PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — Behind every hunter's first kill there's a story — one that, for most, starts long before they ever set foot in a hunting zone with a shotgun, rifle or bow in-hand.

And while every first-tag story is, at the very least, marginally different, for 16,000 hunters who've bagged their first game in southern Colorado over the past 50 years, the story began the same way: sitting either in a classroom or on a firing range, being taught the fundamentals of hunting by volunteer hunter safety education instructor Jose Alvarado.

"Right now, I'm teaching the great grandkids of some of...