New commissioner’s focus on youth
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Gov. Mike Beebe on Tuesday made Rick Watkins of Little Rock his first appointment to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
Watkins, 50, is president of the Watkins Co., a Little Rock-based printing company. A lifelong resident of Little Rock, Watkins graduated from Hall High School in 1974 and from Arkansas in 1978.
He has served five years on the board of directors for the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation and has been involved with the Boy Scouts of America since childhood, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout. In May, the Boy Scouts of America awarded Watkins the Silver Antelope Award for outstanding volunteer service to the scouts. Those qualifications, Watkins said, demonstrate his investment in youth conservation programs as well as a deep appreciation for natural resources conservation.
“If I were to pick a mission statement for myself, it would be the promotion and wise use of our natural resources,” Watkins said. “With my background, my primary interest would be educating our young people. Just like in scout training, my mission for my time on the commission is training our youth, is grooming more constituents to use our resources, which is dead-on with the commission’s mission.”
Beebe said he chose Watkins as his first AGFC appointment because he said he believes Watkins embodies the ideals of the AGFC. He said Watkins advocates conserving our state’s game and fish resources while instilling the ethics of conservation in our state’s young people.
“I looked for someone who understands the bounty that we have in Arkansas and someone who is interested in preserving and protecting them for future generations,” Beebe said. “If you get someone who doesn’t embody those ideals, then you will make a huge mistake. When you consider his time on the Game and Fish Foundation, and then when you look at what he’s done with kids, he represents a wonderful marriage between preserving our natural resources and educating the next generation of sportsmen and conservationists.”
Watkins said he didn’t hunt or fish as a youngster, and because he was a “workaholic” during his 20 s, he didn’t take up the sporting life until he was 30. Since then, he said he has tried to make up for lost time.
“Up until the time I turned 30, my hunting and fishing experience was almost limited to fishing on the state Capitol grounds, where the Big MAC [Multi-Agency Complex ] building is now,” Watkins said. “When I turned 30, I realized that living in Arkansas and not hunting and fishing is like living in Colorado and not snow skiing. It’s not natural. It’s a waste of resources. You can’t work 24 / 7, and I had the desire to teach my children to hunt and fish the way my father was not able to teach me, and before I could teach them, I had to know it myself.
“ That was in 1986, and I dove into it pretty heavily.”
Though he’s an avid deer hunter and trout fisherman, Watkins said he’s most passionate about duck hunting.
“When we had 30-day seasons, I hunted 30 days,” Watkins said. “I never hunted 60 days, but I came close.”
Watkins said he began deer hunting at about the same time he took up duck hunting. He said it took him a long time to master the arts of patience and silence, which he attributed to his lack of experience when he was younger.
“I started hunting with some friends in a deer camp near Prattsville, in the Saline River bottoms,” Watkins said. “I didn’t see a deer for the first three seasons, probably because I kept myself entertained with football games on the radio and snacks, you know, crinkling cracker wrappers and candy wrappers and that sort of thing. After doing it the wrong way, I had to learn to do it the right way. I had to be brought along gently.”
Watkins killed his first buck in those bottoms. Although that’s a fond memory, he said it was even more special when his son killed his first deer in the same place.
“Before we had the threepoint rule, the first time I ever saw horns was on the banks of the Saline River,” Watkins said. “I was in a stand I’d sat in for three years without seeing anything but does. Right after sunlight, I saw a six-point quartering in the wind about a hundred yards away. It was the biggest thrill at that time. To shoot your first buck was like a rite of passage. I was, like, 33. When I took my son down there and he killed his first buck at 14, with all the stuff you’ve got going on inside of you at 14, I can’t imagine what that felt like for him, and I relived it with him.”
Watkins said he wants more land made available for public hunting and fishing. He also said the AGFC’s nature centers should be productive for introducing all Arkansans to outdoor recreation, especially hunting and fishing.
“The nature centers give people an opportunity who might not otherwise have one, a launching point — whether they’re into bird watching, hunting, fishing, hiking or whatever — to introduce them to the Natural State’s resources,” Watkins said. “From a business perspective, if you get people hooked on the idea of appreciating the outdoors, you’re more likely to get them interested in hunting and fishing. The more people you serve, the more you can improve the resources to accommodate the users.”
Though he loves deer and duck hunting, Watkins said he also wants to encourage more people to enjoy hunting small game, such as squirrels and rabbits.
“Most kids start off with. 22, and they go after squirrels and rabbits,” Watkins said. “We hunt rabbits with dogs at our duck camp, and that’s a big thrill, a father-son kind of hunt. Most kids start out plinking squirrels, and that’s how they traditionally got hooked on hunting. Then they work their way up through the food chain. You look to recreate those smaller victories of your youth with larger experiences later.
“ My focus would be to attract those folks that got left out of the process altogether, to give them an entry point.”
Watkins said it’s essential for constituents to believe they have a voice in the management of Arkansas’ fish and wildlife resources. To that end, he said it’s important for a game and fish commissioner to be accessible and responsive to their concerns. He also said he is comfortable with the scrutiny that serving on the commission will bring.
“You have to establish a line of communication and make people feel comfortable that their voice is being heard,” Watkins said. “If there’s a feeling of inaccessibility, there are a hundred ways to address that. I ran for state senate in 1990, unsuccessfully, but having been involved in the political process, my family, my wife in particular, is not naive in the world of the media and public opinion.”
WATKINS GLANCE BORN Aug. 16, 1956, in Little Rock FAMILY Wife, Marcia; children, Win, 17, and Kate, 15 EDUCATION Graduated from Little Rock Hall High School, 1974; University of Arkansas, 1978 PROFESSION President of the Watkins Co. CREDENTIALS Five years service on the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation board of directors.... Attained rank of Eagle Scout.... Recipient of the Silver Antelope Award for outstanding volunteer service to the Boy Scouts of America. OUTDOORS INTERESTS Deer and duck hunting, trout fishing on Arkansas tailwaters
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