WALTER B. POWELL
July 20, 1916-
LEGISLATOR, WRITER, CONSERVATIONIST

Born in San Francisco, California, Walt started shooting archery in 1955, after sate of his friends started archery hunting. Walt joined the Pasadena Roving Archers in 1956 and in 1957 he took his first deer from a hillside in back of Pasadena. His first of many archery articles appeared in the September issue of Archery Magazine in 1958.

When the Los Angeles County archery fight for hunting rights began in 1956, Walt was active in demonstrating to the Department of Fish and Game and anti-hunting groups that archers were interested in good hunting practices and wanted to work with conservation groups.

In the early 1960s Walt became associated with the Southern - Council of Conservation Clubs (a part of the California Wildlife Federation) because of his interest in conservation, game management and bowhunting as an individual recreational activity. Walt worked bard to integrate archery and bowhunting with the general good management of our game and other outdoor resources and with conservation boundaries in Los Angeles County. Because of Walt's legislative activities, our hunters in California have more square miles of hunting than they would have without him. In 1968 Walt received the Archery Inc. Medal for his legislative activities.

In 1976-78 Walt helped with NFAA committee assignments on the American Wildlife Education Foundation Poster Project and became Southern California District (Chairman for the Bowhunter Education Course Program.

Walt has written books and articles on the flight of the arrow and on tuning the bow for different styles of shooting, and he feels that his most significant contribution to archery was a series of articles printed in Archery Magazine in 1978.

During his years of hunting, Walt has taken approximately twenty deer, one Catalina goat and one javelina. After his first hunting bow, Walt started making his own equipment, including his own bow.

Walt has given archery lessons on the Pasadena Range on Saturday mornings for over thirty years. He has served as chairman on the land Use Committee of the California Wildlife Federation and served in various offices of the Southern Council of Conservation Clubs and was a director of the California Wildlife Federation from 1965 to 1986 when he retired to make way for younger blood.

Walter B. Powell - legislator, writer, conservationist


Inducted 1988