GREAT FALLS - 406 Processing & Taxidermy in Great Falls is run by a father and son duo.
Brad Lencioni has been running the service for more than 30 years.
For the last four years, his son Dylan has been at the helm surpassing his father’s workload.
“We have people coming here to praise him every single day and that really does make me feel proud,” said Brad.
His son Dylan is 27 years old.
At a young age, he is far above the curve in his ability to preserve the efforts of hunters across the Treasure State.
“It's nice being around people that just harvested an animal and they're very proud of it. So, you got a lot of happy people, it's very rewarding.” Dylan Lencioni said.
“We get to take that animal that they harvested and put it into packages that's going to feed their family for the rest of the year. And maybe even a European mount or a shoulder mount that they're going to have on their wall for the rest of their life probably.”
Dylan is the main character, but when you step into his facility there are 10 other faces that make up the vocation.
Chad Gibney is one of those faces. He spent four years in federal prison and upon his release employment has been few and far between.
A man who has done his time and paying the price by how society labels a “felon”.
Gibney looks no different than anyone else, only worried about feeding his family and grateful for the opportunity.
“A lot of people aren't willing to take a chance on people like me. He was willing to take that chance," Gibney shared. "For him to take that huge step to help me out goes beyond words for me as an individual to express my gratitude towards him."
People are the backbone of 406 Processing & Taxidermy.
Seeing the smiles on the faces of someone who killed their trophy animal or educating the youth on sport of hunting.
Caleb is a boy who came in with his younger brother and his father. They put in many hours when it came to getting boys a buck this year,.
“When you hunt and you're putting work into it and then at the end, you can have the prize.”
“That's the reward,” said Lencioni. “And being able to feed his family, you know, put provide the meat in the service to feed the family throughout the year as well as we'll do a European mound on it. So, he'll get to look at or have that and show it off to all his friends and that for quite a while.”
Dylan’s dad, Brad, has seen his son grow over the last four years he has taken over the trade.
“He basically outgrew my taxidermy part the first year, which was absolutely way above more than anything we expected. I had to move back to my shop and thankfully again to do the taxidermy work. So, I mean, we have people coming in here praising every single day and that really does make me feel proud.” Told the patriarch of the family.
406 Processing & Taxidermy was named a finalist by Distinctly Montana Magazine for “Best Meat/Game Processing” and labeled the winner for “Best Taxidermy”.
One of Montana’s oldest pastimes, bringing out the good in others.
