When Bryan Hearn of Maumelle was growing up in Pineville, Louisiana, the world was his oyster.
He could walk out the backdoor of his family’s house to go fishing in a bayou and hunt ducks or squirrels in the woods.
When he got older, he realized that world might not be there unless he helped protect it.
“God gives us all this nature out there, … but we have to give back to preserve it,” he said.
That’s why he’s passionate about Ducks Unlimited.
“Ducks Unlimited is not just a nonprofit; it’s a wetlands-conservation group started by hunters in 1937,” he said. “You don’t even have to be a hunter to be part of it.”
Hearn, 55, is chairman of the Central Arkansas Chapter of Ducks Unlimited, which he said is the oldest chapter in the state. It was formed in 1978, at the same time the state organization was founded.
He’s new to Arkansas, having moved to Maumelle after he married his wife, Vikki, in 2014. Hearn opened American Tiger Firearms in 2015 on Maumelle Boulevard in North Little Rock, and he also has a gun shop in Louisiana. When he met his wife, a Hot Springs native, she was
already living in Maumelle. The couple took a trip to Europe in 2011, and he said he surprised her by proposing at the Trevi Fountain in Italy.
Hearn said he loves to travel, but the avid outdoorsman is enjoying The Natural State.
“Arkansas is a beautiful state,” he said.
He had visited Crossett a couple of times as a kid to deer-hunt with his dad,
Vernon Hearn, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in many positions and was a
retired Army command sergeant major. His father had made friends in Arkansas through his Forest Service job.
His father’s military service also explains a lot about him, Hearn said.
“It explains my ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no ma’am’ and upbringing,” he said. The oldest of four children, he was born in Frankfort, Germany, where his father was stationed, but the family moved back to the States when Hearn was 1 1/2 years old.
He grew up in Louisiana, where his parents also grew soybeans and raised horses, cattle and chickens, “which I had to feed and water before I caught the school bus,” he said.
It was a different, slower time. The family’s telephone was on a party line. Several neighbors shared the same phone line, and he recalled that he would have to ask talkative teenage girls to get off the phone so he could make a phone call.
He first learned to drive on a John Deere tractor; then he got behind the wheel of the family Volkswagen Beetle and practiced in the woods near his house. It was the family car.
“We’d drive up, and they’d say, ‘Here comes the Hearn clan,’” he said, laughing. “That was normal; our family did stuff together.”
Hearn said he was about 8 when he first went hunting with his father and was 13 when he got his first gun.
“It was like a rite of passage. Doing something with my dad was cool,” he said.
Hearn went to Louisiana State University for a semester; then he went to a technical college to become an electrician. He worked as an electrician at a plywood mill in Louisiana and opened Rigolette Arms, a gun shop, to help pay for college for his two sons.
“It was a big learning curve,” he said of starting a business. “You can get burned — you’re working with your own money. You have to be able to talk to people and relate to them,” which he said is easy for him.
He was introduced to Ducks Unlimited in Louisiana in 1997, when his two sons, Andrew and Alex, were preteens. He was invited to bring them to a Ducks Unlimited skeet-shooting event in Pineville.
“I wanted my kids involved to teach them to give back,” he said. Hearn said he and his sons, now 26 and 22, joined the Ducks Unlimited committee for that chapter in Pineville, and he continued to be involved. He became chairman of the Rapides Parish chapter, which was “the family chapter,” he said, and no alcohol was allowed at its events.
He said the organization encourages people to give back and “do something besides sit in front of some screen watching a game.” He was in line to be state chairman when he moved to Maumelle.
Hearn recalled that his favorite hunting trip was in 1997 to Catahoula Lake in Louisiana. It was his first time hunting in a duck blind.
“I grew up hunting on a creek,” he said. It was a floating duck blind, and the boat pulled inside. He stood on the porch of the blind to shoot.
“As the morning lit, I looked up — and it was kind of foggy — and there were thousands of ducks flying,” he said. “When you see something like that, and you start seeing the flocks of them come by us, it’s like, oh, wow. Within minutes, we had our limit of six ducks each.”
