The Duck Commander Family

by Robertson, Willie

  Even though things were starting to pick up for Duck Commander, the company was still a mess financially. In the early days of Duck Commander, Phil made the duck calls and DVDs, and Kay ran the business. It got to be too much for only Phil and Kay to handle, so Jase, and eventually his wife, Missy, began taking on more and more, but he never enjoyed the business side of the company. Jase somewhat reluctantly began making sales calls to Walmart and some other big customers, but even he’ll tell you he never really had a passion for it. Kay was overwhelmed with the bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll. She was doing the best she could, but it was really just too big a job for her. She was feeling stretched physically and mentally and was even having stomach ulcers because she was so stressed out. Even though sales were picking up, Duck Commander was still only a seasonal business. We did really well during hunting season, but after hunting season ended, it was a struggle to keep our doors open. Kay was out of her league when the business started actually growing. It is hard to keep up with inventory, payroll, employees, and everything else. She was about ready to cash it in.

  To help make ends meet during the summer, Kay gave some of our local customers huge discounts. If a retailer called and ordered products for the next hunting season, Kay would offer them a big discount if they paid for their products in advance. That’s how badly Duck Commander needed cash flow during the summer. In the end, we would end up losing money on those products, but it was the only way Kay could keep the business going during the slow times.

  Finally, after working at the company for several months, I went to Kay and Phil and told them I wanted to take over the business operations of Duck Commander. Kay was more than happy to turn them over to me because she was completely overwhelmed. But I told them I had to have complete authority to do what I needed to do. Korie and I talked about it for a long time and decided to buy half of Duck Commander from my parents. We took out a second mortgage on our house to buy half of the company. Duck Commander really needed a cash investment at the time, and Kay and Phil had stretched their borrowing power to its limit. I told them, “If I’m going to do it, then I’m going to do it.”

  WE BELIEVED IN WHAT PHIL AND KAY STARTED AND WANTED MORE THAN ANYTHING TO SEE IT REACH ITS FULL POTENTIAL.

  Korie: When Willie and I bought half of Duck Commander, we knew we were taking a leap of faith. There were definitely some obstacles we were going to have to overcome, but we believed in what Phil and Kay started and wanted more than anything to see it reach its full potential. Phil and Kay were super supportive. In a lot of companies, when control is passed from one generation to the next, the older generation has a hard time letting go and is somewhat resistant to any kind of change. Phil and Kay weren’t that way at all. In fact, they were completely the opposite. They gave Willie all the respect and room he needed to learn and grow. Willie gave them just as much respect in return, asking Phil and Kay for advice and suggestions when needed. The transition ended up being seamless.

  After I took over the business operations of Duck Commander, one of the first big decisions I made was to get us more involved in retail stores like Gander Mountain, Cabela’s, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Bass Pro Shops, as well as the huge independent stores like Mack’s Prairie Wings and Simmons Sporting Goods. We had been doing business with them for a while by that time, but I knew it needed to be more of our focus. Those stores were in the hunting business three hundred and sixty-five days a year. For several years, Walmart was about 80 percent of our business. It was great having our products in Walmart, but it was always a tricky situation. Walmart stocked hunting products during hunting season and then replaced them with something else when hunting season was over. You’d go meet one of Walmart’s buyers and expect to get eight dollars for a duck call. But then the buyer would tell you he wasn’t paying more than four dollars. Now, nobody wanted to come home and tell everyone that he’d lost the Walmart account, especially when it was such a huge percentage of our business. It was always a big day around the Robertson house when Walmart wired its money to our account to pay for its products. But by the time you shipped the products the way Walmart wanted them shipped, you really weren’t making much money. Those big checks that came in always seemed to get spent before we knew it, because there wasn’t much profit in them, which created a big cycle of debt for several years.

  I wanted to make sure Duck Commander would be okay if anything ever happened to the Walmart account. So we invested in our relationships with the year-round hunting stores, which became a big part of our business. Wouldn’t you know it? Within two years, Walmart decided it was getting out of the waterfowl market altogether. Typically, a setback like that will kill a company. Fortunately, we had a contingency plan and were able to survive without Walmart for a few years. I’m happy to say, though, that in the last two years, Walmart began stocking our duck calls and other products again, and it has become a mutually beneficial relationship once again.

  DUCK COMMANDER WAS LIKE A BATCH OF FROG LEGS SITTING IN THE FRIDGE WAITING FOR YOU TO FIGURE OUT HOW YOU WERE GOING TO COOK THEM.

  After Walmart stopped buying from us that year, I went three months without being able to cash my own paycheck. Korie and I had to rein in our spending. I told her, “Don’t buy anything unless it’s absolutely necessary.” We were living on a tight budget. I knew I needed to get Duck Commander on an even tighter budget till I could find another source of revenue to keep the company afloat. Duck Commander was like a batch of frog legs sitting in the fridge waiting for you to figure out how you were going to cook them. The hardest part of having frog legs for dinner is catching the wild frogs and bringing them home. Then you have to clean them and get the meat ready to eat. Phil had done the hard part with Duck Commander. It was primed and ready to take off. All that was needed was a guy who could imagine what else it could be.

