09-13-2007, 11:10 PM
BUFFALO CITY - Phyllis Speer is a well-known personality all across Arkansas, but she is recognized more often for her sideline than for her primary career.
A regional education coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, she is a staple on the long-running and popular Arkansas Outdoors show on Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN). She handles the cooking segment of the weekly show, but she has become a co-host with John Philpot and is now a co-producer of the show.
Speer joins Rick Hampton of Bayou Meto and Jim Hill of Nashville as 2007 inductees into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame. The annual Outdoor Hall of Fame banquet and fund raising will be Friday, Sept. 14, at Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
Speer's outdoors interests started at an early age on the farm on the Caddo River at Amity where she grew up. "I was daddy's little boy," she said. "I went with him everywhere, fishing, walking in the woods, and he showed me all sorts of things. When I got tired, he would put me on his back with my feet poked down in his overalls. Then my husband Sam got me into canoeing, backpacking, hiking and most of all turkey hunting. My son Greg is an adventurer and has been all over the world, and he has encouraged me on so many things."
A major success for Speer and the AGFC is the Becoming an Outdoor Woman program, now in its 15th year and still with a waiting list of applicants each year. It is an intensive three days of teaching and participation in a number of varied outdoor topics that women can choose. "We have 130 signed up this year, and we had at least 40 others that couldn't get in," Speer said.
She was a volunteer with the Project Wild program of AGFC in the 1980s and landed a job as regional education coordinator for north Arkansas when Sloan Lessley moved to a new AGFC aquatic education program in 1989. Speer directed the agency's first venture into watchable wildlife activities and in recent years has directed a workshop for introducing abused women and their children to outdoor activities. "It is so satisfying to me to see these women gain self-confidence when they break their first clay target or catch their first fish."
Speer is an avid hunter. She and longtime friend Zoe Caywood have pursued turkeys in many areas of North America, and Speer has scored with flintlock, caplock and modern shotguns. She hunts deer, squirrel, quail, ducks and other game, often with black powder weapons. "Zoe and I like to use flintlocks, but we carry modern guns along just in case. One time, we were turkey hunting with flintlocks, and it really rained on us. We had the locks covered, but the powder still turned to paste."
She said, "There are always new things coming up in the outdoors. My work is never boring. I just look forward to getting up every morning and going to work."
Speer made her first appearance on the Arkansas Outdoors television show as a guest. "Dykes Reber (then with AGFC) asked me to demonstrate loading and using a muzzleloader on a program, then somebody told them I used a dutch oven in cooking, and it went from there."
Her demonstrations and recipes for cooking wild game and assorted other specialties over campfires have been a staple of Arkansas Outdoors for years now. She has produced several cookbooks, and her recipes are often featured in AGFC publications and on its web site.
For more information and tickets to the Outdoor Hall of Fame banquet, phone Steve Smith or Wendy Glover at 501-223-6396.
A regional education coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, she is a staple on the long-running and popular Arkansas Outdoors show on Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN). She handles the cooking segment of the weekly show, but she has become a co-host with John Philpot and is now a co-producer of the show.
Speer joins Rick Hampton of Bayou Meto and Jim Hill of Nashville as 2007 inductees into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame. The annual Outdoor Hall of Fame banquet and fund raising will be Friday, Sept. 14, at Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
Speer's outdoors interests started at an early age on the farm on the Caddo River at Amity where she grew up. "I was daddy's little boy," she said. "I went with him everywhere, fishing, walking in the woods, and he showed me all sorts of things. When I got tired, he would put me on his back with my feet poked down in his overalls. Then my husband Sam got me into canoeing, backpacking, hiking and most of all turkey hunting. My son Greg is an adventurer and has been all over the world, and he has encouraged me on so many things."
A major success for Speer and the AGFC is the Becoming an Outdoor Woman program, now in its 15th year and still with a waiting list of applicants each year. It is an intensive three days of teaching and participation in a number of varied outdoor topics that women can choose. "We have 130 signed up this year, and we had at least 40 others that couldn't get in," Speer said.
She was a volunteer with the Project Wild program of AGFC in the 1980s and landed a job as regional education coordinator for north Arkansas when Sloan Lessley moved to a new AGFC aquatic education program in 1989. Speer directed the agency's first venture into watchable wildlife activities and in recent years has directed a workshop for introducing abused women and their children to outdoor activities. "It is so satisfying to me to see these women gain self-confidence when they break their first clay target or catch their first fish."
Speer is an avid hunter. She and longtime friend Zoe Caywood have pursued turkeys in many areas of North America, and Speer has scored with flintlock, caplock and modern shotguns. She hunts deer, squirrel, quail, ducks and other game, often with black powder weapons. "Zoe and I like to use flintlocks, but we carry modern guns along just in case. One time, we were turkey hunting with flintlocks, and it really rained on us. We had the locks covered, but the powder still turned to paste."
She said, "There are always new things coming up in the outdoors. My work is never boring. I just look forward to getting up every morning and going to work."
Speer made her first appearance on the Arkansas Outdoors television show as a guest. "Dykes Reber (then with AGFC) asked me to demonstrate loading and using a muzzleloader on a program, then somebody told them I used a dutch oven in cooking, and it went from there."
Her demonstrations and recipes for cooking wild game and assorted other specialties over campfires have been a staple of Arkansas Outdoors for years now. She has produced several cookbooks, and her recipes are often featured in AGFC publications and on its web site.
For more information and tickets to the Outdoor Hall of Fame banquet, phone Steve Smith or Wendy Glover at 501-223-6396.