Elk group grows from humble start
Foundation marks its first 25 years
Bob Munson remembers having his daughters and a dozen teenage girls stuffing thousands of mailers into envelopes in a garage at his real estate office in Troy.
Charlie Decker recalls many road trips, including a drive to Oregon to recruit the support of a well-known bow hunter.
It was 1984, and these were the crude beginnings of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
Now there are 500 chapters across the country - even in places where there are no elk - that will celebrate the 25th anniversary of an organization that has an annual budget of roughly $40 million and a formidable nationwide force of 10,000 volunteers.
"It's amazing to me where we're at 25 years later," said Munson, who served as the foundation's president and chief executive officer for 15 years. "All I can say is that it was a wild ride and I'm glad I was part of it."
"It was a miracle," said Decker, a Libby logger who serves on the foundation's board of directors. "I guess timing was everything and it's still going 25 years later."
Decker and Munson are regarded as the foundation's founders, along with Munson's brother Bill and another former Troy resident, Dan Bull. The four avid hunters started out with a realization that there was no advocacy group for elk.
"Basically, they saw what Ducks Unlimited was doing for waterfowl and there was no organization that was dedicated to elk and upland habitat," said Steve Decker, Charlie's son and the foundation's director of field programs.
The group started out by sending 43,000 mailers to elk hunters in western states, promising subscriptions to an international magazine about elk and an annual convention.
Munson, who now runs a family business in the Seattle area, said the mailer turned out to be a "disaster," attracting only 233 responses.
"But as a result of having close to 300 members, we promised them a magazine and we felt we had an obligation," Munson said.
"We didn't have the money to give back to the people who gave early on so we just forged ahead and prayed that it would work," Decker said.
The group got lucky in recruiting Lance Schelvan, a talented wordsmith who was working for the Kootenai National Forest in Libby, to become the founding editor of Bugle Magazine.
The magazine proved to be the foundation's engine for expansion and membership recruitment.
"We had some pretty influential people who wrote for the first publication," said Munson.
Decker drove to Klamath Falls to personally win support and contributed writing from Dwight Schuh, who now is the editor of Bowhunter Magazine.
"I think we generated 12,000 to 15,000 members the next year, in 1985," Munson said. "That's also the year we held our first convention in Spokane, which was another commitment."
Decker said the organization turned the corner toward success within another year.
"Our second national convention was in Denver … we could finally pay the bills after that convention," Decker said. "That was when I felt we were finally getting on firmer ground. Up to that point, we were on a real shoestring."
Chapters started popping up, including Chapter Three in Kalispell, which will celebrate the 25th anniversary with a Feb. 21 banquet at the Hilton Garden Inn.
Decker summed up the key to the organization's success: "We were focused on a magnificent animal and there was a great passion with elk hunters and conservationists. It was a special species that warranted a bit of attention, I guess."
Over the last 25 years, the foundation's ranks have grown to 150,000 members.
"Nationwide, we have some pretty tremendous statistics," said Jory Dellinger, the foundation's western Montana and Idaho regional director.
More than 5.5 million acres of elk habitat have been enhanced or protected, including 624,000 acres in Montana. More than a half million acres of land that was previously inaccessible to hunting have been opened to hunting through easements, land swaps and land purchases.
Elk populations have been restored in states where they have long been absent, including Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
And the organization has completed more than 6,000 land protection, stewardship, conservation education and hunting heritage projects.
"I would put our volunteer base up against anybody's. It's absolutely phenomenal," Dellinger said. "They put on the banquets and roll up their shirt sleeves and pull fence, or pull weeds. They do that kind of stuff whenever they can."
Munson said the Kalispell chapter has been exemplary with its projects, which most recently included pulling miles of fence at the Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge west of Kalispell.
While all chapters will holding 25th anniversary banquets, there will be a celebration at the foundation's Missoula headquarters in May and a national convention will be held in Fort Worth, Texas, during the first week in March.
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Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com