  GARLIC FROG LEGS

  I had some frogs and garlic and dreamed this up one night. It is so good. For the few hundred who will actually go get frogs, try it. The rest, well . . . use chicken instead. Good luck.

  8–10 pounds of frog legs

  1 can of beer

  Phil Robertson’s Zesty Cajun Style Seasoning

  2 cups flour

  1 stick butter

  1/4 cup garlic-infused grape-seed oil

  2 cups white wine

  bulb of garlic, cloves peeled

  1 cup fresh mushrooms

  1. Soak frog legs in beer for an hour or so. Drain.

  2. Season frog legs with Zesty Cajun Style Seasoning.

  3. Roll frog legs in flour and set aside.

  4. In a large black skillet bring butter and grape-seed oil up to high (don’t burn the butter; it will brown when burning). It doesn’t take much oil and butter, just about a half inch or so.

  5. When oil and butter starts sizzling, put frog legs in and brown on each side. The oil-and-butter mixture should be about halfway up the legs, just enough to brown them.

  6. If butter gets low, throw another half stick in. Set browned frog legs aside.

  7. With what’s left in the pan, add white wine, garlic, and mushrooms, and cook for 3 to 4 minutes.

  8. Add frog legs to white wine mix. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes until meat is falling off bone. (You will know it’s done, believe me!)

  11

  CHICKEN FEET

  PRAISE BE TO THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO HAS BLESSED US IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING IN CHRIST. FOR HE CHOSE US IN HIM BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD TO BE HOLY AND BLAMELESS IN HIS SIGHT. IN LOVE HE PREDESTINED US FOR ADOPTION TO SONSHIP THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS PLEASURE AND WILL.

  —EPHESIANS 1:3–5

  Korie: When I was a student at Ouachita Christian School, my senior-year Bible teacher, David Matthews, adopted a little five-year-old boy. In class that year, we talked a lot about how important it was for Christians families to adopt and that children should never be left without a home
and loving parents. The idea always stuck with me. James 1:27 says: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

  When we were dating, like most couples, Willie and I talked about how many kids we wanted to have. I told Willie about my desire to adopt and he was all for it. We both grew up with big families so we decided we wanted to have four kids, with at least one of them through adoption. We never knew how that would happen. We didn’t know if we would adopt a boy or a girl or a newborn baby or older child. We decided we would remain open, and if God wanted it to happen, it would happen.

  There were several families at White’s Ferry Road Church that adopted children, including one couple that had adopted biracial twins. Their lawyer came to them and asked if they were interested in adopting another biracial child who was about to be born. They told her they couldn’t do it at the time, but they remembered that we had expressed an interest in adopting a child. Their lawyer called Willie and me and told us how difficult it was to place biracial children in homes in the South. We were shocked. It was the twenty-first century. We committed to being a part of changing that in our society. Skin color should not make a difference.

  We told the lawyer we were definitely interested, and we started to go through the process of adopting the baby in 2000. We began paying for the mother’s living expenses and medical bills, and Willie and I were really getting excited about bringing another child into our home. Our oldest son, John Luke, was almost five, and Sadie, our daughter, was three. We thought it was the perfect time to bring another baby into our home. But then we found out the mother had promised the baby to a few other families, who were also paying her expenses. The woman had nine children, some of which she had kept and others she had given up for adoption. The lawyer told us we needed to step away from the situation. We were absolutely devastated and heartbroken. It was such a roller-coaster ride and so emotional and traumatic. Willie and I decided we still wanted to adopt a child, but we weren’t going to force the issue. Maybe it just wasn’t in God’s plan for us right then.

  WE STARTED TO GO THROUGH THE PROCESS OF ADOPTING THE BABY IN 2000.

  After we lost the child, Willie and I decided we would have another baby naturally and then maybe adopt a fourth child a few years later. I had gotten pregnant very easily with John Luke and Sadie. Well, nine months went by and I still wasn’t pregnant. I wasn’t really worried about it, but it seemed a little strange since I’d gotten pregnant so easily the first two times.

  We had a friend who was teaching birthing classes at a children’s home. The class was for pregnant teenagers, some of whom were putting their babies up for adoption. She knew we were still interested in adoption, so she asked us if we were ready. We filled out the paperwork and only a couple of weeks later, the adoption agency called us and told us it had a couple of babies available. There was a boy who was already born and a girl who was about to be born. The director showed us a picture of the boy and we fell in love instantly! He was beautiful, a perfectly healthy eight-pound, two-ounce bundle of joy. We felt like he was ours from the moment we saw him and couldn’t wait to get him in our hands. We rushed through the adoption process. The adoption agency came out and did three days of home studies with us, and then we went and picked him up the very next week. It was that fast. Willie and I felt extremely blessed and thankful for this precious baby boy who was now ours and were confident that this was God’s plan for our life and for this little boy’s life all along.

