AKCA and PNKCA Conventions that Norman has done work for them in designing one item or another.  I do know that he designed our own very prestigious Bronze Koi Award pin, the KHA pin, KHV donor pins to name just a few. He also takes the considerable amount of time each year to put together the Ed Fujimoto awards that are presented at convention to each clubs recipient.

 

Norman has given his time freely over the years at many of the PNKCA Koi Shows. I don’t think he has missed helping to bench fish at too many Northwest Koi & Goldfish shows, (which I have really enjoyed working with him at), and I know that he also helps at many other shows. He also is extremely generous with sharing his knowledge with people and has written several articles for Koi USA and many club newsletters for many, many years.

 

Norman is one of the first people I want to see at every show and convention, he always makes everyone around him feel very valued and worthwhile, which is quite a wonderful talent. From the very first PNKCA Convention that I attended in 1996, I can remember asking “Who is that really nice, fun and energetic guy with all the pins?” I think it was wonderful that Norman received this award all these years later at a convention hosted by the same club where I first met him.

 

This year trying to keep this award a surprise to the person receiving it was a much more difficult task then in previous years. The reason was that the making of the Bronze Koi certificate has been one of Norman’s jobs for many years. In order to keep this secret from Norman, we had to send him a surrogate name so he wouldn’t realize that he had won the Bronze Koi Award. It worked great too! I don’t think I have seen very many Bronze Koi Award winners more surprised!

 

I, like many other people, feel that there are few people in this hobby as deserving as Norman to receive this very prestigious award. He has waited a long time to receive this award and it was extremely exciting to see him finally receive the Bronze Koi Award…especially since he was the one that designed it!

 

I would like to thank Elsie Browning for helping me gather all of the information on Norman for this write-up, Thanks Elsie!