SPRINGVILLE, TN – Founder of the “Legends of the Outdoors” Hall of Fame, Garry Mason, has announced that Jim Shepherd will receive the 2023 Wade Bourne Lifetime Achievement Award in Outdoor Communications & Media at this year’s annual Banquet and Induction Ceremony.

Jim Shepherd wrote his first front page story in 1973. In the 50 years since, he’s covered everything from local news to the United States Supreme Court. Lots of those reports have come in the 23 years since he began The Outdoor Wire with “forty three potential subscribers and a hunch the outdoors needed something like a daily newspaper.” Today, that idea has grown into The Outdoor Wire Digital Network, ten distinct services covering virtually every area of the outdoors. In a career that spans 50+ years, Shepherd has many national and international awards in radio, television and cable news. He has received Emmy awards, Cable ACE Awards, Murrow Awards, and been named golf reporter of the year by the National Golf Reporters Association. In the outdoors, he was the first non-Arizona reporter named that state’s Outdoor Journalist of the Year. He’s since won the award a second time for The Outdoor Wire. After his work covering the Second Amendment and the United States Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision, the Second Amendment Foundation named him their first Global Defender of Second Amendment Rights. Last year, he was named the SAF’s 2022 Journalist of the Year for his “extraordinary dedication to preservation of Second Amendment rights, and whose words have helped preserve the freedoms protected by the United States Constitution.”

This year’s event will once again be held in Springfield, MO at the John A and Genny Morris Convention Center on Saturday, August 19th. Check-in will begin at 9:00am and the event will start at 10:30am.

Inductees for the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame for 2023 are as follows: : Jim Ronquest, Co-Host and Producer of RNT-V and a World Champion Duck Caller; Kathy Fennel, Executive Vice-President and General Manager of Major League Fishing; Tim Huffman, renowned writer and photographer, Tim is currently senior writer for CrappieNow; Gail Camp, long-time active female waterfowl hunter and a two-time Women’s World Championship Caller winner; Bill Miller, professional outdoor writer, former television personality, and owner of Bill Miller Outdoors; Phillip Vanderpool, well known hunter and host & owner of thevirtuetv; Bob Redfern, long-time outdoor TV personality on Bob Redfern’s Outdoor Magazine and retired US Army Infantry Lieutenant Colonel; Kevin VanDam, “KVD” is a professional bass fisherman and the all-time money winner in professional bass fishing.

The event is open to the public. Sponsorship information and individual ticket reservations may be obtained by calling 731-693-7770 or 731-593-0171. Tickets are limited – do not miss your chance to see these great men and women of the outdoors industry -- call now!!