Ark. outdoors, Purvis went hand in hand

There is a good reason why George Purvis was one of the most widely known people connected to the Arkansas outdoors. He lived it, he loved it, he was something of an evangelist for hunting, fishing and other activities over the state.

Purvis, long-time chief of information and education for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, died at the age of 83 on Aug. 15. He was with the agency from 1951 to 1986.

George Purvis' renown among Arkansans interested in the outdoors is illustrated by an anecdote told by Steve N. Wilson, now retired as Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director.

When Wilson was hired as AGFC director in 1979, he phoned his mother in Batesville. "Mom, I've taken the job as director of the Game and Fish Commission."

"Oh, that's nice," Wilson's mother answered. "You're going to work for George Purvis."

Purvis was born at Des Arc, the White River town that was a center of the mussel shell industry in his boyhood years of the late 1920 and early 1930s. He moved with his family to Little Rock when he was 10 and graduated from Little Rock High School, now Little Rock Central a few months after World War II had started.

He joined the U.S. Navy, was sent to officers training at Notre Dame University and served in the South Pacific. After the way he attended Arkansas A&M at Monticello, Louisiana Tech University and received bachelor's and master's degrees at Louisiana State University.

Purvis went to work for the Arkansas Forestry Commission in Little Rock in 1950, and not long afterward moved to the Game and Fish Commission as assistant chief of information and education under Tom Mull. T.A. McAmis was director of the agency, and Purvis went on to work under the first five AGFC directors.

He understood the passion for the outdoors that is virtually universal in Arkansas. He had grew up with it. Purvis began writing a weekly outdoor column for the Arkansas Gazette, whose long-time sports editor, Orville Henry, had been a classmate at Little Rock High School. He had a radio program on outdoors topics for years at station KLRA, and his 15-minute Arkansas Outdoors television program became an Arkansas staple on Channel 4, KARK-TV. Then he had a 30-minute weekly TV program on Arkansas Educational Television network.

He brought hunting and fishing into Arkansas homes though these radio and television programs and through his writings and drawings in newspapers and magazines. An able artist, he produced the artwork for Arkansas's first trout stamp and in his later years made a specialty of paintings of magnolia blossoms.

In 1956 Purvis planned and brought off a television first, a duck hunt in east Arkansas on live TV - Dave Garroway's morning program, Wide Wide World. The hunt was at Clayppol Reservoir in northeast Arkansas and required elaborate preparations. TV cameras were bulky then, powered by electricity, not batteries, Generators and miles of cable had to be strung, and the broadcast site was high in a tree. But it worked. Over the nation, viewers saw clouds of mallards rise from the water that December morning.

After a pause when the segment ended, Garroway remarked, "Now if you will brush the duck feathers off the sofa, we will go on with the rest of the program."

Purvis was instrumental in a number of new ventures in the Arkansas outdoors that are now fixtures. Hunter education and boater education were started. The mandatory use of fluorescent orange garments for big game hunters came about in the 1970s. Informing and encouraging young people to enjoy the outdoors was a constant direction for Purvis, and he helped Project WILD (Wildlife In Learning Disciplines) to Arkansas schools.

AGFC Director Steve N. Wilson assigned Purvis the task of spearheading a constitutional amendment drive for a conservations ales tax in 1984. That effort didn't pass, but the foundation was laid for the successful campaign in 1996 that created today's solid revenue base for the Commission. After the 1984 campaign, Purvis became the first director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation, created as a fund-raising auxiliary of the AGFC. He was inducted into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame in 1994.

Purvis was proud of his understanding of Arkansans' interest in the outdoors, especially hunting and fishing. His knowledge of these topics made him a source of for the media and for researchers in the years after his retirement in 1986.

Purvis is survived by son Bob Purvis of Pine Bluff, daughters Neva Robertson of Klavok, Alaska, and Sara Brown of Little Rock and six grandchildren.