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The
Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame was created to
honor Arkansans who made outstanding contributions to
the outdoors. The following Arkansans are now members
of this significant group.
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Rollie Remmel |
Forrest L. Wood |
Henry Gray |
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Ducks throughout North America benefit from the
enthusiastic activities of Rollie and Ruth. They are
veterans of decades of fund raising for Ducks Unlimited,
and their unique “Rollie Sticks” have been presented to
special people worldwide.
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A
former White River and Bull Shoals Lake fishing guide,
he developed the modern bass boat. Wood’s Ranger boat
operation grew hand in hand with the emergence of
tournament bass fishing and safe, efficient travel on
the water. |
From
an early career as a wildlife biologist, he moved to the
Arkansas Highway Department and was its longtime
director. He developed the Marine fuel Tax system in
which state taxes on boat fuels are used to build access
to waterways. |
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Neil Compton |
Ben Pearson |
Ruth Remmel |
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He
loved the untamed Buffalo River even more than his
vocation of treating the sick and bringing babies into
the world. As founder and first president of the Ozark
Society, he was in the forefront of the long and
eventually successful fight to prevent building of dams
on the Buffalo.
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A
boyhood hobby turned into a career of international
renown for this archery expert. His instrument was the
longbow, and he took it on hunting trips to several
continents and into a highly successful business
enterprise. |
Ducks throughout North America benefit from the
enthusiastic activities of Ruth and Rollie. They are
veterans of decades of fund raising for Ducks Unlimited,
and their unique “Rollie Sticks” have been presented to
special people worldwide. |
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Win Rockefeller |
Harold Alexander |
Jane Gulley |
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He
has put effort and resources into the outdoors, from
Ducks Unlimited to The Nature Conservancy and other
wildlife habitat endeavors. He was a key figure in
creating public ownership of wetlands along Cache River,
Point Remove Creek and Bayou DeView. |
He
recognized the essential role of clean water long before
it became a conservation byword. He was also a leader in
wetlands protection, deer management, wild turkey
restoration, endangered species protection and predator
control. |
A
former teacher, she took a pastime of
treating injured birds of prey to an avocation of
educating people about them. “Arkansas’s Eagle Lady”
became familiar in schools statewide with her
entertaining lectures on raptors. |
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Bobby Murray |
Rex Hancock |
Jerry McKinnis |
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He
won the first BASS Masters Classic in 1971 on Nevada’s
Lake Mead. The victory propelled him into a career of
professional fishing and marketing, and he repeated his
Classic championship in 1978 in Mississippi. |
The
rich wildlife habitat of the Cache River today is a
legacy of the determination and energy of his monumental
battle against channelization of the river. His campaign
to preserve these duck wintering grounds was ultimately
successful.
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A
professional baseball player in his youth, he fell in
love with fishing in North Arkansas then talked about it
before a television camera. Then he went behind the
camera to prominence as a developer and producer of
outdoor TV programs. |
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Jane Stern |
Larry Nixon |
George Purvis |
Her
years of influence and accomplishments on the
conservation and environmental scene illustrate the
effectiveness of a small, intense, focused voice. A
resident of Pine Bluff, she was a leader of the
Jefferson Wildlife Association.
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Larry began guiding fishermen before he
was in high school. He joined the professional bass
fishermen’s ranks, won a BASS Masters Classic and became
fishing’s first million-dollar winner. |
A
wildlife biologist, he realized the need for informing
and teaching Arkansas residents about the outdoors. His
pulpit was the information office of the Game and Fish
Commission and his fishing and hunting television
programs. |
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Charlie Craig |
Dave Whitlock |
George Fisher |
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During the Depression, he led a campaign for small
donations that bought the land for the Game and Fish
Commission’s Centerton Hatchery. More recently, he was a
strong supporter of the drive for the Conservation Sales
Tax. |
A
legend in the flyfishing ranks, Whitlock is a lifelong
student of fish habits and habitat. He researches,
analyzes, innovates, teaches and participates in all
aspects of the sport, and he writes, and illustrates his
findings. |
The
pen is mightier than the sword, and his cartoon drawing
tools have out-performed bulldozers of unrestricted land
and water projects. Fisher’s cartoons in the Arkansas
Gazette were a key weapon in many environmental battles.
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George Cochran |
Jane Ross |
Pat Peacock |
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A
railroad worker who liked to fish, he worked his way up
from local bass tournaments to twice capture the
prestigious BASS Masters Classic. Duck hunting is a
passion, too, but a strong suit is the teaching outdoor
pursuits to young people. |
With
a fortune in Arkansas timberlands,
she put the resources to good use for present and future
generations. Her Ross Foundation has backed endeavors
from Arkadelphia cultural activities to investigating
the die-off of bald eagles.
