The Wild Sheep Foundation congratulates WSF Life Member Deron Millman as the recipient of the 2025 Conklin Award.
Deron Millman is the 23rd winner of this “Tough Man” award, named after the late Dr. James Conklin, a Weatherby Award winner who liked to pursue challenging animals worldwide.
The Conklin Award was created to honor the memory of James E. Conklin, M.D., a superb hunter and stalwart conservationist. In his extensive hunting career, Dr. Conklin exhibited the highest degree of ethics and demonstrated a strong commitment to wildlife conservation.
Millman is the 23rd winner of this “Tough Man” award. He started hunting with his grandfather at age 10. He has taken 37 different Ovis species and 39 different Capra species and has been to Asia more than 36 times. Deron has been married to his wife Patricia for 33 years. They reside in North Canton, Ohio. They have twin children, Anthony and Taylor, and a granddaughter, Bailey. At age 28, Deron started and developed one of North America’s largest commercial land survey companies.
The Award is presented yearly at the Sheep Show® in Reno, NV. This coming year, the presentation ceremony will be on Friday, January 17th, during WSF’s Legacy Night banquet.
The Conklin Foundation board presents the award. Millman persevered over the other challenging finalists: Jeff Demaske, Gervasio Negrete, Wayne Farnsworth, Lee Anderson, and Jan Dams.
Visit this link to learn more about the 2025 Sheep Show®.
The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), based in Bozeman, Mont., was founded in 1977 by sportsmen and other wild sheep conservationists. WSF is the premier advocate for wild sheep, having raised and expended more than $145 million, positively impacting these species through population and habitat enhancements, research and education, and conservation advocacy programs in North America, Europe, and Asia to “Put and Keep Wild Sheep On the Mountain”®. In North America, these and other efforts have increased bighorn sheep populations from historic lows in the 1950s-60s of 25,000 to more than 85,000 today. WSF has a membership of more than 11,000 worldwide. www.wildsheepfoundation.org