Member Spotlight Monday: Hovey Smith

As OWAA celebrates its 90th birthday in 2017, we’ve introduced the “Member Spotlight Monday,” a weekly feature that celebrates our present—the gift of our talented current members and their ongoing excellence in outdoor communications. Today, we introduce Hovey Smith:

1. Where were you born?
   Sandersville, Georgia.
2. Where do you call home now?
   Sandersville, Georgia.
3. What’s your nickname?
   The Backyard Sportsman.
4. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
   Muzzleloading Hunting.
5. What is your profession/connection with outdoors communication?
   I am the author of some 20 books, a former outdoor radio broadcaster, stand-up comedian, producer of over 600 YouTube videos, Black Powder Editor for The Gun Digest Annual and outdoor business consultant. 
6. Why did you choose to become an outdoor communicator?
   I love guns and hunting and was driven to write about my experiences. 
7. What are you most proud of in your career thus far?
   What I have given to others. 
8. What three words would your friends use to describe you?
   Honest, sincere and dependable. 
9. What is the best piece of advice you have received as an outdoor communicator?
   Write and don’t quit until you are satisfied that you are done. If it takes a sentence, that’s good. If it takes a book, that’s good too. 
10. When you head for the Great Outdoors, what is the one thing you do not leave home without?
    A plan of exactly what I want to accomplish and how I need to do it. 
11. What would you do if you won the lottery?
    Produce my movie, “Father of the Grooms.” I have not done a movie yet, and that would be an interesting, fun challenge. 
12. Who do you most admire in your life and why?
    Charlie Elliott, a fellow Georgian and long-time writer for Outdoor Life. He was an honest guy, very modest and yet he accomplished much in wildlife preservation, advancing the arts of outdoor writing and attracting others to hunting and fishing. I knew him through his writings as a child and in person when he was nearing the end of his life. He lived to see a Georgia wildlife educational center named after him.  
13. What was the last movie you saw?
    My last movie was “In the Heart of the Sea” which was released in 2015, but attracted very little attention. It tells of Melville’s interviewing the last survivor of the Whaling ship Essex, as he was gathering material for the book which became Moby Dick. 
14. What are your top three favorite books?
     Vern’s Mysterious Island, Keith’s “Hell, I was There,” and “The Encyclopedia Britannica.”
15. Can you juggle?
    Only in my head, and now not as well as formerly. 
16. What is your favorite dessert?
    Tipsy Pudding.
17. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
    Flight.
18. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
    Likely dead. 
19. What is your favorite inspirational quote?
    “It is better to have tried and failed, that to have never tried at all.”
20. What do you like best about OWAA?
    The people.

Thanks, Hovey, for not only your answers, but also for being valued part of “The Voice of the Outdoors.”

If you are an OWAA member and wish to be featured in a future Member Spotlight Monday, send your answers to the above questions and a photograph of yourself enjoying the outdoors (in JPG format sized for the web) to Colleen Miniuk-Sperry at cms@owaa-oldsite.birchbarkmedia.com.

Not a member? Check us out at http://www.owaa-oldsite.birchbarkmedia.com.