One of the men Hearn was hunting with commented that it was kind of a “slow day,” and Hearn was shocked. He said he normally only saw one or two wood ducks; then he’d sit for hours waiting for a deer.
“Wood ducks are my favorite on the creeks in the morning. It’s hard to describe — you see them coming through the woods in the morning light,” he said.
Soon after moving to Maumelle, he got involved with the Central Arkansas Chapter of Ducks Unlimited. His responsibility as chairman of the chapter is to basically be the “party host” for the upcoming membership banquet, set for Oct. 20.
The fundraiser is scheduled for 5:30-10 p.m. at the I Heart Radio Event Complex in Little
Rock, 10800 Colonel Glenn Road. Tickets are $40 each or $60 per couple in advance, or $45 and $65 at the door. They are available online at www.ducks.org/arkansas, under the Events tab. Also, more information is available by calling Hearn at (501) 771-1121.
He’s willing to make money for Ducks Unlimited in creative ways, too. After his committee members raved about the shrimp and corn bisque he made for them, “I sold the recipe to the guys and donated the money straight to Ducks Unlimited,” he said.
Hearn likes to joke that the only difference in Arkansas and Louisiana is the number of condiments on the table.
“In Arkansas, you have salt and pepper. In Louisiana, we have salt, pepper and Tony Chachere’s,” he said, referring to the Creole seasoning.
Hearn said he has met people from all walks of life through Ducks Unlimited that he wouldn’t have otherwise.
“The guy out there in the lawn business who cuts grass, to the surgeon, are all raising money for what they love,” he said. “When you come to the Ducks Unlimited banquet, you’re a member. Ducks
Unlimited becomes like a family when you get to know people year after year and hunt with them and see their kids grow up.”
Women are encouraged to join, too, Hearn said, and he has female members on his committee.
Hearn said 85 percent of every dollar in the organization goes back into conservation; 15 percent goes toward banquet expenses and administration costs.
“As a hunter, OK, this is something to give back to the sport I love, and Ducks
Unlimited has over 13 million acres in conservation — a lot are in Canada, where our nesting grounds are. That’s where our ducks come from here. Projects we do here along the flyway is for them going back, for the hens to rest, or they’re not going to make it back to the nesting ground.”
He said humans have disturbed nature with construction.
“Man has encroached on nature — it’s what we do,” he said. For example, he mentioned how many times he’s seen deer crossing Maumelle Boulevard near a fast-food restaurant.
Hearn said he has enjoyed getting involved in the community. He’s part of the Maumelle Police Department’s Citizen’s Police Academy, which is a a seven-week course.
“It is amazing what our guys are dealing with out there,” he said. Hearn said the program has helped him learn more about the department and the issues officers are facing.
“Last week, we had a specialist who came in and talked about gangs,” he said. “We did a ride-along; the city looks different at night. The guys in the Police Department I have met are family guys, and I really talk highly about them; they’ve got each other’s backs out there.”
Hearn said he got a wake-up call in 2010 when he was diagnosed with colon cancer.
He had surgery, and the disease hadn’t spread. “They took a foot out of my colon,” he said.
“That’s when I got the epiphany that I cold be the richest man in the world, but when you are lying up in that hospital bed and God gives you another day, you’d better enjoy it. I started living life,” he said.
Hearn said he makes it a point to get to know his customers, and he tries to make time to go hunting.
“I go duck hunting. I’m still learning the areas up here and where I can go. In Louisiana, I could get in the truck and go anywhere,” he said.
It’s more about the majestic beauty of nature than getting his limit of ducks.
“It’s enjoyable. When you get up in the morning, and you see the mist rising up over the water and it’s not quite time to shoot — it’s beautiful, and it’s like, thank you, God.
“Where I live, I can see the river behind me; I can see cypress trees. It reminds me of where I grew up,” he said.
And he wants to protect it all.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.