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I received notification of the Bodie Mcdowell Scholarship awarded to me for $3,000. I cannot begin to express the breadth of my gratitude. This scholarship will enable me means of supply aquisition, covering college expenses, and entry fees to prospective juried exhibitions! Thank you!
— Sarah Gillespie, Southern Illinois University
 
Thank you for the opportunity to represent the OWAA and the Bodie McDowell Scholarship! I am currently interning as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, where I’ve been assigned to the breaking news section. But I am also working on a Fulbright grant proposal to produce an investigative piece on whaling in Iceland. I will be sure to keep the OWAA updated during the process! Thanks again!
— Emma Murray, University of South Dakota
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Feedback guidelines

Members are encouraged to write about issues and topics. The executive director and editor will decide whether opinions are appropriate for debate or if the comments promote a personal cause; if the “cause” is unrelated to OWAA’s mission and potentially damaging to the membership, the letter might not be printed. Word limit: 400. Longer letters will be returned for revision. Send letters to editor@owaa.org.
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60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Minneapolis And St. Paul, third edition

By Tom Watson
Menasha Ridge Press, www.menasharidge.com, paperback, 260 pages, $17.95.
This decisive guide to day hikes in the Twin Cities’ area just got better. Updated maps, new hikes, new photos, and brand-new trailhead coordinates make Tom Watson’s authoritative guide even more useful than before. Within the seven county “metro” area that encompasses the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul lies a network of hundreds of miles of trails. Hikes were selected to be representative of the area, showcasing the park or region’s main attractions or personality. Some of these trails are broad, paved corridors through multi-use parks generously developed to provide a myriad of recreational opportunities for the young and old, the robust trekker, and the casual stroller.

Adventures with Jonny: Road Trip to the Parks

By Michael A. DiLorenzo
Running Moose Publications, www.adventureswithjonny.com, hardcover, 74 pages, illustrated, $17.95.
Jonny is back again for another outdoors adventure! Join him and his family on a camping and hiking trip to the national and federal parks. Search for challenging hidden items throughout the story. Discover the joys of camping, hiking and park animals. This book is hours of educational entertainment for your family road trip.

Best Tent Camping: Minnesota, second edition

By Tom Watson
Menasha Ridge Press, www.menasharidge.com, paperback, 192 pages, $15.95.
The is a must-have guide to the best tent campgrounds Minnesota has to offer. This updated edition includes campground layout maps, directions to each campground, and
descriptive profiles. Unlike other guides which merely list all campgrounds, Best Tent Camping: Minnesota profiles in detail the best sites in the state for campers who seek the serene and secluded.

Guide to Advanced Turkey Hunting: How to Call and Decoy Even Wary Gobblers into Range

By Richard Combs
Skyhorse Publishing, www.skyhorsepublishing.com, hardcover, 168 pages, $19.95.
With the help of this book, the persistent turkey hunter will begin to take birds he would never have taken, or even seen, a few years earlier. It will help developing hunters keep improving and taking more and tougher birds. With details on gun selection, calling, using decoys, scouting, and setting up ambush points, this practical guidebook will help you advance up the turkey hunting ladder.
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To get more people outdoors, we must overcome mental barriers

BY SHELBY GONZALEZ

The first time I walked into a rock climbing gym, I was 19 years old and determined to learn to climb. The space was bright and unfamiliar. Fit-looking people, mostly male, geckoed up walls spattered with plastic blobs. Gear clanked. Grunts and shouts echoed. In a back room carpeted with shredded rubber, a guy clung to the ceiling like Spiderman.
Everybody but me seemed at home. Something akin to the fight-or-flight instinct roiled my guts. In spite of my determination, I nearly walked away.
Turns out there is a term for that witches’ brew of intimidation, anxiety and out-of-placeness: “threshold fear.” I learned it the other day in a post on the blog Museum 2.0 (www.museumtwo.blogspot.com). The author reported similar feelings when she visited a boxing gym.
It is hard to overstate the psychological magnitude of threshold fear. I like to flip the term to “fear threshold” because it evokes the image of a tangible obstacle. It might as well be. Outdoor-related thresholds vary from person to person, but could be anything from going camping for the first time to braving a new activity to taking a current passion to a higher level.
As outdoor communicators, we have the power to beckon people to their thresholds and guide them across. This is both an honor and a responsibility.
If we want to increase the number and diversity of people playing outside, we need to make sure those thresholds aren’t any scarier than they have to be. That is, we need to make outdoor activities welcoming and accessible to newcomers, even those with zero experience or family tradition of outdoor recreation.
Reaching out to outdoor newbies is a professional passion of mine because I used to be one of them. Unlike, I would guess, most outdoor communicators, I didn’t grow up camping or hiking or hunting. The closest my city-dwelling family got to nature was a paved path in a suburban marsh preserve.
So when I was 17 and got a wild hair to go on a trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, I faced a level of ignorance best described as “breathtaking.”
My grandma fretted that I was going to get eaten by a bear. (I was more concerned about wolves.) I didn’t know what kind of clothes to pack or how to pitch a tent, light a stove or wield a paddle. Every night noise sounded like an ax murderer. Were I less stubborn and less prone to leaping with both feet, I might never have learned to love the outdoors.
Here’s where you come in.
Whether you are a writer, photographer, editor, producer, host or PR person, you can make the outdoors more appealing and less scary to newcomers. You can also help train said newcomers to be safe, responsible outdoor enthusiasts. Newbies are tabulae rasae; write on them carefully.
How you can entice new people outdoors:

• Support and promote youth mentoring, introductory workshops, and programs that get underrepresented populations into the wild.
• Share your firsts: first river, first buck, first solo trip. Be honest about your worries and errors.
• Cast a net for beginners. Try penning a “[Your Outdoor Activity of Choice] 101” article for a general-interest publication and include ways that readers can get involved.
• Let your passion show. Convey the satisfaction of finishing a tough hike or the elation of landing a trophy-size bass or sending a 5.11.

