Kristy Olson Cuthbert
Kristy Olson Cuthbert
AGE: 36
HOMETOWN: Mount Pleasant
OCCUPATION: Hair stylist and color specialist
EARLIEST HUNTING MEMORIES:Her dad carrying her on his back up a deer stand at age 3. “I usually would sleep, and he would wake me up right before he pulled the trigger. I’d put my fingers in my ears.”
FAVORITE QUARRY: Turkey. “That’s my thing. I love turkey hunting!”
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A deer stand, for Kristy Cuthbert, is a place of solitude and early-morning reverence as the woods awaken.
“I thank and pray over every animal I take—for their life, for their provision,” Cuthbert says. “It’s not just about blowing stuff up in the woods. It’s very spiritual for me.”
A wife and mother, a professional hair stylist whose work has been featured inMartha Stewart Weddings, Cuthbert challenges the stereotypes of hunters and Southern women in The Debutante Hunters, a 12-minute documentary directed by filmmaker Maria White, her best friend at Summerville High and Winthrop University.
“Maria would call and I’d say, ‘Honey, I gotta go, I can’t get my pearls off, I’ve got 10 minutes to get in the deer stand, I’m trying to get my camouflage on, I can’t get my earrings out’—and she’d laugh and say, ‘One day, I’m going to write a film about this.’”
Filmed in the Lowcountry, White’s award-winning documentary follows five South Carolina hunters—former debs, all articulate professionals—embracing hunting’s blunt reality, emotional beauty and camaraderie.
“These are strong women that juggle incredible amounts of things in their lives and go back to the rawness of providing their families with meat,” says Cuthbert, who made her cotillion debut sometime between getting her first and second hunting rifles.
That a well-bred career woman with styled hair and polished nails is an accomplished hunter “really blows people’s minds,” Cuthbert says. “But I feel like I can hang with both crowds.”