(upbeat music) Hello everybody, and welcome to Naturally Wild, the new outdoor program right here on the new Arkansas TV network, the largest broadcast network in the state of Arkansas.

My name is Steve Wildman Wilson.

And I'll serve as your host here on Naturally Wild each week.

You know, as we dive into all the fun and the wonder and the beauty of our state has to offer right outside our front doors.

You know, I thank you for tuning in tonight.

Now, most of you, if you're 50 or older, there's probably a good chance that we've run across each other before, over the years.

I'm.

I've been around for a long time.

But for all of you younger folks now, let me introduce myself.

I'm a native Arkansan, born in southwest Little Rock.

I went to college in Oklahoma, but I could not wait to get back to the natural state.

Now, you may recognize my voice because I've been hosting a weekly outdoor program on KARN for about 30 years.

It's called Call of the Wild, and I'm very excited to be back on Arkansas Public television.

Naturally Wild is going to be one of the biggest adventures on Arkansas's airways, and it's thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of folks, two of which are right here in the studio with me today.

First of all, there is Carlton Wing.

He is a new director of Arkansas TV.

Thank you.

Great to be here.

And it is good to have you back right where you belong in public television here in Arkansas.

It's been a while.

When I was on here before, I was on here with Trey Reed.

Trey.

We've worked together.

This is Trey Reed Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Good to be here, Wildman.

Well, we have spent some time here and on other sets before.

That's right.

I'm looking forward to good show tonight and I know you're going to enjoy it as well.

Carlton, first thing.

You got to take that tie off.

This is an outdoor show.

Is this, is there a dress code here?

Am I in violation of the dress code?

Okay.

All right.

You run this shop over here.

Okay, we'll we'll adhere to the dress code.

I can appreciate that.

I feel better now.

I feel better since you're doing that.

Here we go.

You know, he's good.

There we go.

Now.

Now I feel better about things.

I'm not underdressed anymore.

He's the director of AETN.

It used to be AETN.

And I'm going to have a hard time getting used to.

Talk about your journey a little bit.

I know you're a native of North Little Rock.

You didn't say it all along.

Tell us kind of how you got back here.

Well, I grew up in North Little Rock, graduated from the old Northeast High School.

Northeast High school merged with Old Main.

So my northeast Chargers, we are now an adjective.

So when you see the Charging Wildcats from North Little Rock, we were the Chargers of the of the now the Charging Wildcats but grew up always wanted I was I worked in radio in high school.

The old KEZQ, the easy listening station back then.

I worked the midnight to 7 a.m.

shift on the weekends.

That's tough for a teenager to stay awake from midnight to 7 a.m.

on the weekend playing elevator music.

That's how we got started, but eventually followed my passion into sports.

And I was a sportscaster in college.

And then my first few jobs were in Salt Lake City, Utah and Spokane, Washington before, and every time I'd come home, I dropped by all the TV stations in Little Rock, say, hey, as soon as you got an opening, I'm here.

And channel four was the first one that had an opening, and that's what brought me back home.

So I was gone, all told, for 12 years, but came back in 1998, did the sports for channel four, and that's when you and I first got to do some stuff together.

And we had a lot of fun doing some live shots and, and talking about the outdoors.

Even back then.

I started saying, I used to come down there every week and just talk about hunting and fishing.

Yeah.

Of which a lot of people in the sports never hunt and fish.

So that's kind of you weren't a hunter, fishermen, really, or an outdoorsman?

No, I had.

I got an opportunity of a lifetime in 2001 to host the national program for the FLW tour, the professional bass fishing circuit.

And up until that point, I had not done that much in the outdoors.

Most of my outdoors was on a golf course, and then I got the opportunity to do that and to learn professional bass fishing from the best of the sport.

I mean, you know, like if you're going to learn golf, learn it from Tiger Woods.

I learned it from Kevin Van Dam and George Cochran and Larry Nixon and Mike Worm, and those guys taught me how to bass fish, and I have been eaten up with it ever since then.

Now that's what I do in my spare time is I fish, and I have done so.

But that's an important part of things because that's why I'm passionate about the outdoors, because I was an adult convert, and I felt like I opened up a whole new world when I was able to step outside and step into a world where there's no right angles or straight lines, where the the healing aspect of the outdoors and just being outside in nature what it does.

I'm very passionate about that.

I got tickled, you shared with me earlier one day about your interview, about taking that job with you, and they the interview went well, but they ask you one question at the very end.

