After Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed him to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission on Tuesday at the Witt Stephens Central Arkansas Nature Center in Little Rock, Stan Jones of Walnut Ridge brandished a deeply stained nub of a No. 2 lead pencil with a symmetrical, needle-shaped point.
"I've used this pencil since the day I entered the first grade," Jones said. "I sharpen it with a knife, and I keep it with me every day so that I never forget where I came from."
Jones, 66, fills the vacancy on the Game and Fish Commission created by the departure of former Game and Fish Commissioner Fred Brown of Corning, whose term expired June 30. A widower, Jones has two surviving children, Britt Jones, 37, and Lindsey Hendrich, 34. He was a member of the 1970 Arkansas State University football team* inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.
Jones is Hutchinson's third appointment to the Game and Fish Commission, a constitutionally created body that manages the state's fish and wildlife resources.
Though his primary occupation is rice farming, Jones is a majority owner in Avery Outdoors and Banded, both major brands for waterfowl hunting gear and apparel. He also owns Stan Jones Mallard Lodge in Alicia. He owns about 7,000 acres in northeast Arkansas, of which he said about 1,000 acres is managed as wildlife habitat.
With an annual budget of about $85.5 million and 587 full-time employees, the Game and Fish Commission manages 600,000 acres of lakes; 100,000 miles of rivers and streams; nearly 3 million acres of habitat; seven fish hatcheries and net pens; 20 local and regional offices; four education centers; and four nature centers.
In fiscal 2016-17, the Game and Fish Commission sold 619,330 resident hunting and fishing licenses and 199,342 nonresident hunting and fishing licenses. In 2011, the most recent year for which data are available, state residents and nonresidents spent $1.8 billion on wildlife-associated recreation in Arkansas.
Citing Jones's commitment to preserving wildlife habitat, Hutchinson said that Jones will be a versatile addition to the Game and Fish Commission because he understands the importance of hunting and fishing to Arkansas' culture and economy.
"To me, appointing a Game and Fish commissioner is one of the most important appointments a governor can make," Hutchinson said. "When I look for a Game and Fish commissioner, I look for someone who values deep in their heart our outdoor hunting and fishing culture in Arkansas. They respect that culture, they want to preserve that culture and pass it along to the second generation."
Hutchinson said he spent two years interviewing Jones for the position as his hunting partner.
"I spent a lot of time with Stan in the duck woods," Hutchinson said. "I've seen how he knows habitat and how he works to protect it, and that is the essence of a Game and Fish commissioner."
While his businesses and brands are internationally prominent in the hunting industry, Jones said his pencil reminds him of his humble roots.
"I grew up really very poor in a small area, near Alicia," Jones said. "I picked cotton and chopped cotton, and I had to buy my own school clothes. I had to make good decisions about the things I bought."
Jones said his father worked in a factory and his mother was a beautician.
"We always had a good house to sleep in and good food to eat," Jones said, "but the best thing my mother and father gave me was a good moral compass."
A 1970 graduate of Arkansas State University, Jones played linebacker on ASU's 1970 national championship team. After graduating, he worked in Little Rock for Worthen Bank and Trust Co. Within a year, he returned to northeast Arkansas to start a farm. He initially bought 160 acres, and he soon bought an additional 500 acres.
"Today I own right around 7,000 acres," Jones said. "I have some good land, and a lot of it is for deer hunting, duck hunting and turkey hunting. I've always been drawn to the conservation part of it."
As owner of a duck lodge, Jones said he hosts people from all over the world, and from all 50 states. His clients include industrialists Charles and David Koch and many professional athletes. One of his most memorable clients, he said, was a 30-year old Pakistani woman who wanted to experience an Arkansas duck hunt.
"She stayed three days," Jones said. "There's something intriguing about an Arkansas duck hunt in the green timber. She loved it. She learned how to shoot a gun on our skeet range, and she did shoot and kill some ducks while she was here."
Though immersed in commercial duck hunting, Jones knows about the issues facing the Game and Fish Commission, such as chronic wasting disease among deer and elk and the challenges of bobwhite quail restoration.
"I know we have a beautiful, beautiful elk herd, and I support that 100 percent," Jones said. "I'm very sorry CWD has been found in that, but we have a problem, and we're going to have to do something about that problem. The two things we can do up there is eradicate the herd or contain it. I think those are the only two choices we have there."
The most pressing issue, Jones said, is managing the Game and Fish Commission's green tree reservoirs. He said the commission must change the way it manages those areas, which are flooded annually to provide winter habitat for ducks, to ensure the long-term health of the timber.
"When I was a young boy, my dad used to take me hunting on Shirey Bay Rainey Brake Wildlife Management Area," Jones said. "The river flooded once every five years or so. You could kill ducks, and it was great.
"Now they can flood it every year. It's getting flooded from October through February, and it's damaging the timber. The trees are actually rotting from inside because they're standing in water so long."
Jones said that more natural flooding schedules must be restored so that hunters can enjoy good green timber hunting 40 and 50 years from now.
Jones said the commission also must take additional steps to eliminate unsafe boating in commission-owned wildlife management areas.
Metro on 07/12/2017
*CORRECTION: Stan Jones, who was appointed to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, was a member of the 1970 Arkansas State University football team that was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2015. A previous version of this article incorrectly stated he was inducted as an individual.