THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409110040
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ANNE SAITA
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Brad Privott is someone who has found his calling at the tender age of 12 and become Currituck County's biggest celebrity.
The Bell's Island boy is among the world's best imitators of the waterfowl sounds and songs that have long lulled local residents into a peaceful state each spring and fall.
If you attended the North Carolina championship calling contest Saturday night at the Currituck Wildlife Festival in Barco, you know what I mean.
Perched behind a duck blind, the caller strategically manipulates his mouth and a cupped hand or device to honk or hoot a repertoire of swan, duck and goose sounds.
Even when Brad's bird calls are emanating from a television, as they did last week while I sat with the Privott family in their two-story clapboard home, shorebirds will begin to stir outside a glass door.
Coincidental, perhaps. But I hadn't noticed them before.
Maybe that's where Brad's true talent rests, and why he makes such a wonderful ambassador for this often-overlooked part of northeastern North Carolina.
Once considered a necessity among sport and subsistence duck hunters, waterfowl calling is no longer as popular and now is billed as ``unusual talent'' in show business circles. It can land you on the nation's most popular late night talk show and earn you an all-expense-paid trip to perform in Thailand.
Where did you say you're from? asked the host of ``Late Show with David Letterman'' last winter.
``Currituck,'' said the brown-eyed youngster with carefully combed hair, curling the R sound just enough to proudly show he's a native son.
Much has changed for young Brad since his father first popped a caller in his mouth at 11 months. Ten years later Brad was discovered by Harry Smith of ``CBS This Morning,'' who had set up a satellite truck at the Bell's Island Campground during Hurricane Emily.
Yet much about Brad Privott remains the same. He still attends school with the same kids he's known all his life. He still has chores to do, though allowances are made when his Hollywood agent calls. And he's still shy when it comes to talking about his talent.
``Some of them think it's great, but some of them don't really care,'' he said of classmates' reactions to his newfound fame. ``It hasn't changed me in any way. I'm still the same ol' Brad.''
That's not to say the family doesn't boast a bit. Bill and Judy Privott drive around town in a silver Volvo 940GL with the license tags ``WRLDCHMP,'' which could also apply to the elder Privott, an acclaimed caller in his own right. But Bill Privott never gained the following his son enjoys. Nor has he ever been poked fun at, either.
``When I was a kid, everybody did it,'' Bill Privott said of waterfowl calling. ``Or if they didn't do it, they at least knew about it. And they didn't laugh about it.''
Brad's parents don't expect their son to take calling as seriously for too much longer. ``Once they get to be 16, it ain't the mating call of ducks they're interested in,'' his father says with a telling nod.
Eventually Brad hopes to break into the big time and is taking private acting lessons from a Regent University instructor in Virginia Beach. Maybe he'll be a regular in a television sitcom. Or become a familiar face in sporting goods commercials. Or even land a starring role in a summer hit film.
Then he can appear on all those talk shows again, this time to plug his latest role. And when the host asks him where he's from, he'll tell them ``Currituck, North Carolina,'' curling the R sound just enough to proudly show he's a native son. by CNB