The unparalleled presidential opportunity came six years after Kaleigh Hoyt and Vietnam veteran Patrick Bradley co-founded the "Avian Veteran Alliance."
Author: Josh Sidorowicz
Published: 9:31 PM EST December 2, 2018
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As mourners across the country remember the 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush, following his death late Friday, the founders of a local non-profit for veterans are looking back on a special trip they took just last year to meet the former president and first lady.
“I was blown away by the humility and the effort that he showed," Kaleigh Hoyt recalled of Bush.
The unparalleled presidential opportunity came six years after Hoyt and Vietnam veteran Patrick Bradley co-founded the "Avian Veteran Alliance."
The local non-profit pairs wounded raptors with wounded warriors.
“They’re not cute, they’re not cuddly, they’re not something you typically think of as a pet therapy animal," Hoyt said.
But the pairing, she says, has proven effective in helping veterans with PTSD. The group's work was featured in a book about veterans and therapy animals by author Dava Guerin entitled "Vets and Pets: Wounded Warriors and the Animals That Help Them Heal."
The book led to the invitation to join other veterans groups at the Bush's Maine compound in Sept. 2017 where Hoyt and Bradley introduced two screeching owls the former president and first lady.
“Six years ago if you would’ve told me that I was going to be standing out of the Bush estate," Hoyt said. "And not just standing outside but handling a screech owl, stuck in between a service pot-bellied pig and a service golden retriever I would not have believed so it was this really special experience.”
They each received a presidential coin, too.
Hoyt says she saw first-hand the genuineness of the 41st president.
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"He went out of his way to greet us in the parking lot and walk us up to his estate," she said. “Just hugely appreciative of the fact that we had the opportunity that we did.”