Arkansas will enjoy national exposure after Little Rock hosted the Outdoor Writers Association of America annual conference Saturday through Monday.
Based in Missoula, Mont., OWAA boasts about 800 members from the U.S. and Canada.
I was a member for several years before going to work for the Missouri Department of Conservation in 2000. During that time, members included legendary broadcasting personality Curt Gowdy and musician Ted Nugent. It was amusing to see their names, personal emails and phone numbers in the OWAA directory, but I resisted the temptation to contact them.
Gowdy, especially, was such a towering, influential figure in outdoor television. When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, his American Sportsman -- which aired on ABC from 1965-86 -- was the only national hunting and fishing TV program. Its guests included movie stars, politicians, athletes, war heroes and other pop culture figures.
I remember one show particularly, a saltwater fishing trip in 1976 with Boston Red Sox Hall-of-Famer Carl Yastrzemski. It was filmed shortly after the Cincinnati Reds beat the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series. The Sox came so close, and the show captured Yastrzemski's heartache.
As the show unfolded, he relaxed and opened up to give a candid peek into the world of an elite sports hero. Gowdy, like my friend Ray Tucker, was a master of his craft, and the episode made a big impression on me.
Niche outdoors programming peppers cable TV and the internet nowadays. Many of those personalities attended OWAA's conference, including John Kruse of Wenatchee, Wash., host of Northwestern Outdoors Radio and America Outdoors Radio.
Kruse and I became friends in 2017 when we participated in a golf and fishing tournament at Villa del Palmar near Loreto, Mexico. Also in that group were Jim Hendricks of Long Beach, Calif., field editor for Sportfishing magazine; his son Brandon Hendricks; and Sid Dobrin, an author and professor at the University of Florida. Dobrin recently published what I believe is the most important fishing book of our time, Fishing, Gone? Jim Hendricks, Kruse and I wrote blurbs for his endorsements page.
The California Hendrickses and I are most likely related. His people are originally from northern Louisiana. My people are originally from south Arkansas -- Waldo and McNeil and Murfreesboro -- so assuredly we branched from the same tree.
Kruse gave a fine seminar on starting and eventually syndicating a radio program. A retired law enforcement officer, he had no prior experience in radio, and he said it's painful listening to his early programs.
"I was 1966 William Shatner in Star Trek," said Kruse, assuming Captain Kirk's overacting persona. He went through the spiel as the audience howled.
It also took awhile for him to build an audience.
"Hey, we've got a caller!" said Kruse, recalling an early live program. "Hi, caller, what's on your mind?"
"I'd like for you to get off the air so we can hear the farm report," Kruse deadpanned.
Kruse persevered and now airs all over Washington, Oregon, northern California and Idaho. He was thoroughly impressed with central Arkansas -- especially his kayak outing on the Little Maumelle River -- and he was doubly impressed with the diversity of fishing opportunities available within 90 minutes of the capital city.
We were honored to share this insight with him, including our heritage of world record brown trout, walleyes and hybrid stripers at Greers Ferry Lake, the Little Red River, White River and North Fork River. Kruse will air our visit in an upcoming episode, which you will be able to access over the internet.
We were also thrilled to visit with Jim Lowe of Columbia, Mo. Lowe, now retired, was the former news manager for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in the 1980s before taking a similar position with the Missouri Department of Conservation. We worked and hunted together at the Missouri Department of Conservation from 2000-05.
Lowe is a precise, meticulous writer and executed his duties as the Missouri Department of Conservation's spokesman from a journalist's perspective. That's really hard to do because bureaucrats and administrators generally distrust journalists, but Lowe had that level of respect.
It truly was a pleasure to reconnect with old friends and make a few new ones. My antennas will be up over the next couple of years as copy from their Little Rock experience flows into regional and national media.
Sports on 06/27/2019