They asked you, do you fish, Carlton?

What did you say?

Yeah, I figured that was an important question because the interview had been going very well up until that point.

And they said, are you a fisherman, Carlton?

Well, I better think about this.

And I just kind of leaned forward and I said, I have fished.

And and they laughed about like that.

But then they said, that's actually great.

They said, because we want somebody to cover professional fishing like a sportscaster would not like a fisherman would.

They wanted to broaden the sport out and really mainstream professional fishing.

And it was just an incredible experience.

And I've done outdoors titles, probably 15 or so over the years that have national programing.

So we it outdoors is a definitely a passion for us.

And and that's why it's so good to have it come back to our public television station where it belongs, because we have so much to showcase here.

It's not only a great thing for everybody to do, but it's a huge industry for the state of Arkansas as well.

Right.

Yeah.

Trey is a little bit different story.

We we grew up hunting and fishing.

And you from Pine Bluff share a little bit about your story.

Yeah.

Well man I grew up in southeast Arkansas, Pine Bluff, and after college went into the newspaper business, was at the Pine Bluff Commercial, my hometown newspaper, then went to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and was the outdoor editor there after a couple of years.

As a sportswriter, we, like Carlton, started in sports and then had a great opportunity to go to work for ESPN back in '05 and '06, when they actually owned the Bassmaster Tour at the time and worked on a show called Bass Center, and it was unceremoniously dumped after about a year and a half.

And I'm sitting around wondering, what are you going to do next?

And I actually ran into a former Game and Fish commissioner at a Mexican restaurant in Little Rock, and he said, what?

Why don't you think about coming to work for us?

And 20 years later, I've been at Arkansas Game and Fish that long.

So yeah, but I grew up hunting in southeast Arkansas with my dad and fishing.

These days I probably fish more than I hunt, mostly with the fly rod these days.

Now, I'm not against conventional tackle.

I'm not a fly rod snob or anything like that, but just what I prefer and also travel a lot to fish.

And I was still a big duck hunter.

That's my my big pursuit, you know that, we've spent a lot of time in the duck woods together over the years when you were at Game and Fish.

I started saying, I was really glad you came over because, you know, I did Talking Outdoors at the Corner Cafe show, which we're going to show some of those shows here in a minute.

But you were my videographer and actually ended up being my co-host on the show for many years.

It was interesting.

Yeah, ten years.

Basically.

I was with you over there because you had had actually been here and then took the show elsewhere.

And I think, like.

That's when you joined us.

Your videographer didn't really work out.

I didn't have a videographer.

Well, you were you were going to I think I remember you wrote a memo.

You were like, I'm just I'm going to I'm not going to do the show anymore.

And you had done it for 20 years in some form or fashion here or elsewhere.

And I said, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

I got you, man.

You can tell how long that's been, folks, because he said 20.

He said, I wrote a memo.

You don't do that anymore.

You send emails now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We do it a little differently.

You know I remember outdoor programing here probably before y'all do.

I'm a little bit older and I thought we'd take a few minutes to kind of reflect back.

Look how all the programing used to be on here.

Quite a few shows.

If you stop and look way back.

The first one I remember was George Purvis and Dick Gregory from the Game and Fish Commission.

Y'all, were you all around them?

Were you born then even?

Not when George started.

That's hard to say.

I'm very familiar with who George Purvis is.

I mean, instrumental as a communications chair for Arkansas Game and Fish.

And anybody who remembers the, what was that NBC show Wide, Wide World, where where the ducks came up off of Claypool.

George.

George helped engineer that.

I mean, I kind of put that together, put Arkansas on the map nationally.

Yeah, there was about 5 million ducks getting up.

Seemed like it at least.

But he did a show in here called Arkansas Game and Fish Highlights, I think he and Dick Gregory.

And then I also remember, I think he did a couple of shows at one time he was on here and channel four.

He was on channel four on 6:15 and Saturday afternoons when football season wasn't going on.

So I remember that's how I remember.

And the one thing I remember about that show, more than the content, was the buck deer running, that little tune that they played.

If you're over 50, you'll remember that with me, I guarantee you, because the buck deer was in the open of the show, and I'll never forget that.

That was always my start.

Well, and it speaks to the power of the medium, of being able when you can't be outside and you're stuck inside, but you're in front of a TV and you can see what's going on outside, it helps motivate you to get out there.

