What a life! Press secretary to a governor, track announcer for NASCAR races ("before NASCAR was cool"), outdoor columnist, host of a radio outdoor show, then a television show that has won more awards than any other. It is the life lived by Tony Dean of Pierre, South Dakota.
Two passions are at work in Tony Dean- an enthusiasm for communicating with people and a deep love of the outdoors and hunting and fishing. As he says, "I've been lucky enough in my life to get to do it all." The outdoor life came naturally to this farm boy, who recalls the weekend routine: fish all day Saturday (his mother was the most passionate angler), church on Sunday, and then fish the rest of the day. His father taught Tony the relation of habitat and wildlife. His work in communications began in radio right out of high school.
When a Republican governor of South Dakota lured him away from the radio station, Tony soon started an outdoors column on the side. That led to a statewide outdoor radio show for the South Dakota fish and game department. The radio show spread to more and more states until, in 1985, he ventured into television. Today, "Tony Dean Outdoors" is viewed by more than a quarter-million households.
Tony's outdoor life and communications work merge in his deep commitment to communicating the importance of conservation. "The key," he says, "is to get people to see connections-connection between clean water and good fishing; between maintaining wetlands and having abundant waterfowl; between preserving vibrant prairies and good wildlife. I worry about prairie a lot, because it is disappearing day by day. The prairie has been altered more than any landscape in America."
This is why Tony is an outspoken advocate for preserving wilderness, including grassland wilderness. "I've hunted the grasslands for 35 years," he says, "an eight or nine mile walk, bag a few grouse, and as the evening air sets in and it starts to get cool, just savoring the sea of grass for as far as you can see. You don't see fences, you don't see telephone lines. You think of the landscape of the pioneers."
The opportunity to preserve prairie wilderness exists on the national grasslands administered by the U.S. Forest Service. None of this land category has yet been protected under the Wilderness Act, but the Bush administration has recommended two wilderness areas south of Rapid City, South Dakota. Building on that proposal, the South Dakota Wildlife Federation, the local Sierra Club, and other groups are urging protection for some 70,000 acres of wilderness in their Cheyenne River Valley Grasslands Heritage Proposal.
In the work of preserving wilderness, Tony Dean encourages the marriage of two great forces-environmentalists and hunters and anglers. "We're all conservationists, yet we've not built enough bridges. Extremes on both sides have generated too much alienation between us as natural allies to preserve our wilderness heritage. I think most of us who spend time outdoors feel a need for wide-open spaces, and so I urge my fellow sportsmen to support a modest proposal for a few unique wilderness areas in South Dakota.
What's at stake? Tony recalls a deer hunt: "As I tried to blend into the mosaic of prairie, rocks and brush, I was literally assaulted by a constant parade of ATVs and four-wheel-drive pickups. They made it a lousy hunt. On that day, I realized the need for a few places where an ATV could not tread. This isn't about you or me. It's about the future and our kids and theirs. Let's leave our children a heritage of the original American wilderness."
For details of the Cheyenne River Valley Grasslands Heritage Proposal: http://southdakota.sierraclub.org/westriver/wilderness.htm
Tony Dean Outdoors: http://www.tonydean.com/
for more information visit: http://www.tonydean.com/
