Winners recall parents in Stories from the Great Outdoors

Editor's note: Cindy Efird Gray and Amber Davila are the winners of the Stories from the Great Outdoors story contest. Gray won the reader's choice category, and Davila won the judge's choice category.

Here are their stories.

My parents, Virgil and Juanita Van Dusen Efird, were high school sweethearts that married shortly after my mother's graduation in 1942.

War had reared its ugly head in the lives of many and the need to get on with living was unmistakable. My daddy was always an outdoorsman and hunted and fished for sport and to feed a growing family. A carpenter by trade, he put in long and often hot days outside.

He taught my brothers to hunt and often said that he would rather be hunting with them than hunting for them.