D&DH Contributor Elected to Hall of Fame

A longtime Deer & Deer Looking contributor is among the latest members of the celebrated Michigan Outside Corridor of Fame.

Richard P. Smith of Marquette was tapped for inclusion not too long ago through the The Michigan Outside Writers Affiliation’s annual conference.

The Outside Corridor of Fame, which started in 2017, acknowledges Michigan outside communicators and authors, conservation volunteers, public sector workers, inventors, entrepreneurs, artists and instructors who’ve impressed us within the outside. These candidates show statewide, regional, and nationwide significance and have made an simple affect on out of doors sport over their lifespans. Earlier inductees embrace Fred Bear, Tom Huggler, Larry Kelly, Buzz Lockman, Mort Neff, Eppinger Manufacturing Co., Dr. Howard Tanner, Mark Martin, Steven Rinella, Jim Foote, Denny Geurink, and Kevin VanDam.

For 2025, the induction committee endorsed lifelong hunter and conservationist C. Alan “Al” Stewart, and Smith, an avid hunter, creator, and out of doors author.

Smith was one of many first “citizen scientists” to enroll in the Stump Sitters Whitetail Examine Group after it was integrated in Wisconsin in 1973. The Stump Sitters ultimately turned their publication right into a nationwide journal — Deer & Deer Looking — in 1977. D&DH was the primary publication devoted completely to whitetails and whitetail searching.

For 50 years Al Stewart labored for the Michigan Division of Pure Assets, beginning as a wildlife technician and retiring because the Wildlife Division’s Upland Gamebird Specialist.

Stewart has performed a job in each main Michigan upland-game chicken program: redistribution and enhance within the inhabitants of untamed turkey all through the state, Szechuan pheasant introduction, Pheasant Restoration Initiative, GEMS (Grouse Enhanced Administration Websites), woodcock banding program, and the Higher Nice Lakes Woodcock and Younger Forest Initiative. He additionally lent experience on tasks to determine a inhabitants of sharp-tailed grouse and Hungarian partridge in northern Michigan and Osprey in southern Michigan. He’s an internationally acknowledged authority on wild turkey, American woodcock, and ruffed grouse and has been a featured speaker on these topics at official gatherings in different international locations. Al is well-known for his management and mentoring talents.

In a Woods-N-Water Information article, MOWA Previous President Tom Carney had this to say: “On a observe that goes past fieldwork, Stewart has at all times understood the significance of public relations and advertising so far as wildlife conservation is worried, saying, ‘If individuals don’t perceive the whys, hows and desires of administration, there will probably be no social worth for the species and habitat … All is doomed, and no nice partnerships are cast.’”

Smith has been a prolific out of doors author for greater than 50 years and commenced his profession by writing for Marquette’s Mining Journal when he was in highschool. He’s a nationally acknowledged essayist, photographer, and speaker who has authored 32 books and hundreds of journal articles, specializing in all forms of wildlife.

Smith writes month-to-month for Woods-N-Water Information and Michigan Outside Information, and his writing and images seem usually in nationwide magazines together with Deer and Deer Looking, Buckmasters, Rack, North American Whitetail, Outside Life, Bowhunter and Nationwide Wildlife.

He has gained quite a few awards from MOWA and OWAA for his newspaper and journal articles and images, and he has been awarded first place within the MOWA e-book division on a number of events. One in every of his extra prestigious honors was the receipt of the coveted Ben East Prize from the Michigan United Conservation Golf equipment for conservation journalism about bear administration. He additionally acquired the out of doors journalist of the yr award from the Flint, Michigan Chapter of Safari Membership Worldwide the identical yr.

Initially housed in Cadillac, Michigan, the MOWA Corridor of Fame Committee elected to determine the brand new Corridor of Fame show on the Jay’s and Webber Wildlife and Nature Middle in Clare, Michigan.

Lavatory Vogel, MOWA President, stated this: “I’m very proud to have been a part of reestablishing the Outside Corridor of Fame, offering present and previous inductees recognition for his or her essential contributions to out of doors communications and conservation.” 

“We’re grateful to the Poet household and their workers at Jay’s Sporting Items for permitting us to honor our corridor of fame members within the Webber Wildlife and Schooling Middle; it’s a must-see vacation spot for out of doors fans, and we’re thrilled that our inductees will probably be on show on this superb facility.”

About MOWA: Based in 1943, the Michigan Outside Writers Affiliation (MOWA) is a non-profit group comprised of outside communicators together with writers, photographers, editors, illustrators for print and digital, as effectively video, lecturers and public relations specialists, and radio or tv broadcast journalists with passions for speaking in regards to the outside.

MOWA’s members talk on varied out of doors topics together with searching, fishing, snowboarding, climbing, snowmobiling, backpacking, the setting, training, trapping, journey, humor, pure sources, conservation, journey, ecology, wildlife administration, chicken watching, boating, canoeing and plenty of different out of doors associated topics.