William H. “Billy” Cordrey of High Bar Harbor on Long Beach Island has been chosen the 2020 Carver of the Year by the New Jersey Decoy Collectors Association.

BEST CARVER: William Cordrey shows two of his carvings, curlew and merganzer. (Supplied Photo)
Past NJDCA President Grove Conrad, who seems to know a lot about his friend, has written the following biography and affectionate roast.

TRADITIONAL: Cordrey makes decoys the same way his predecessors did: functional and with minimal decoration. He also ages them.
Billy Cordrey was born on “The Beach” and grew up learning and doing all of those bay things that kids today are hard-pressed to even read about.
Subscribe to keep reading
This story is from our archive. Get your SandPaper Annual Pass for access to our digital archive, plus everything else a pass includes. Details below.
Annual Pass — $18 Details
365-day access to:
- The complete SandPaper digital archive (stories date back to 2012).
- Full photo galleries from our photographers.
- The entire catalog of SandPaper games, puzzles and quizzes.
How it works
- Enter your email below and click to pay the one-time $18. Card details are entered on Stripe’s secure page.
- You’re in straight away — no password to create, and nothing to set up or manage.
- You stay signed in. If you’re ever signed out, or you read on a new phone or computer, we’ll email you a code to get you back in.
- Never auto-renews. Your pass is good for one year. We will email you when it expires so you can renew if you’d like.
See our site policies for more information.
Already a subscriber? We’ll email a code to get you back in.
