And all of us can point to those shows that really had a powerful impact on us, to be able to encourage us to get outside, see what's going on out there and experience some things ourselves.

And that's one of the things we hope to do, is to be able to inspire Arkansans to enjoy what we have right here, because it is special.

You are the first people that taught me when you go to other states and see what they have, and then you see what Arkansas has in terms of the outdoors, we are truly, truly blessed.

I've learned this from you.

We're one of the only states in the nation with an elk season and a gator season.

And if you're going to have both of those, you've got a wide range of topography right there.

We're the natural state.

That's right.

Talking about the TV, I mean, we have such a rich tradition of outdoor television in Arkansas.

People like Jerry McInnis, Fishin' Hole on ESPN for decades Yeah, national shows.

Dempsey produced FLW, McKenna, JM produced Bassmaster, still does, for that matter.

And so, you know, Carlton mentioned the importance of of the outdoors as an industry in Arkansas, but in the outdoor television industry, very deeply rooted in this state as well.

You know, one of the longest running outdoor shows here on used to be AETN, Arkansas TV, was Arkansas Outdoors, I think Jim Holmes, the late Jim Holmes was producer of that, and everybody remembers John Philpot and Phyllis Spear.

That's right.

The cooking part of it, I think you still air some of those.

Still one of our top shows on the network right there.

Yeah.

That was Arkansas Outdoors.

And they actually I was on some of those you've been on there, went out and did some hunting and fishing in the field.

So it took people outdoors where you could do that.

And but really the cooking part was always very popular.

Chuck Dovish did exploring Arkansas here for many years, still run some of those episodes as well?

Yep, yep.

And there's, there is so much to explore in Arkansas.

It is a never ending line of stories that are available for us.

Yeah.

And I think I think exploring Arkansas was more of the non consumptive.

You know, Trey and I did hunting and fishing, killing and catching, hooking.

And we still do that.

But but I think Chuck more did a lot of personal interest stories, caving, some of the other outdoor recreations that we enjoy here in Arkansas that a lot of people don't even know we have, and led them around the state doing that, too.

He's a great storyteller and had done that for years in his career, even before he came over here to do that.

That's how he made a name for himself, finding those unique stories of what makes Arkansas special.

Yeah, really.

Trey, you'll remember that right here in the studio, we did some things called outdoor hotlines, where we would, now this is before technology was invented.

We barely had electricity back then, but basically it was a statewide public meeting.

In other words, Game and Fish would make rules and regulations, and they wanted public's opinion of it.

We didn't have the internet and all that stuff back then.

Our only statewide public meeting was an outdoor hotline where we would set up, would set up 24 phone banks.

We had a phone bank.

Do you remember that?

This is good stuff.

Yeah.

We had.

We had a phone bank.

We have biologists, game wardens, you name it, answering the phones.

And you hosted several of those.

We kind of, Bob Robins.

I think we got video.

We're showing them Bob Robins hosting one there.

Well, you hosted several weeks after I came to work at Game and Fish.

We've done some as recently as I think about ten years or so ago here.

Yeah.

When chronic wasting disease was found in Arkansas originally that we came to Arkansas TV initially to help kind of get that word out statewide and answer a lot of the natural questions that people had, like, what does this mean to deer hunting?

So a very, very effective means of getting the word out to a lot of people.

Yeah.

That was the only one we had back then.

But then, of course, my show aired here for about 10 or 12 years.

It was called Talking Outdoors at the Corner Cafe, and that was right before Trey joined us there.

But we had many, many good years here about out in Arkansas, hunting and fishing in Arkansas.

You can't beat it there.

But but the good thing about this, I think, again, Arkansas TV is that it's statewide.

We get to cover is it all but four counties or we statewide all the way?

We are statewide.

We've got little pockets, but we are 97% covered in the state of Arkansas, and we're working to cover even that last 3%.

But we we are for many people across the state, especially in the rural parts, sometimes we are the only TV station they get, period.

So it's very important that we be able to bring to them the stories and the messages they need to hear.

And that's one of the reasons why it's so important they get to see and hear about the outdoors again.

You bet.

Now talk a little bit about what we've been talking about.

Now we're called Arkansas TV, AETN back when I was growing up.

Talk about that, kind of your renaming of the of the agency, I guess, and some of your dreams there.

Well, we are centered around the educational component of Arkansas.

