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Rural Missouri journalist Jason Jenkins faced a big challenge when asked to write about Joel Vance, BJ '56. "I've known Joel for a decade, so it was tough to cram all his accomplishments into 1,000 words. He's quite the talent," said Jenkins. Read on to learn more about Vance's lifetime passion for writing which continues to inspire and educate thousands on a variety of conservation issues.

Bird dogs and bird hunting are favorite subjects for Joel Vance, BJ '56, former writer for the Missouri Conservationist. He and his wife, Marty, live in Cole County with their French Brittany spaniels, including Scruffy, pictured.

Conservation Conscience

For nearly 40 years, Joel Vance has told the story of Missouri's outdoors

By Jason Jenkins
Copyright © May 2007 Rural Missouri
Used by permission.

It's 6:30 a.m., and Joel Vance is already hard at work in his basement office, awash in the glow of his computer monitor. His fingers pound out a rhythmic, tappity-tap cadence on the keyboard.

He's writing a story on quail and pheasant surveys for Gun Dog magazine. His deadline is still more than a month away, but Joel's written this type of story before and he knows how big of a job it is.

"I'm not a procrastinator," he says, swirling the last swig of coffee around in his mug. "I want to get it done now. If I'm given an assignment, I'm not going to wait until the last minute. I can't do that. Drives me nuts."

Even at 72, the deadline is sacred for Joel.

You may have never met him in person, but you've likely invited Joel into your home through the pages of many outdoor magazines, including the Missouri Conservationist. He worked for the Missouri Department of Conservation for 21 years, writing a weekly press release package and magazine articles, most notably humor stories.

"People will say to me even today, 'I always read the Conservationist to read your humor pieces,'" he recalls. "Well, I might be doing one or two humor pieces a year, and they forget the 25 other ones I did that weren't humor. It's kind of cool to have that stuff remembered like that. In a way that's a bonus of humor writing."

Whether recounting a hunting or fishing misadventure, describing the antics of one of his French Brittany spaniels or simply commenting on everyday life, Joel has a knack for getting a laugh. He has an even better knack, however, at communicating the importance of and need for conservation of natural resources.

During the past 40 years, he has become one of the country's most respected and influential outdoor writers. Joel has written thousands of articles, columns and stories. He's also published seven books, including "Down Home Missouri: When Girls Were Scary and Basketball Was King," a memoir of his time growing up in the small town of Dalton in Chariton County.

His influence has been felt nationwide. He served as chairman of the Missouri Outdoor Communicators and president of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He's one of only three OWAA members in 80 years to be awarded all three of its top writing honors.

Joel played an integral role in developing and writing Missouri's Design for Conservation, a plan to increase public lands and conservation beyond traditional game species management.

"The Design has been a marvelous success," he says. "The programs that have come about as a direct result of this extra money are of benefit not just to hunters and fishermen, but to kids and city people and country people."

Joel didn't start out to change the face of Missouri conservation. His first and only career aspiration was to put pen to paper.

"I don't know where the inspiration came from, I just always wanted to be a writer," he recalls. "I read what writers were doing and I thought, gee, I'd like to do that."

Born in Chicago in 1934, Joel moved to Dalton in the eighth grade. His father, who had roots in Chariton County, moved the family back to oversee tenant farmers working a 940-acre crop farm in which he had a business interest. They took up residence in the old Dalton hotel.

"It wasn't a hotel in the conventional sense," Joel says. "It was the old railroad hotel. It had 17 rooms, no running water and an outhouse up on the hill. It had been abandoned for several years and was full of mice and cockroaches. It was one of the deals like you always hear, 'We didn't know we were poor.'"

Joel discovered humor writing in that Dalton hotel during high school.

"I started reading the great humorists of the 1920s and '30s - Robert Benchley, S. J. Perelman, H. Allen Smith - and appreciated what they did and kind of absorbed it and tried to write like those people."

After graduating from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1956, he took a job editing news copy at the Montgomery Journal in Alabama. In 1959, he returned to Missouri, accepting a position as sports editor for the Mexico Evening Ledger.

"That job taught me everything about the craft of writing, from learning to be fast and accurate to learning how to vary my writing style," he says.

It was while working for the Ledger that Joel began freelancing.

"I still remember the first article I ever sold," he says. "It was for Fur, Fish & Game, and it was on wade fishing in small streams. I got $25 for it."

In 1969, the conservation department lured Joel away from the Ledger.

"I really wanted to be an outdoor editor, but I found out that there is no such thing as an outdoor editor job opening," he says. "There are guys who have been there for a hundred years, and when they leave there's always somebody that's been waiting for about 50 years to come into the job. Unless you're ready and willing to wait a long, long, time, you're not going to get one of those jobs."

Joel remained at the department until his retirement in 1990.

"It was a great job," he says. "I just decided it was time to freelance, and I wanted to explore what was out there."

Joel and his wife, Marty, moved to rural Cole County just outside of Russellville in 1993. While he no longer has a set schedule, Joel begins most days the same.

"I try to write some every day," says the Three Rivers Electric Cooperative member. "It's like exercise, you need to do it every day or it's hard to stay with it. You have to apply fingers to keyboard. That's really what it boils down to."

When not writing, Joel enjoys playing the guitar and collecting books. He still spends considerable time outdoors, whether gardening, fishing or hunting with any one of his French Brittany spaniels.

"I probably write more about dogs than anything; they're my favorite," he says. "I could get along without hunting I suppose if I had to, but I don't know if I could get along without puppy dogs. It's 80 percent of what I'm out there for."

As for the state of conservation today, Joel's 40-year perspective elicits hope and concern.

"We are in a world that is infinitely more aware of conservation and the environment than we ever have been," he says. "But I worry that too many people aren't willing to make the sacrifices that we need to maintain that."

"Down Home Missouri" is available from the University of Missouri Press. Order a copy online at http://www.umsystem.edu/upress/fall2000/vance.htm or by calling 1-800-828-1894.