I walk my talk, by the way. For my column, “Miss Guided,” I try new outdoor activities — being a beginner over and over again, chronicling the attendant embarrassing mistakes. I’ve written “101” articles on birding and trail running and practically everything in between. As an editor, I always include neophyte-friendly content. I speak about fear and entry-level adventure at events like the Midwest Mountaineering Outdoor Adventure Expo.
(My first time speaking in public, I gave a presentation called “Facing Fear.” I was, ironically, terrified.)
Even the most rarefied outdoor expert was once a beginner. Somebody taught you how to bait a hook and load a pack and, more importantly, why you would want to do either of those things in the first place. As an outdoor communicator, you can give that priceless gift many times over to people who might otherwise never receive it — and grow our community at the same time.
—Shelby Gonzalez recently joined the Cook County Visitors Bureau staff as marketing manager. An OWAA member and former rock climbing instructor, her work has been
featured in the book “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Runners” and dozens of publications. This article originally appeared on her blog, found at www.shelbygonzalez.com.
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Jim Foster’s advice for outdoor communicator

BY JAKE McGINNIS
Forty or so years ago, Jim Foster was considering a career in the outdoor communications industry. Although he was already a photographer, he was unsure of what to do next, so he asked a friend about writing for newspapers and magazines. The answer he got was simple, but valuable, and it has stuck with him through the years.
In a phone interview earlier this summer, Foster passed that advice on to another young writer. “How do you get started writing?” he asked, repeating the interviewer, as though the answer was obvious. “Well, you get started writing!”
Foster should know. He now works fulltime as a freelance writer and photographer, but he admits that he did not major in journalism. He simply read articles, shot photographs and got to it, and shortly afterwards he became an active member of the Texas Outdoor Writers Association.
“That’s when I found out I was an outdoor writer,” Foster said.
He went on to serve on the TOWA board of directors for two terms, a total of eight years. He was also the vice president and president, spending two years in each position. Although he has since moved to Idaho, Foster remains active in Texas outdoor communications.
Kathy Magers, a 2005 inductee into the “Legends of the Outdoors” National Hall of Fame, was also given some helpful advice at an important time. When digital photography first entered the outdoor communications industry, many were reluctant to fully embrace it. Foster was among the first, and he offered digital photography workshops at TOWA conferences. Magers began using the new media after his encouragement, and she still occasionally looks to him for advice.
“He was always really helpful with me and with others who needed the help,” she said. “I always know how to get in touch with him when I have a question.”
Magers clearly holds Foster’s work and his advice in high regard . Thinking of some of his images of birds and other wildlife, she remarked, “Jim Foster has to be one of the best photographers today.”
Lisa Snuggs, executive director of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association, is also familiar with Foster’s work, and she too has only praise for his photography. For Snuggs, Foster’s career seems to have jumped right in with some of the best in the industry. “Jim has such a strong presence about him that in my eyes he’s always been a strong photographer,” she said.
In fact, she watched as the industry caught on to Foster’s photography. “When I met him he was shooting mostly for Texas publications,” she explained. “The biggest jump in Jim’s career, that I saw, was when he started selling his photography internationally.”
Foster certainly has the experience to back up his reputation and give merit to his advice. He is currently a member of the American Society of Media Photographers and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, as well as an active member and past board member of OWAA.
“I don’t have the slightest idea how many photos I have in stock,” he admitted, opening a folder on his computer. He found 571 photographs of yellowbellied marmots, and about 150 of the moon. Foster, an avid birdwatcher, estimated his avian images at more than 42,000.
Some of those images have been used in brochures for Port Aransas, Texas, and Henderson, Nev. Many have found their way into newspapers, magazines and books in the United States and Europe, and still more have been sold as stock images. His work has brought him to Africa, Europe, SouthAmerica and nearly every state in the country, and his camera is usually not far behind.
And as much as he is an active and accomplished photographer, Foster is also a writer. He just completed his second book and is contracted to write a third. He has regular columns in two Texas newspapers, writes dozens of freelance articles each year and maintains a sponsored blog.
Snuggs, when asked to describe Foster, chuckled. “Tenacious comes to mind,” she said. “He’s as hardworking and serious as anyone I know, and that’s probably what it takes to make it.”
By his own admission, though, Foster is busy, and he relates a familiar struggle. “I really hate deadlines,” he said, “but I’ve learned to live with them.”
—Jake McGinnis is currently completing a B.A. in writing at Northland College, where he serves as an editor of an independent student newspaper and a writing tutor. A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, he enjoys canoeing, fly-fishing and Nordic skiing. McGinnis is OWAA’s summer journalism intern; he works primarily on writing Character Sketches, plus Outdoor Alerts for OU Online.
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