Richard Vreeland gets around with the help of a walking stick that he found near his home. It’s a sassafras bough that was choked early in its life by a vine.

But the stick, like the woodworker who found it, turned that adversity into beautiful, art.This year, Vreeland, who lives near Slatington, won Best in Show for crafts at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.Over the years, he has been poisoned by Freon gas while fighting a fire. He’s sustained a high dose of radiation while working in a nuclear power plant, sailed to Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, and fallen out of a tree stand while hunting.He made it through all that. But nothing compared to the loss of his daughter, Brandi, to suicide in 2013. Her loss threatened to derail him.“That was devastating, and it is to this day,” he said.After the loss of his daughter, alcohol did not make the pain go away, neither did treatment from the VA.Nothing seemed to work until his wife, Barbara, and granddaughter, put a wood-burning iron in his hand.It was a natural combination.“My family, my wife and granddaughter decided to get me doing something other than hitting the bottle, so they got me a wood-burning set. I’ve probably owned about 20 sets by now with all the stuff I’ve done. It’s just a labor of love. I love it,” he said.Last summer, Barbara, persuaded him to enter a piece in the Allentown Fair. It won first place.A few months later, she suggested that he enter the farm show. Not only did he take the blue ribbon for wood-burning, he also won Best in Show for open crafts.His table was prominently displayed at the center of the show’s main hall. State Rep. Zach Mako interviewed him for a TV appearance.The piece he chose to display took him more than a month to assemble, decorate, and finish before he sent it to Harrisburg to be judged.Using the woodburner, he carved an intricate pattern of branches and leaves into the table’s top. In the center, 47 authentic arrowheads are displayed beneath a glass cover.Often his work will contain bears and deer. It’s the mark of an avid outdoorsman who has hunted and raised deer for years.“I’ve been a woodsman all my life,” He said.Most of them were found by Vreeland. Collecting arrowheads has been a passion, and he says the fact that the Appalachian Trail runs through his backyard helps.“I don’t look for it, all the sudden it pops on me. I can dig my garden, find a couple arrowheads in it,” he said.The respect for Native Americans is something passed down from his late grandfather, a postmaster in New York who passed down his love for artifacts.“Native Americans, nobody got as much grief as they did. I don’t care who you are today, all the wars went through aren’t even a blink of an eye for what those Native Americans went through,” he said.Most of the pieces end up going to the family’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren.Alexa, Brandi’s daughter, said it made her proud when Vreeland won at the farm show. She’s noticed how wood-burning has inspired her grandfather.“He’s all about the hobby aspect, but I know it does a lot of good for him,” she said.One piece is displayed in a boutique in New York, but selling the works is not something he’s interested in doing.“I don’t make it to sell, I make it to enjoy,” he said.Vreeland isn’t spending any time resting on his laurels. He’s already hard at work on his next piece, which he hopes to submit to the Sussex County Fair in his native New Jersey.And there’s one piece that he has yet to complete. In addition to the Vreeland’s wood-burning, it features the signatures of famous hunters. He’s hoping to get one more signature, Ted Nugent’s. The ultimate goal is to auction it off, and donate the proceeds to enable a disabled child to go on a hunt.“That was my goal when I made it,” he said. “I think that would be the ultimate, but I need Ted Nugent’s signature.”