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Queen of Arkansas duck calling since her teen years, she
won every available title in the Stuttgart
championships, including their beauty title. Her civic
endeavors are numerous, and she was the first woman to
serve on the Game and Fish Commission. |
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Bill Norman |
Bill Apple |
Joe Nix |
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A
Yell County farm boy, he learned manufacturing at a
school bus factory then branched into fishing lures. He
rode the crest of bass tournament fishing by sponsoring
early stars of the game and constantly seeking new and
better lures and techniques.
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He
successfully campaigned in 1944 for
Amendment 35, creating the Game and
Fish Commission in its present form. Other activities
were with Ducks Unlimited, National Wildlife Federation
and the Sport Fishing Institute. |
Chemistry is his field, and water quality
is his focus. A longtime professor at Ouachita Baptist
University, he later became a key figure in the
investigation into the mysterious dieoff of bald eagles
in southwest Arkansas. |
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Gene Rush |
Kay Kelley Arnold |
Dale Bumpers |
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A
wildlife biologist, he was a hands-on
participant in the restoration of Arkansas’s deer, bear
and turkey populations. He pushed for acquisition of
critical lands for state management areas as the Game
and Fish Commission’s wildlife chief. |
Part
of Bill Clinton’s first gubernatorial
team as a young law student, she spearheaded the
creation of the Arkansas Nature Conservancy.
Environmental and conservation activities continue in
her work with a major utility corporation.
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A
resurgence of Arkansas state parks was a legacy of his
two terms as governor. Channeling vital lands into
public ownership came with his years in the U.S. Senate,
with national forests and national wildlife refuges
getting major additions. |
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James Flanagin |
Cotton Cordell |
Bob Apple |
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This
Conway dentist carried a dream from fishing camps in the
1930s to reality in the early 1950s. He spearheading
building Lake Conway, even going door to door in Conway
businesses to buy land for the nation’s largest state
lake
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He
grew up at a fishing resort, learning the need for more
and better equipment and especially the knowledge of
using it. His first lures were assembled at a kitchen
table, then his company became a major lure
manufacturer. |
A
longtime leader of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation and
a staff member of the National Wildlife Federation, he
has promoted wise uses of natural resources since the
1950s. |
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Rayo Breckenridge |
Jim Gaston |
Carol Griffee |
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A
Greene County farmer who enjoyed fishing, he won the
BASS Masters Classic in his first season as an angling
professional. He developed an outdoors television
program, with the teaching of fishing to young people a
priority. |
Longtime owner of Gaston’s White River Resort, Gaston
has been in the forefront of Arkansas’s world-acclaimed
trout fishing activities more than 35 years, with a
leading role in promotion of tourism for all the state
as well as his home area. |
Her
intense and all-sides reporting covered controversial
and heated issues of the outdoors in the 1970s and
1980s. Environmental issues at the Game and Fish
Commission, the Department of Pollution Control and
Ecology and the legislature were Griffee’s beat at the
Arkansas Gazette.
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Chick Major |
Governor Mike Huckabee |
Steve N. Wilson |
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As
the central figure in duck calling for years, Major
transformed duck call manufacturing from home workshops
to a significant business. His calls set a standard. The
World Duck Calling Championships at Stuttgart have
members of his family throughout its lists of winners.
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Following his innovative Arkansas River trip in 1996, a
campaign for the conservation sales tax, he has taken
the lead on programs like Hooked on Fishing – Not on
Drugs, and the Youth and Senior’s Fishing Pond in urban
Little Rock. |
Passage of the 1/8th of one percent sales tax capped an
illustrious 20½-year career as director of the Arkansas
Game and Fish Commission, one of the longest tenures in
the nation. Solid achievements in wildlife and its use
are also his legacies. |
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Mary Klaser |
Fred Berry |
Nancy Delamar |
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Her
public service career was suddenly cut short, but not
until after she had successfully handled the nuts and
bolts of the conservation sales tax campaign, making
Arkansas the second state to have solid funding for
conservation efforts. |
A
Yellville public school and college teacher, he used
family banking connections to put a million dollars to
use for conservation education. His gift of bank stock
led to the Foundation’s purchase of a key 421-acre tract
on Crooked Creek.
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With
her leadership, many significant areas have been
protected by the Nature Conservancy, and the
organization has helped public agencies with others.
