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Pro Staffer for PSE since 1986

Welcome to another episode of White Tail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon.

This afternoon we are very privileged and fortunate to have on the show, Gary Campbell. He’s been a Pro Staffer for PSE since 1986. He also played basketball in college and spent three years in the Pittsburgh Pirate Baseball organization. He’s an artist and has a number of his works spread around the city of Pueblo, Colorado. Gary, welcome to the show.

Gary: Thank you, Bruce. It’s a real pleasure to be on here.

Bruce: Let’s just jump right into the interview and talking about how your excellence in competitive sports, basketball and baseball, helped you as a hunter.

Gary: Well, I was raised in a little town called Bell, Missouri, down in the Ozarks of Missouri, and it was about 800 people in the town. You did three things. You played basketball, baseball, and you hunted. That’s all there was to do.

Some kids didn’t play sports, but everybody hunted. And I was fortunate to be in the presence of my grandfather who was kind of the modern day mountain man. He died in 1954 when I was 10 years old, and he still trapped for a living in Missouri. He gave me the background of my hunting and what have you, and he made all my bows and arrows when I was a little kid. I started at about five years old. He was an artist with a piece of glass and a knife. When he finished my long bows, they looked like they’d come out of the factory, and I was the envy of all the kids.

I would beg him to shoot his guns, and he never would let me. One day, wasn’t long before he died, I said “Grandpa, why can’t I shoot your guns?”

Gary, that bow will teach you to hunt, but with a rifle you’ve just got to be a good shot.”

He said “Gary, that bow will teach you to hunt, but with a rifle you’ve just got to be a good shot.” It was the best thing I was ever told. Not that I didn’t hunt with a rifle later years, but I’ve always stayed with a bow. Since I was five years old, I’ve shot a bow and hunted with a bow as I got a little older. That’s basically what started my background in hunting and having the influence of him.

Then, of course, playing sports. I was a basketball player and a baseball player. I was very fortunate that God gave me the ability and talent to play in the sports. When I graduated from high school, my senior year, I had six professional contracts offered to me in baseball. And I had 17 scholarships offered to me by colleges, and I made the All-American team in basketball. I decided to go to Missouri University, and on a [inaudible 00:3:23], it didn’t cost me anything to go to school. I played two years, and then I signed with the Pirates.

To get back to your original question, how did that help me in my hunting? Through, I think, where I was raised had more to contribute, and my grandfather, then probably being athletic. Although, I believe being athletic will always help you in everything you do. But as far as being a hunter, it was born in the desire of my background to hunt. As you well know, Bruce, you don’t ever get rid of that, pal.

Bruce: No, sir, you don’t. Your career is illustrious, to say the least, and you’ve competed on championship levels, All-American levels, and professional levels, and that stays with you. Your drive in the hunting, in our conversations about hunting, I think that definitely has made you a better hunter.