Memories
Outdoor writer recollects neat places, unique people, and prize interviews.
Story and photography by Matt Williams
I have always heard the older you get the faster time races by. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m beginning to think the old saying holds a little water.
I turned 54 in August, yet it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago when I was a rowdy senior at Stephen F. Austin State University with big aspirations of making a living with a hook, a bullet, a camera and a computer.Actually, my career got started long before I walked across the stage at the William R. Johnson Coliseum on University Drive. I worked for the college newspaper, The Pine Log, during my junior and senior years, first as a photographer and then as Sports Editor.While the photographer gig took me to traditional places like the college gym and baseball diamond, it also lead to wilder venues that had never before been explored by the college newspaper. To my knowledge, no one has gone there since, either.
In Fall 1985 I started “The Game Hunter’s Hotline.” The title sounds kind of corny now, but I thought it was cool at the time.I posted a 2X6 ad in the school paper each week, complete line art and phone number. The ad solicited college students who caught a big fish or killed a big deer to contact me day or night, 24/7. Large or small, I would run out and take a picture of it, then get it in the paper the following week.The hotline got all sorts of hits. I visited apartment complexes, dorm rooms and rental houses took photos of everything from deer to bass, crappie and hogs.
Overall, the concept was well received across campus. But not everyone liked it. There was one chick in particular who worked for the paper who despised hunting and thought there was no place in The Pine Log for pictures of dead animals.The topic was so hot the editor thought it would be a good one for point/counterpoint columns asking for input from the student body. I won the debate and The Game Hunter’s Hotline lived on.
