Dexter Regional High School grad named Maine Game Warden of the Year

By John Holyoke
BDN Staff

WINSLOW — Tom McKenney didn’t take a traditional path into a career as a Maine game warden. In fact, if it hadn’t been for a blind moose, he might never have donned the green uniform of the state’s fish and wildlife law enforcement agency.

BDN photo/John Holyoke

WARDEN OF THE YEAR — Maj. Chris Cloutier, left, and Col. Joel Wilkinson, right, congratulate Warden Tom McKenney after McKenney was named Maine Game Warden of the Year at the 136th Maine Warden Service awards ceremony in Winslow on March 31. McKenney grew up in Harmony and graduated from Dexter Regional High School.

But on March 31, the 46-year-old McKenney, a 10-year warden service veteran who patrols the Norridgewock area, was named the state’s warden of the year at the 136th annual awards ceremony.

“I’ve always had a love for the outdoors,” said McKenney, who grew up in Harmony and graduated from Dexter High School before attending college in West Virginia. “When I returned to the state in ’95, I took the warden test, made it to the end, and didn’t get hired. I had to get working, so I took a job with a credit card bank and kind of forgot about [the warden service].”

Then, a moose changed everything.

“I found a blind moose one hunting season, and I went out of the woods, came back the next morning and it was in the same spot, next to a swamp,” McKenney said.

The cow moose tripped over a log and fell down, and McKenney later saw that its eyes were gray and glazed over.

“I called the warden service, and [Warden] Dan Carroll came. We got talking and I told him I kind of envied him for what he did, and I told him I’d taken the test before. He said, ‘Why don’t you do it again?’”

McKenney did, and a year later began the career he’d always wanted.

“Long story short, it worked out,” he said.

McKenney credited Carroll for opening the door to a new career. Carroll not only advised him to take the test, he also gave McKenney his business card and told him to call if he wanted to ride along with the veteran warden on patrols to see what the job was like.

“It meant a lot that he saw something in an outdoorsman that he’d just met, and thought I might make a good warden,” McKenney said.

Col. Joel Wilkinson, chief of the Maine Warden Service, said McKenney has perennially been among the most productive wardens and is also very active in his community.

“Tom is always the first to give other people credit, and to not take it for himself,” Wilkinson said.

During an interview, McKenney said that might be true. But in a small law enforcement service of 124 uniformed wardens, few things are accomplished alone, he said.

“Looking around the room, there’s many people who are deserving of [this honor] every year,” McKenney said. “I’m honored to receive it, but I work in a section of people and a lot of the successes that we have are a group effort.”

Also receiving awards at the ceremony was Warden Troy Dauphinee of Shirley, who along with Wardens Kyle Hladik and Bob Johansen was honored for their work investigating a double moose kill.