Two longtime members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation will be inducted into the Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame for their significant contributions to the conservation of the state’s outdoor heritage.
Steve Kilpatrick and Jim Zumbo have a long history with RMEF. Zumbo joined the organization in 1985, one year and one day after its founding. Kilpatrick followed suit just three years later in 1988.
Zumbo is one of America’s best-known outdoor writers, host of his own TV show and a frequent contributor to RMEF’s Bugle magazine. He wrote 23 books on hunting and fishing, nearly 3,000 magazine articles and gave more than a thousand seminars on hunting and fishing in more than 100 cities across the country. He also received a number of awards including the 2012 Wallace Fennell Pate Wildlife Conservation Award, RMEF’s highest conservation honor.
“My family is coming for the ceremony from Seattle and Salt Lake and Cheyenne. It’s gonna be a great time,” Zumbo told the Powell Tribune.
Kilpatrick is a retired Game and Fish biologist who helped spearhead beneficial projects for agricultural producers and wildlife alike, improving more than 530,000 acres of habitat in northwest Wyoming. He is a 30-year RMEF volunteer and chapter chair of the Jackson Hole Chapter who also helped other hunter-based, conservation organizations.
“As I grew up, I began to understand hunting is not about killing; it’s about conservation. It’s not hunting that drives me, it’s seeing the wildlife on the landscape,” Kilpatrick said in a 2016 Bugle magazine article. “Habitat work is not very sexy, but someone has to do it. If you don’t have good habitat, the species cannot maintain itself into the future.”
Also being inducted is Doug Crowe of Casper. He served the Wyoming Game and Fish Department as both assistant director and liaison to the state legislature. Crowe was also special assistant to the director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington D.C.
The ceremony takes place on March 19, 2025, at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.
(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)