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Show 5 MINDING ffi p ,& .. . , s " :l , s PSiiptlillrt Surgical technician becomes Expert meat cutter DEE TINGEY Anyone who grew up in Davis County is familiar with one of the county's landmarks, Tingey's Cold Storage on Main Street in Bountiful. The business has been there for 47 years and current owner Dee Tingey said he feels he has been there almost that long too. The business was built by Dee's father Melvin and his Uncle Charles. Twenty years ago, after his father retired, Dee became the sole owner and the business is continuing to grow. Dee said that cutting and wrapping wrap-ping deer and other wild game keep the business very busy. He explained that several years ago they would have to completely shut down the commercial part of their business to handle the heavy load of deer. "We'd get as many as 500 at a time," he said. Dee said they get fewer deer now and said it is partly due to competition and partly due to the herds being smaller. Over the years Dee has seen some very large and some very small deer. "We had a guy bring in the smallest deer I've ever seen. I would have been embarrassed embar-rassed to bring it in, he laughed. He said the deer weighed only 30 pounds. The largest deer he has cut and wrapped was the one shot by Irish O'Brien in Centerville Canyon several years ago. "He brought that thing in here and it was so big we thought it was an elk. We put it on the scales and it just dragged on the floor it was so heavy," Dee remembered. He said the deer weighed over 300 pounds. Most of the deer he sees weigh about 90 pounds. "When it's cut and wrapped you usually get about ab-out 50 percent of it in usable meat," he said. "There is a way to improve that percentage, always shoot the deer in the head," he laughed. Dee said the worst place to shoot a deer is in the hind quar ters because that is where all the meat is. Though he's not a hunter, Dee loves the outdoors and at one time considered working in the forestry fore-stry service. Dee said he has tried many things over the years. He first studied to be a surgical technician, tech-nician, but he said he couldn't handle working with the sick children. chil-dren. Dee also manned the Crisis Hot Line for ten years for Granite Mental Health. He said on one terrible night three of the callers committed suicide and he decided to quit the job. Dee said he's happy where he is. He gets to see a lot of old friends and enjoys serving his customers. cus-tomers. When he retires from the meat packing business. Dee said he wants to travel and his first dream trip will be a cruise to the Bahamas. He's sure there won't be any deer on the ship. |