Page Title

K and M Kennel
AKC , NKC
REGISTERED
BEAGLES

AKC REGISTERED

The Gay Hound Beginnings

GAY B -BAKER

DOC'S MINI PINNI

BLOODLINE DATING BACK TO 1938
THE GAY HOUNDS

FLAG IS FROM THE GAY HOUND
BLOODLINE

ABOVE BAKER AND PINNI ARE SIRE
AND DAME TO FLAG .DOCUMENTS
SHOW 6 GENERATIONS OF THE
BLOODLINE .

Line-bred Beagles with very
little out cross. Only
out-crossing to a Dingus
Mcrea hound .

K M GAY "BO''

LEMON BEAGLE

AKC ABBIE

NOSE TO THE

GROUND

READ ON DOWN ABOUT A LOVED MAN AND HIS
LOVE FOR HIS OWN BREED OF DOGS.

Frank Reese with Gay Baker

The Gay Hound Beginnings

FRANK REESE

THE MAN WHO STARTED IT ALL

Frank Reese was born May 24, 1906, the oldest of nine children. He says that he
"grew up on a poor farm in North Carolina." The Reeses were of German and Dutch
descent, and they were Lutherans who, "went to church every Sunday unless
extreme illness prevented it." The family took part in all the activities of the church.
He states that he taught the adult class for 50 years, and he taught the last session
in the church before a new, larger church building was built recently, and that the
lesson which he taught that day was placed in the cornerstone of the new church,
along with a book that he had written about tuberculosis.
After he taught in the public schools for eight years, Frank Reese's health broke and
he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in 1935. In the 25 years that followed, he
spent a total of eight years in a sanitarium.
However, he told me that, "after all the drugs, and major surgery in 1958, I have had
good health, and now I work on the farm and run hounds regularly."
Before he had beagles, Frank Reese ran foxhounds. This was up until his health
problems emerged in 1935. He told me that he judged his first foxhound field trial
in Georgia in 1929, and since then he has judged major field trials and bench shows
all over the United States, including the national foxhound field trials.
When his health was poor, he sold dog food for the Rose Company in a five state
area for 15 years. He was also a State Law Enforcement Officer for 20 years. At
present he is secretary of the Alexander County Wildlife Club, which has a.
property valued at $200,000. He says that he worked for years to set up this project
and has held the office of secretary for several years. Frank Reese had held many
other positions in community organizations such as the Ellendale Grange and the
Alexander County Sunday School Association. In 1965, the University of North
Carolina listed him in "Who's Who in North Carolina," and he has served on an
Advisory Commission for Governor Jim Hunt. He has written many
editorials for the Chase magazine of Lexington, Kentucky, and at present he is an
occasional contributor of articles for Better Beagling magazine and "The Rabbit
Hunter." Frank Reese also said that he "... organized the old Tar Heel AKC Beagle
Club in 1946 and as secretary ran the first licensed AKC trials here at my kennel
with an entry of 279, a record for a first licensed trial." After the Tar Heel (brace)
Beagle Club "folded," he was one of four people to organize the present Tar Heel
Small Pack Club, which is still running. He said that, even though he "... has not
been very well pleased with some judges at times," that he had ". . . never
discussed one of my entries with the judges before or after I ran."
I asked Frank when he got his first beagle and he said:
"My family had beagles as early as 1910 which were a bench legged type mixed
with farm dogs. We still had some of this type as late as 1930. I became interested
in foxhounds in about 1918 and for a number of years did about all you could do
with a foxhound at private hunts. ... It was hard to give up, but due to health, I went
to beagles. It was a long hard road to come up with a good family (of beagles). I
soon found out you had to breed them, and It was years before I found out you had
to stay in the same family and breed to a family of good ones and not to the only
good one in the family." When I pressed him on the question of when he got his
first AKC registered beagle, he replied that he had bought his first registered beagle
in 1938. She had already been registered as Gay Belle, so he adopted the prefix
"Gay" for all his beagles after that and only used one other short name following it.
He said that he had seen so many long names on foxhounds that he decided to
keep his names short in the pedigree. Also, he felt that the AKC could use these
names without a duplicate showing up.
I must confess that back in 1980, when I first saw the prefix "Gay" on a hound's
name,I did a momentary "double take" and wondered Just what kind of a beagle
owner we had here. You see, the "gay rights" movement was in the national
headlines about that time. Then, when I found out that the Gay hounds had been
around for decades and there was nothing perverse about their originator at all, I
felt a little ashamed of myself. (Frank told me that had the name meant in 1938 what
it does
today, he would never have used it.) Back to Gay Belle now, Frank Reese said that
she was about 12 inches tall and had good conformation, except she was a "... bit
foxy in the muzzle" (as was another of his early foundation bitches named Gay
Rose). He went on to say that ". . . after 12 generations it still gives me trouble."
Frank noted in a letter that Gay Belle was "... a bit tight with her mouth but (was)
dead game and when run all day up front with our young Walker foxhounds."
Here is Gay Belle's pedigree:
       Ch. Shady Shores Squaller
  Rocco Toney
        Lasco Betty
Koontz's Major
        Fd. Ch. Carolina Shorty
  Amawalk Jennie
        Amawalk Tuck
Gay Belle
        Vernon Somerset Flagrant
Amawalk Kid
        Amawalk Flirt
Koontz's Ruby
        King Cotton Charm
King Cotton Mary
       King Cotton Nanny
The next 16 hounds in the fourth
generation (from top to bottom) of Belle's pedigree are — Fd. Ch. Shady Shores
Select, Tick Ridge Mary, DualCh. Seibold's Panel, Stackers Lady, Montgomery Cy,
Katy Mae Midget, Fd. Ch. Shady Shores Select. Fd. Ch. H L Flip, Trobridge Major. V.
S. Fair-maid, Fd. Ch. Amawalk Nip, King Cotton Maggie. Fd. Ch. BohemiaDix. Sam's
Carolina Bell, Fd. Ch. Bohemia Dix, and Grumbines Roxle.