Tending the flock

ELBERTA, Utah County — Every morning before sunrise, Clair Huff slips into his blue jeans, pulls on his boots, grabs a baseball cap and heads out the door to work with his charges. As a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he's shed the traditional dark suit, white shirt and tie.

His responsibilities don't include teaching people about church doctrine, improving their health or distributing food and clothing to disaster victims.

In fact, he doesn't deal with people much at all. His flock is literally that . . . a continually changing group of feathered friends: pheasants, geese, chukkars, doves and ducks. Instead of knocking on doors, he spends his time bush- whacking in the thick brush along the southwest shores of Utah Lake, looking for the perfect place to nurture his birds by planting numerous stands of corn, rye and other grains.

For more than two years, he and his wife, Beth, have been serving God in a most unusual way.

They operate a private hunting preserve owned by the LDS Church.

"I don't know of any other missionary doing what I'm doing," he says, pointing to a row of several hundred cedar trees he planted as a future wind break on the wind-swept acreage that stretches out in every direction. After spending an entire career as a wildlife biologist, including his latest stint as assistant director of operations for the state Division of Wildlife Resources, Elder Huff seems uniquely qualified for the volunteer job description he's taken on: turn this 11,000-acre piece of desert into a revenue-generating hunting preserve.

To do so, the Huffs left their new home in Draper more than 26 months ago to live full time in an isolated aluminum siding home miles from the nearest human inhabitant near the southwest shore of Utah Lake. Working 18 hour days, particularly during the hunting and planting seasons, is not uncommon for the couple, whose retired peers may have difficulty understanding the attraction of the unrelenting labor.

They've served longer than the traditional two-year missionary stint, but while the church looks for a suitable replacement biologist, the Huffs will stay — at least until November, when the majority of the hunting season is over.

In a way, he says, the two missionaries have become a part of the landscape itself. The only visible sign that sets Elder Huff apart from the few scattered ranchers in the area is the black missionary name tag he wears on the pocket of his plaid work shirt.