Below is an article from the March-April 2025 issue of Bugle magazine.
Most people dip their toes into volunteering at first, but RMEF volunteer Zach Tulk attended one volunteer recruitment meeting in January 2023 and cannonballed straight into a committee role as gun chair for the 500-attendee Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, banquet. “I had no idea what I was doing at first,” he says. But he sought help from a former gun chair and figured out the details of how to work with the firearms dealer. After he successfully tackled the gun chair role in 2023, he served as ticket chair in 2024 and now plans to cochair the banquet in 2025. He says being part of a banquet has helped him grow as a person. “I’d never really been in a leadership role in my life and just stepping into that role, it seems like a lot of people have responded well to how I do things.”
Idaho Regional Director Karee Head says Zach has a magnetic personality. “He’s such an easygoing guy that people want to work with. People want to be around him because he brings the positive energy.”
Banquets have also become a family affair for the Tulks. Zach’s wife Danielle works behind the scenes, helping Zach stay organized. Daughters Kamryn (9) and Kylie (8) now lend a hand. He says Kamryn and Kylie brightened last year’s auction, walking through the audience displaying items up for bid. “They really loved it, and they’re talking about coming back next year,” he says. The two girls even served as the official puppy watchers, giving food and water to the black and chocolate lab puppies that were part of the auction, showing them to the crowd and cleaning up after them while they waited for new owners.
Zach hopes his involvement in RMEF will serve as a model for Kamryn, Kylie and his youngest daughter Mila (5), and that it will help them learn to love conservation like he does. “I think the banquets really open their eyes to a different side of what they see of me and hunting,” he says.
(Photo credit: Zach Tulk)