We are a noncommercial television station that makes us different than all of the other TV stations that you see.

We're different than the commercial television.

We're here to serve communities that don't always get served in commercial television and with an educational focus.

That's why we are here.

We're also funded through the state of Arkansas.

The vast majority of our funding comes through appropriations from the state of Arkansas.

And we are here to highlight what is happening in Arkansas and how we can create lifelong learners in the state of all ages.

So from the from the young to the very old and everybody in between, we want to give them the information and the education that they need to help build.

And I know when you came, we had a what, 5% of programing here on this station was local.

And your goal is to kind of where you want to get that.

We're getting up to 30% in our first year.

Wow.

30% of local programing is so important.

And that's I've watched hunting and fishing shows and you know, I'd say, man, I'd like to go there, but I'll never be able to afford to go there and, and but hey, when you see something here, you can get there if you hadn't already been there too.

Yeah.

And that's and that's a great part of bringing things where they need to be.

It's returning us to our roots of where we were in the AETN day which featured a lot of local, some good national and even some international programing as well.

And you still have PBS?

Yes.

Yep, yep.

So we've got we've got lots of carriers to bring in windows to the world from a variety of voices.

I know Trey's a big fan of PBS.

You raise your granddaughters on some of that programing.

Well, I was raised on some of that.

I mean, you know, Sesame Street baby, you know.

No, but yeah, I mean, my kids, my my granddaughters now.

Yeah, I'll watch a lot of that.

And I'm a big consumer of Arkansas TV myself.

So when Carlton reached out and talked about, you know, his idea to get more outdoor programing, I was like, yeah, let's do it.

What do we need to do?

You know.

Yeah, there's a natural call.

Well, I know this is going to be Naturally Wild as our show, but Trey's bringing something to the table as well on Arkansas TV.

Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah.

So how about I guess it's probably been three plus years ago now.

We did what everybody seems to be doing at Arkansas Game and Fish.

We started a podcast.

Podcast.

It blows me away because our attention spans are so short now and nobody wants like this long form stuff except if it's a podcast.

It was a podcast for an hour or two.

And so anyway.

Yes, we started a podcast and we never really intended it to be a video product.

I mean, it's really more of an audio product, but we have always recorded it on video so we could post it to YouTube, just another audience that could potentially be exposed to.

And so as I talked to Carlton about, you know, how could Game and Fish maybe fit into some outdoor programing here on Arkansas TV?

That was sort of a natural.

We're already doing it.

Not a lot of extra work that has to be done.

Now.

You'll be happy to know we are going to increase the production value now.

So essentially the Game and Fish podcast that airs, you know, you can get it on most podcast platforms, as I mentioned on YouTube on the Game and Fish YouTube channel as well as you can go to AGFC.com, the Game and Fish website and find it there as well.

But basically it's going to be that same podcast and we're just going to have another home for it here, hopefully expose some new people to it.

And you know the the beauty of that podcast, Wildman, is that it's about we talk about hunting and fishing.

But what I think it does probably better than anything else is explain some of those why questions.

Answer those why questions.

Why is this regulation in place?

Why is there a certain length limit on a certain lake for fish Why do we do the things we do at Arkansas Game and Fish?

And so you're going to hear firsthand from, well, our directorate, our, our game wardens, and probably more than anything else, our biologists, the people that are out there in the field working with the the animals, the fish.

And they can, you know, they have a unique insight into what makes those animals tick and also the relationship that people have with those animals, because that's something we don't talk.

You didn't used to talk a lot about.

Now, you know, we do now, but it's the the critters we're after.

It's the people who pursue them.

And then it's the Game and Fish making the regulation.

So three legs to that stool.

And if we don't have one of those it doesn't hold up.

And in today's communications world you've got to you've got to do it all.

I mean you got to do print.

You got to do what at the end of podcast, the TV, the radio and, and and it's still hard.

I mean, it really is.

We try to get the word out the best we can.

That's one thing this show is going to do is try to give you also along with the podcast, the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast, but Naturally Wild as well.

Also, let me give you some idea of what we're getting ready to cover on this show.

Naturally Wild in the coming weeks, you know, tonight's kind of an introduction and kind of tell you how we got here.

And thankful to Carlton and the whole crew here at AETN.

Done a great job putting this together.

The set, everybody in the control room.

It takes a village to do that.

You know how that is, don't you, Trey.

Hey, next week we're going to be talking about here on this show all about Arkansas, but not hunting and fishing.