  WILLIE ALEXANDER ROBERTSON CAME TO OUR HOME WHEN HE WAS FIVE WEEKS OLD IN MID-DECEMBER 2001.

  We made a nursery in our house and set up a crib, and our son Willie Alexander Robertson came to our home when he was five weeks old in mid-December 2001. We named him after Willie, of course, and his middle name came from his papaw Phil, whose middle name is Alexander. Little Will didn’t even weigh nine pounds when we got him and was just so happy and sweet. He had been living with a foster family who took excellent care of him. We went down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and picked him up. Then we returned home to a house full of friends and family, who had made a huge WELCOME HOME WILL sign and showered us with gifts and love. Will was just perfect and precious, and I have enjoyed every minute of mothering him. We are forever grateful to Will’s birth mother, who loved him enough to give him the life she knew he deserved.

  In the meantime, I still wasn’t taking birth control. It all happened so fast, and I was too busy making bottles and changing diapers to think about it. For our tenth wedding anniversary in January 2002, Willie surprised me with a trip to Cancún, Mexico. We drove to Dallas, and I thought we were just going to spend a few days there. Always the romantic, Willie didn’t tell me we were going to Mexico until he handed me a note at the airport! It was an awesome surprise, but I was a little reluctant leaving our two-month-old baby at home. Thankfully, my mom was in on the surprise and was fully prepared for and capable of caring for the three little ones we had left with her and my dad. Willie and I had an awesome time in Cancún—it was the first real trip we had had since having kids—and we enjoyed it to its fullest. We came home refreshed and renewed and thankful for our life together.

  Needless to say, I was a little shocked about a month later when I found out I was pregnant, but with that news we were even more certain of God’s plan for our life. God had closed my womb until Will was in our home, and then opened it to give us our fourth child. Our baby girl, Bella Chrysanne, was born in September 2002. So that’s how we came to have two babies just ten months apart.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that things were nuts there for a while. And I can promise you, while I helped in the discipline department, it’s Korie who gets all the credit for doing the hard work. She is an incredible mom and has always taken the role of motherhood very seriously. I don’t know how she did it all, but she did, usually with a baby on each hip. This was also my motivation to start being good at business, so I could provide enough money for all these younguns. Let me tell you something: KIDS AIN’T CHEAP. Doctor bills, food, Pampers, and all that other stuff cost money, and I committed to go and push myself further to bring home more bacon, and a lot more cabbage, as in cash.

  I’D BE LYING IF I DIDN’T ADMIT THAT THINGS WERE NUTS THERE FOR A WHILE.

  It’s amazing how when you have four children, you get four different personalities. You would think that when you raise kids the same way in the same home with the same values, they should all turn out the same, right? Wrong. God made every child special, with a unique personality and temperament, fears and hopes, likes and dislikes. And aren’t we glad He didn’t make us all the same? Life is just so much more interesting that way. Not to mention challenging.

  Korie: John Luke and Sadie had their own unique challenges. John Luke was hospitalized with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus, which causes respiratory tract infections) when he was three months old and it seemed to damage his lungs, so we spent a lot of time at the doctor’s office with wheezing, bronchitis, and pneumonia, but other than that, he was an easy, fun kid to raise. He loved to read, just like I do, so we spent hours reading books, and he seemed to love to learn about everything. He was also a climber who loved the outdoors. He loved animals so much so that at one point we weren’t sure if he would follow in the family hunting tradition. He had every kind of animal, from goats to rabbits, to snakes, to leopard geckos, to an iguana.

  One time, when he was about six years old, he and Willie found a bat down at the camp that for some reason they decided they were going to nurse back to health. We set up a little cage for the bat on our back porch and warned John Luke not to touch him. He begged and begged to touch the bat, and one day decided that he would not really be touching him if he put on gloves first. So he put on some of my yellow rubber kitchen gloves and without my knowing tried to pick up the bat! Of course, the bat bit him on his little finger. He came and told me what he had done and sho
wed me. Sure enough, there were two little bite marks on his finger. I immediately Googled what you do for bat bites and found out that bats are highly likely to carry rabies! We rushed John Luke to the hospital. They gave him the first round of rabies shots just in case and said that they would have to test the bat. If the bat tested positive for rabies, then John Luke would have to go through about five rounds of shots. The doctor asked if we still had the bat and said that we had to turn it in to have it tested for rabies. That’s when John Luke started crying. “He doesn’t have rabies, I know he doesn’t. It’s not the bat’s fault!” he cried. He was devastated that they had to kill the bat to test him because of something he had done. John Luke said that he would get the shots so that the bat wouldn’t have to be tested. This was huge. John Luke hated shots and still does, but he was willing to get more if he could only save the bat.