Editor’s note: Laura L. Valenti is a contributing writer for Lebanon Publishing Company.
Warren Valenti, former assistant hatchery manager at Bennett Spring State Park, has been named as the honorary starter for the park’s opening day of trout season. Missouri State Parks has the opening day of catch-and-keep trout fishing as March 1, officially beginning at 6:30 a.m.
Bennett Spring Fish Hatchery manager Ben Havens announced Valenti as the starter Feb. 11, saying that he was excited to honor Warren Valenti and his wife, Laura L. Valenti, who had much history with the park. Last year’s honorary starter, or whistleblower, was John Walther.
Warren Valenti was assistant hatchery manager at the park from 1979 to 2000. He has blown the closing whistle on March 1 many times, but opening the day will be a first. He and Laura L. Valenti, who have lived in the area since moving in 1979, sat down for an interview with the Record Feb. 16.
Warren Valenti said the honor would be nice. He was surprised to be picked, but the park had been a major part of their lives.
He had first visited the park as a child in the early 1960s to go trout fishing with his family and returned once or twice, but he had never thought he would work there. Laura Valenti said she had never been to Bennett Spring before they moved.
Laura Valenti said that at around 10 or 11 years old her husband knew he wanted to wanted to work for Missouri Department of Conservation in the Fisheries Division, which he agreed with.
Before Bennett Spring, Warren and Laura Valenti had volunteered with the Peace Corps in El Salvador before returning to the United States, where Warren Valenti worked at a warmwater hatchery in Saint Joseph and then at Lewis and Clark State Park before Bennett.
Laura Valenti thought it remarkable that in 21 years there, none of their children fell in a hatchery pool. Her dog did, and Warren Valenti did, but not their children.
The Valentis lived in the park for eight years, where their children continued to come live in the 900 square foot house, before moving out to a new house on Route 64.
After Warren Valenti moved on to MDC’s Private Land Services Division, the park continued to be part of the couple’s lives. A four-minute drive from the park, Warren Valenti said they knew staff and that his wife’s books about Bennett Spring kept them in touch. Laura Valenti said concessionaire Jim Rogers (who is park concessionaire with wife Carmen Rogers) was kind to let her sell her books in the park store.
These days, Warren Valenti keeps involved in conservation efforts like Quail Forever, a conservation organization, and has helped with fishing clinics.
Asked how the park has changed over the years, Warren Valenti noted some of the roads, but the biggest changes were that there were fewer children participating in fishing and the like and fishermen generally. He would like to see more children fishing and in the outdoors.
“No kid left indoors, or something,” the wife said.
“No kid left indoors,” the husband agreed.
He thought the biggest thing about Bennett Spring was the niceness of the people, both the people who worked there and the people who visited. Laura Valenti said that when the couple moved there, the community had been very welcoming.