DeLamar lent her considerable support to the
conservation sales tax campaign. |
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Richard Davies |
Carl Garner |
Steve Frick |
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As
longtime state Parks Director and as Director of
Arkansas Parks and Tourism, he joined Steve N. Wilson of
the Game and Fish Commission in mapping the successful
1996 campaign to put the parks system on solid financial
footing. |
After helping build Greers Ferry Lake and staying on as
resident engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Garner made an even more indelible mark with his yearly
clean-up campaigns on the lake which gained national
acclaim. |
After a retiring from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, he led the fund-raising activities of Ducks
Unlimited in Arkansas and has been a prime mover in a
number of partnership habitat purchases, including Ed
Gordon/Point Remove and Raft Creek Wildlife Management
Areas.
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Joe Mosby |
Barbara Pardue |
John Selig |
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Having written thousands of articles on Arkansas
wildlife and Arkansans’ activities in the outdoors, he
is a celebrated outdoor writer. He was the long-time
outdoor editor of the Arkansas Gazette and news editor
with the Game and Fish Commission. |
A
catalyst for such landmark conservation education
projects as the Potlatch Conservation Education Center
at Cook’s Lake, she led the successful efforts to
protect “The Lost 40,” a remnant of virgin forest, and
developed “The Classroom in the Forest.” |
As
an attorney who served as Arkansas
Game and Fish Foundation Chairman, he negotiated many
key conservation agreements and was instrumental in the
acquisition of the 421-acre Crooked Creek tract, opening
Kelley’s slab and miles of Crooked Creek to public
access.
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Charlie Hoover |
Andrew Hulsey |
Zettie Jones |
Not
long after graduating from college, he realized he
preferred travel in a bass boat to wearying days on the
road doing insurance chores. Hoover became a key figure
in Ranger Boats’ taking the top spot in the fishing boat
world then took the helm of an organization pushing bass
tournaments into headline-grabbing payouts rivaling
those of professional golf and tennis.
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As a
biologist, he was a key player in the development of a
system of fish nursery ponds, in introducing trout into
waters where cold water from dams had wiped out native
fish, in introducing striped bass and in widespread
stocking of channel catfish to boost angling
opportunities. In the late 1960s, Hulsey was elevated
to assistant director of the Arkansas Game & Fish
Commission then became director in 1969. Hulsey served
as Commission director for 10 years.
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Jones’ wildlife art is unique, with many paintings using
ghosted superimposed images blended together to tell a
story.
A self-trained artist, she has blossomed into a leader
among artists who specialize in wildlife subjects. In
2003-04, she was selected to provide the artwork for the
2003-04 Arkansas Waterfowl Hunting Stamp, the first
Arkansan ever
selected. |
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Steve Smith |
Dr. Mamie Parker |
Randy Hopper |
The
person who launched the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame
has been pushed from behind the scenes into the
limelight. Steve Smith of Little Rock, president of the
Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation, has been added to
three other 2003 inductees into the select group by the
foundation’s board of directors. Smith has been with the
foundation nearly 13 years and was named president in
1998.
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Named
for a former president’s wife, grew up fishing in south
Arkansas streams as the youngest of 11 children, then
followed her education at the University of Arkansas at
Pine Bluff to a career with the U.S. fish and Wildlife
Service. Today, she is assistant director of the agency
and is in charge of its fisheries and habitat
conservation operations. She is a native of Wilmot in
Ashley County. |
Hopper quickly moved to the
top as a part of the Ranger Boats team under Forrest L.
Wood. He has carried out the company’s long-time slogan
of “We still build them one at a time.” He uses his
time and energies to promote fishing and outdoor
activities for everyone, but especially for youth. He
has done this not only in Arkansas, but worldwide.
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Butch Richenback |
Kaneaster Hodges |
Cathie Remmel Matthews |
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Richenback learned the basics of duck calling
from the legendary Chick Major, as did many Stuttgart
youngsters. Richenback stuck with Major in learning how
to make duck calls as well as how to use them. He built
the successful Rich-N-Tone company but kept a focus on
teaching and encouraging young people in the sport of
duck hunting and in duck calling in particular. He has
served as Stuttgart’s mayor as well as head of its Boys
and Girls Club.
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An
attorney, farmer, businessman and, most of all, a
facilitator who has been instrumental in major Arkansas
outdoor improvements for public use through his service
with the U.S. Senate, Arkansas Natural Heritage
Commission, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and The
Nature Conservancy. |
A
member of a Little Rock family long prominent in outdoor
activities and, as director of the Department of
Arkansas Heritage, she has obtained dozens of
environmentally and historically significant locales in
the state to be conserved, protected and enjoyed by
outdoor enthusiasts. |
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Kirk Dupps
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Phyllis Speer |
Rick Hampton |
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He
used a background of executive leadership with Wal-Mart
to promote the creation of a notable trout fishery on
the White River below Beaver Dam. He serves as a board
member of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and
has been an Arkansas Game and Fish Commissioner and
board member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation. |
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Jim Hill |
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