Forty years of giving back

When the Lewis Clark Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation held its first banquet, it was far from an immediate success.

In April 1985, the conservation organization that is now a household name in hunting circles was little known.

“It was extremely difficult, because, you know, the Elk Foundation was new. They had just started the previous year,” said Bruce Wyatt.

Origin story

The Lewis-Clark Chapter, the fifth to be chartered, began in 1985. It will hold its annual banquet Saturday at the Nez Perce County Fairgrounds Pavilion and celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The elk foundation now has about 500 chapters across the country. Each one is run by a committee made up of volunteers who do the dirty work of organizing banquets and other events.

Several people who were charter members of the Lewis-Clark Chapter are still around. But just two of them, Wyatt and Gary Evers, both of Lewiston, continue to be active members of the committee. They credit the late Sam McNeill, a longtime wildlife biologist and manager at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game in Lewiston, with starting the chapter.

“Sam knew a group of us, a nucleus to put together to get this thing started,” Wyatt said.

They knocked on doors to sell tickets, called local businesses seeking auction items and pressed fellow hunters to join the chapter and the effort.

New venues

After four or five years, the banquet picked up steam. Soon it outgrew the Lewiston Elks Lodge and was moved to what is now the Hells Canyon Grand Hotel. But it continued to grow.

“In 1994 people could not get to the silent auction tables to make a bid, because we had round tables, and we were so packed in there, we just literally outgrew it,” Evers said. “Everybody said, ‘Well, the only facility bigger than that is the fair building.’ ”

The banquet moved again and continues to call the fair building home. Since its inception, the chapter has raised about $3.8 million for elk conservation.

For Wyatt and Evers, the appeal is simple.

“They’re spectacular,” Evers said of elk.

He was a later-comer to elk hunting. The dedicated bird hunter moved to Lewiston in 1976 to set up a dental practice. The next year, on a wandering drive from Wallace to the St. Joe country, he ended up at Moon Pass and then Slate Creek Meadows.

“I thought, Man, if I were an elk, I’d live right here,” he said. “That fall I shot my first spike bull.”

Wyatt grew up hunting. He loves the country, the camaraderie with family and friends and packing into elk camp with stock for weeks at a time.

“Elk is the iconic symbol of North American big game, at least in the Lower 48,” he said. “It’s just always been my passion to hunt elk — the challenge and everything that goes with it, the outdoors, packing in with horses and mules, all those kinds of things.”

The money raised by chapters across the country is pooled to protect or improve elk habitat. The foundation often helps land and wildlife management agencies purchase ranches or other important tracks of land so the habitat can be protected. For example, in recent years it helped purchase the 4-O ranch in Asotin County and a 1,300-acre parcel on the Joseph Plains. The foundation regularly helps fund elk research as well as habitat improvement projects such as prescribed fires designed to revitalize winter and summer range.

That mission is what keeps both Evers and Wyatt active.

“When we started out, it was an opportunity, and still is an opportunity, to give back to the resource,” Wyatt said. “I can’t imagine life without the outdoors and everything that’s there. It’s just a gift.”

The banquet starts at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets start at $80 for adults and $30 for kids and are available at bit.ly/41jgGII.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.