You know, when when I grew up in Arkansas, outdoor recreation, pretty limited.

It was basically wading in the creek, climbing trees and hunting and fishing.

We didn't go anywhere for outdoor recreation.

We had it in our backyard.

It's a little different today, but we're going to be talking about all the different outdoor recreational opportunities here in Arkansas other than hunting and fishing.

Now you hunters and fishermen don't worry about it, we're going to talk about plenty of about hunting and fishing when the fall gets here.

Some other things we're going to cover pretty soon.

We're going to actually have some snakes in here.

And Carlton.

I'm glad Carlton and I will not be here.

That's right.

Yeah.

I think you may have a slim crew that day.

I told him I was going to bring some live snakes in the studio.

Starting at the front desk all the way to the control room.

We're going to clear the whole building.

They might be close that day here, but, but you know, that's important.

You're outside in the summertime.

You're going to run across them.

So we're going to be talking about by the way.

Ironically, I'm going to follow that show up with another show about first aid in the outdoors.

Snake bites included?

And it's going to be a sequel.

Yeah, yeah.

But I really am.

It's going to be, hey, another good thing we're going to do, we're going to bring some retriever dogs in here and talk about the dog days of summer and really how you should take care of your dogs during the heat.

July and August.

It gets pretty hot here.

Dove season and duck season right around the corner.

So how do you start training those dogs and preparation for the upcoming seasons during this heat?

Some ways to stay cool in the outdoors.

You know that's always a challenge here in Arkansas in July and August and we're going to be talking about trout fishing.

You know, you can go to a lot of places and wading creeks and swimming holes.

You can go to Blanchard Caverns.

And you know, that's another state park.

They just got there.

That's a good way to stay cool, but nothing better than sitting on the bank of a trout fishing stream here in Arkansas and letting that cool breeze, kind of nature's air conditioning, if you will, cool you off.

Actually get in the stream.

Well, that's even better still.

Yeah, it depends on how hot it is.

But yeah, that water is up there.

You know, August, I can I can bear that cold water.

Yeah, yeah.

Tail waters are great air conditioning systems in the summer.

It really is.

Yeah.

It's mother's nature.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, we're going to be doing a show also, on becoming an outdoors woman.

You know, a lot of people here in Arkansas, mainly men.

But that's a growing, growing sport now.

More ladies getting involved in all our all outdoors, especially hunting and fishing.

But the Becoming an Outdoors woman workshop we're going to be talking about is that there a you know, they do everything from floating to how to, how to back a boat in the water.

I hear a lot of guys going, I need to learn how to do that.

That's not easy.

But kayaking, not just killing and catching, hunting and fishing, it's more about it's Arkansas outdoors.

It's total the total package here.

What about mountain biking?

You know, I just read where Arkansas is now the world, the capital of mountain biking in the world.

It's huge, especially in northwest Arkansas.

You talking about the industry, there is an entire industry springing up around mountain biking up there.

But it's also spreading because it started that genesis was there in northwest Arkansas, and now northeast Arkansas is putting in trails to compete.

Central Arkansas, we've got that trail that's going to connect Little Rock to Hot Springs and other places as well.

So it's that is a definitely a growing industry.

But people are coming to Arkansas just for that.

And industry is following.

In fact, I saw on the news other day now they got their first lift that actually you you can get like a ski lift with no snow, but you put your bikes on there and it takes you up to the top of the mountain you can ride down.

My son is extremely excited about that.

Oh no.

You have to be under 20 to do something like that, wouldn't you?

He's 32, so I think he's still got it.

Got enough juice to do that.

Maybe not me, but he does.

Hey, before we go, I want to ask Carlton, how can folks find Naturally Wild?

Well, that's the beauty of it is we have ten transmitters that cover the entire state.

We're the only signal that goes border to border radio or television.

And so you can find us on your on your TV.

If you've got an antenna, that's where our towers hit.

We're on your cable system, streaming services.

And we've also all over your social media as well.

Just search for Arkansas TV and then you'll be able to find Naturally Wild.

There you go.

Hey, I really don't care when you watch it or how you watch it, just as long as you watch it.

And I'll see you next week right here on Naturally Wild.

This program was made possible by Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, East Harding Construction Company, David's Burgers, Greenway Equipment, Arkansas Farm Bureau, and the Electric Cooperative of Arkansas.

(upbeat music)