Neal Coldwell has been mounting animals 54 years – hccommunityjournal.com

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Clear skies. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..
Clear skies. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Updated: July 26, 2026 @ 9:16 pm
Neal Coldwell IV, owner of Neal Coldwell Taxidermy, shows off his new “Neal’s Taxidermy” T-shirt in front of a few of his current projects.

Neal Coldwell IV, owner of Neal Coldwell Taxidermy, shows off his new “Neal’s Taxidermy” T-shirt in front of a few of his current projects.
Neal Coldwell IV, owner of Neal Coldwell Taxidermy in Kerrville, says his first experience with mounting animals came from helping a neighbor move into town.
“My family has lived in Center Point since 1859,” he says. “I was born at 3:11 a.m. on Oct. 8, 1957, in the old Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital, and there were so many babies being delivered my mother had me in the hall. Our doctor showed up in his pajamas. I grew up in Center Point schools, and I never missed a day from first through 12th grades. I played football and basketball, and graduated from Center Point High School with the Bicentennial class in 1976.”
He says he was aiming toward going to West Point Military Academy, but his freshman year he was in his yard when a U-Haul pulled up to the building on the street behind his house. It belonged to Lloyd Woodbury, the first taxidermist to move into Center Point. Woodbury hired Coldwell to help him unload his equipment from the trailer and move it into his shop. Then he offered Coldwell a position as his assistant, launching Coldwell’s 54-year career. He went out on his own in 1991 with Coldwell Taxidermy.
“Back in those days each taxidermist had a unique plaster mold,” Coldwell says. “You would line the inside of the mold with red rosin papier-mache, and once it set that was your form. Each taxidermist’s mold was unique. There was a Mr. Hibler down in Kingsville who was mounting a thousand deer a year, and to this day I can pick his mounts out from the rest. Today we order Styrofoam forms.”
He explains, “The first step in making a mount is to preserve and tan the hide, using a formic acid process. Then we mount it on the form, add clay to form the face, around the lips, and to hold the glass eyes, and glue the hide to the form, then fasten on the antlers and nail the mount to the wooden base. I have nine assistants, four here in my Junction Hwy. shop and five elsewhere. Each has their own space and their own projects to complete, to get to this point. After the mount sets for two weeks, I go to work. I do the artistic part, making sure the face looks right, particularly the mouth and eyes. Then I have Alma come in with makeup for the final touches. Sue Wood, my sister, contacts the customers and writes up the orders. I keep the business simple. I have a catalogue to select mounts from, but it works best when customers just want ‘Looking right’ or ‘Looking left.’ “
Coldwell says he works mainly with big game mammals. “I won’t mount or preserve pets. If you live with a pet for years, I’ll never get it the way you expect. I receive at least one project per day 340 days per year. Most of the time they’re exotics, since they can be hunted all year. If I had to survive mounting whitetails, with their winter hunting season, I’d be out of work by spring. But with exotics I finish up to a thousand mounts a year.”
He says he has two grown daughters. Megan Winfrey lives in Comfort with her husband Cody and daughter Paisley. She has been teaching there for 19 years. His younger daughter, Kristin Schrekenbach, is married to Steve, and they have a daughter named Emmline.
“My Center Point class is holding their first reunion in July, and they’ve asked me to emcee,” Coldwell says. “For the past 40 years I’ve been on the sidelines at every Pirate football game, at home and away, tracking statistics. Eleven years ago, in 2015, we played our last game of the season in November. The next day I was airlifted to San Antonio. It took a while, but they figured out I had pneumonia and anthrax, and it was after Christmas before I was well enough to come home. I didn’t find out until later that other Hill Country taxidermists were coming to my shop weekly to make sure my orders went out on time. I recovered, and haven’t missed a football game since. If you want to come in on football Fridays, keep your animal in a cooler until Monday.”
He says he took his father, Neal III, to Dairy Queen every Sunday for lunch for as long as he felt up to it. They always seemed to get the same waitress. After his father couldn’t go anymore, Coldwell was out one morning walking his dog, Bern. He heard his name.
“It was our waitress,” he says. “She was crying. She had come to tell me there was new management at DQ, and she had been laid off. That’s when I found out her name, Chelsea LeStourgeon. I told her she was still young, and to find a new job with good benefits. Now she’s assistant manager of H-E-B curbside. When we started going together, I first told her it would be Bern, then her. But now she comes before Bern. Soon I’ll say, ‘We’re getting married,’ and we’ll do it. Bern will be there, and my best friend will be best man, the rest is up to her.”
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