Zumbo honored by state

Friends, family and fans surprise him with nomination letter campaign

Posted 1/16/25

The only person surprised by Jim Zumbo's induction into the Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame, becoming one of only 67 honorees, was Jim Zumbo.

Recognition is given to people who have worked …

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Zumbo honored by state

Friends, family and fans surprise him with nomination letter campaign

Posted

The only person surprised by Jim Zumbo's induction into the Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame, becoming one of only 67 honorees, was Jim Zumbo.

Recognition is given to people who have worked consistently over many years to conserve Wyoming’s natural resources through volunteer service, environmental restoration, educational activities, audio/visual and written media, the arts and political and individual leadership, according to the Game and Fish Department. The Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame is designed to educate the public and promote the significance of our state's rich outdoor heritage.

Friends and fans of the Cody writer, television personality and accomplished outdoorsman secretly came together to send several letters nominating Zumbo for the honor. His old fishing buddy Patrick Edwards of Riverton, thought Zumbo was the perfect nominee for the award, so he got on the phone and enlisted some of the biggest fans and members of Zumbo's family to write letters.

"Jim has made an impact as a journalist, writer, conservationalist and hunting advocate on a statewide, national and global scale," Edwards said. "He has spent years traveling the globe on hunts and spending time locally guiding for terminally ill youth and wounded veterans. He has also introduced many youth and adults to fishing in and around Cody."

Outdoor television personality Jim Shockey was living in a tent in the Yukon during an extended moose hunt and still took time to nominate Zumbo.

"Jim Zumbo is the best that ever was, he deserves to be recognized for his positive influence and leadership in conservation," Shockey wrote in his letter.

Those writing letters included Charlie Decker, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; Brian Tucker, assistant general manager of Hi Mountain Seasonings; Gary and Jane Stearns, Cloud Shadow Ranch; Linda Powell, director of media relations for Mossberg and Sons, Inc.; Blake Fegler, Muley Fanatic Foundation; Patrick Edwards, Angling Wyoming Media, LLC.; Ron Dube, 2024 Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame Inductee; Scott Werbelow, Cody Region Game Warden supervisor; and Brian Nesvik, former director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

    

Sharing a love of the outdoors

Zumbo is one of America's best-known outdoor writers and hosted his own around-the-world television show for 151 episodes. He has written 23 books on hunting and fishing, nearly 3,000 magazine articles and has given more than a thousand seminars on hunting and fishing in more than 100 cities across the country.

"[The outdoor show circuit] was a big part of my my career, doing that seminar thing," Zumbo said in a Tuesday interview with the Tribune, adding that he spent 30 years of his life doing the circuit.

The show circuit could be tough with thousands of fans looking for outdoor inspiration, yet Zumbo has a big heart for like-minded outdoor enthusiasts. He also was one of the first outdoor hunting and angling shows to hit mainstream TV when the Outdoor Channel first began airing his shows shortly after its launch in 1994.

"The Outdoor Channel was kind of in its infancy. No one really knew what we were doing," he said. "Even the cameras were going through a big technology transition. It was fun, and, of course, everything rapidly evolved. Now there's outdoors TV everywhere."

It may seem like a dream job, but with a 26-episode per year schedule, it was also a grind of finding great content and spending years on the road home and abroad.

"It was pretty tough. Trying to get that many shows stuffed into an entire year required a lot of travel and time away from home," he said.

Despite a busy schedule, Zumbo always took time to take combat-injured veterans and disabled hunters on hunting and fishing trips and has organized trips for more than 200 veterans.

"That's what I've been pretty much been focusing on for the last 20 years," he said.

Zumbo has worked with several groups, including Hunting With Heroes in Wyoming. He was also the president of Alaska's Healing Hearts for several years, volunteered with Trinity Oaks out of San Antonio, which works with veterans, underprivileged children and criminally ill patients, and put in a lot of work with the Foresters Foundation in Florida.

His favorite organization for which he volunteered with was Helluva Hunt in Douglas. Zumbo was one of the founders of the group.

"Every year we took 15 disabled people on hunts. They didn't have to be veterans, but we took them on antelope hunts," he said. "We started in 1984 and went for 30 years. We took 15 people a year, so we had 450 hunting out of Douglas over that course of time."

The entire community of Douglas would volunteer to help during the hunts, he said. Many ranchers kept their properties open for the group and the Douglas Police Department would put on a lunch for the group. The VFW and DAV would also help to make the hunters feel welcome.

"It was fantastic. It was such a thrill when each of those people would come up to the mic [at the final dinner] and talk about their hunts. We had to have a hanky or a tissue handy because it was just so heartfelt and touching," he said.

Zumbo has traveled the world, but still loves the simple pleasures of the outdoors, like campfires, fishing for trout and sharing time with his wife, Madonna.

"Anything I eat over a campfire seems to be so much better than at home. I love to fish for brook trout up in the Bighorns and catch a bunch of them and bring along some butter and a skillet and fry them up right there — you know, within an hour after you caught them. To me, that is one of the best meals I ever had," he said.

    

Award winner

Zumbo has received a number of awards, including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's highest honor, the Wallace Fennell Pate Wildlife Conservation Award, which honors special contributions of lasting significance for the benefit of elk, other wildlife and their habitat across North America. Other awards honoring Zumbo include the Outdoor Channel Golden Moose Award — Lifetime Achievement Award, the Professional Outdoor Media Association/National Shooting Sports Foundation Grits Gresham Shooting Sports Communicator Award, and induction into the Legends of the Outdoors National Hall of Fame.

The Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame was created in 2004 by Gov. Dave Freudenthal to honor those individuals, both living and posthumously, who have made significant, lasting, lifetime contributions to the conservation of Wyoming’s outdoor heritage. Recognition is given to people who have worked consistently over many years to conserve Wyoming’s natural resources through volunteer service, environmental restoration, educational activities, audio/visual and written media, the arts and political and individual leadership. The Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame is designed to educate the public about and promote the significance of the state's rich outdoor heritage. 

This year, three inductees will be honored at the annual induction ceremony on March 19, 2025, at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.

"My family is coming for the ceremony from Seattle and Salt Lake and Cheyenne. It's gonna be a great time," Zumbo said.

Doug Crowe of Casper and Steve Kilpatrick of Dubois were the other two honored. Crowe was respected and admired by wildlife professionals throughout the state, across the nation and around the world.

Crowe was an assistant director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and served as the department’s liaison to the state Legislature. Crowe became the special assistant to the director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., where he became a critical consultant with state wildlife agencies, and then served as a representative of the United States at International Convention on Threatened and Endangered Species (CITES) gatherings. Crowe earned his Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of Wyoming, focusing on bobcats, and his thesis research remains classic in the field. After his work at the state and federal levels, he taught biology at Casper College and eventually served as chairman of its biology department. 

Kilpatrick is a retired Game and Fish habitat biologist. He began his career with Game and Fish in 1978, eventually becoming the habitat area supervisor for the Jackson, Pinedale and Green River regions. During his time with Game and Fish, he spearheaded mutually beneficial projects for agricultural producers and wildlife, improving more than 530,000 acres of habitat in northwest Wyoming. Following his retirement from Game and Fish, Kilpatrick took a teaching, research and stewardship position with the Teton Science School. He became the executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation in 2011 and later worked as the executive director for the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation before serving on the board of the National Bighorn Sheep Center.

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