 OWAA Legends
Wry, Witty and Talented - Dan Saults
By Keith G. Hay
Like many OWAA Legends, Dan Saults enjoyed a long and distinguished career as
a dedicated conservationist and outdoor journalist. He knew his craft from A to
Z and was passionate in practicing it. Although his heart and head were sharply
focused on fish and wildlife conservation issues, Sault’s appetite for knowledge
spanned an amazing breadth of interests.
He loved the Missouri Ozarks and its history, especially that of the Irish
Wilderness. Irish emigrants from St. Louis settled there in the 1850s only to
mysteriously disappear during the Civil War. He was fascinated with Mexico, its
many cultures and colorful past, and enjoyed visiting. He was a fan of good
music and good food, and his culinary feats included the best darn chili I ever
tasted. He loved engaging in philosophical discussions with people from all
walks of life. In short, he was a quintessential Renaissance man. Fun loving,
even mischievous at times, he was at his best telling stories between puffs of
his ever-present pipe. He was totally devoted to his beloved wife Helen, who
worked close by his office in the Interior Department as assistant to the
director of the National Park Service. I can see them now, walking hand-to-hand
down the hall after a long day’s work.
I first met Saults at a meeting of the American Association for Conservation
Information at the grand Colorado Hotel in Glenwood Springs, Colo., in 1956. He
had been editor of Missouri Conservationist magazine for a decade, and I just
had been offered the job of assistant editor of Colorado Outdoors magazine,
leaving an apprenticeship as game warden with the Colorado Game and Fish
Department. We immediately communed in our love of the outdoors and in the fact
that we both had served as army infantry officers, albeit in different wars.
Saults was decorated in WWII – he led a frontal assault on a German machine-gun
nest – and was captain of a company in the 339th Infantry Regiment, serving in
North African and Italian campaigns. His stories and adventures were riveting.
Ten years later, with the help of another OWAA Legend, Joe Linduska, I would
join Saults as his assistant in the Information Office of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
This unique man still holds the title with most of his staff as “the best boss
we ever had.” Always patient and supportive, he encouraged his staff who were
not members of OWAA to join. Of course we did. During his tenure with the
Service he was largely responsible for editing and production of such class
books as Birds in Our Lives, Waterfowl Tomorrow and Fifty Birds of Town and
Country.
Saults was born in the little town of Knob Noster, Mo., halfway between
Jefferson City and Kansas City, on May 20, 1911. After high school he attended
Central Missouri State Teachers College and graduated from the prestigious
journalism school at the University of Missouri. In 1934, at age 22, he
purchased the Knob Noster Gem, a weekly newspaper, and became editor and
publisher (the youngest publisher in Missouri at that time). WWII soon would end
his newspaper career. After military service he spent a year as a freelance
writer in Brownsville, Texas, before he assumed editorship of Missouri
Conservationist magazine and became chief of the Office of Information. Later,
he became the department’s deputy director. In 1964, he joined the U.S. Bureau
of Land Management as assistant to the director and chief of information in
Washington, D.C. A year later he became chief of information for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (then called the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife).
He retired in 1973.
He and Helen then moved to Branson, Mo., and he continued his writing with a
weekly column, “Saulty Observations,” for the Branson Beacon and the Springfield
News Leader, as well as articles for Ozarks Mountaineer and Missouri Life
Magazine. He completed volumes one and two of a historical novel titled Children
of Hunger. During these years, he remained active in OWAA. He was elected to the
Circle of Chiefs in 1973 and co-authored, with Jim Bashline, the 1976 book
America’s Great Outdoors. This book, now a collector’s gem, chronicles 200 years
of outdoor journalism. In 1979 he was elected president of OWAA. He remained
active in conservation matters, co-chairing the 50th anniversary committee for
the Conservation Federation of Missouri.
After his death in September of 1985, the Dan Saults Writing Award was
established by the Ozark Writer’s League to honor his memory. A year later he
received the National Wildlife Federation’s conservation award from the
Conservation Federation of Missouri for his pioneering conservation efforts. In
1990 he was inducted into the Conservation Hall of Fame. The Dan Saults
Collection of newspaper columns, articles, editorials and correspondence was
given to the University of Missouri’s journalism school.
Joel Vance, OWAA historian, reports, “Dan was already a legend when I started
working for the Missouri Conservation Department in 1969. Although he had been
in Washington, D.C., for five years, his influence here was still strong. He was
Jim Keefe’s mentor and Keefe (another OWAA Legend) was mine. Dan and Keefe
dominated editorial duties on the Missouri Conservationist magazine for nearly
40 years. Their inside-front-cover editorial was the voice of the Conservation
Department. The magazine grew from a fledgling to one with the largest
circulation of any state conservation publication – more than 400,000. Jim, who
succeeded Dan as editor, loved to tell how his boss was a compulsive editor. If
he was eating in some Ozark cafe and noticed a typo in the menu, the black
pencil would come out, and he’d edit on the spot.”
Don Cullimore, whose dad was a Ham Brown Award recipient, said, “Dan was a
significant mentor to me. He shaped my reading habits, encouraged my
intellectual curiosity and honed my passions in politics and philosophy. Dad and
Dan’s research and articles undoubtedly led to the protection of the Irish
Wilderness as a federally designated wilderness area. I’ve never found a
friendship equal to his.”
Chuck Cadieux (an OWAA living legend and former OWAA president) worked with
Saults in the National Association for Conservation Education and Publicity in
the early 1950s and said he was a “master of words. He once wrote a story about
four Ozark coon hunters setting around the campfire, and you could smell the
smoke and hear the hounds tree the raccoon.”
Jim Carroll remembers, “He was the best boss I ever had, but I worked too long
and he lived too short to tell him that. I have never known a person more
knowledgeable on so many subjects. My only regret is that I never learned how to
tell a story like the master from Knob Noster.”
Pete Anastasi said, “A literary genius at work … fits Dan Saults to a ‘T.’ I
never met anyone who could match his editorial expertise. When I handed him copy
I always got back half and soon learned how to keep the gobbledygook out.”
Don Pfitzer, a B-17 pilot in WWII, recalls long discussions with Saults, who
Pfitzer met after the war when both were state information and education
supervisors – Saults in Missouri, and Pfitzer in Tennessee. “Among all the
subjects we discussed, the most memorable hinged around our faith. Dan surprised
me by his strong belief in the Bible and its literary value. He read and reread
Solomon’s books, especially Ecclesiastics. I remember so vividly evenings
listening to him read aloud passages with intense feeling. Just another facet of
this remarkable man that few of his contemporaries had occasion to enjoy.”
Saults rests in Knob Noster and left his wife, a daughter, four grandchildren
and three great grandchildren that he would have adored. In my book, he was a
great man and one of the finest conservation editors of our time.
Keith Hay, an OWAA member since 1965, retired as conservation director for
the American Petroleum Institute. He is vice president for the Lewis and Clark
Bicentennial in Oregon and lives near Newberg, Ore., on his tree farm and
vineyard.
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