Page 36 - Mar/Apr 2022 Outdoor Okahoma Magazine

our sport’s future will be. I wake up thankful every day tODD CrAIGHEAD/ODWC
that Dr. Taggart had the right attitude about mentoring.
I’m challenging you to consider mentoring someone,
anyone this year. The research says people younger
than 20 are the “low-hanging fruit.” But don’t restrict
yourself to just kids. A coworker, a neighbor, someone
you’re compatible with — because we’re talking about
a long-term commitment here. If we’re not willing to do
that, then Ronald Reagan was right: we’re one genera-
tion away from extinction.

A Stillwater native, Todd Craighead has served as a
producer and on-air host of the Wildlife Department’s
award-winning “Outdoor Oklahoma” TV show since 2001.
After graduating from Oklahoma State University in 1992
with degrees in communications and wildlife and fisheries
ecology, he worked in Michigan’s upper peninsula as a hand-
icapped children’s camp nature instructor and in Colorado’s
Rocky Mountains as a U.S. Forest Service ranger. His greatest
accomplishment has been his ability to overcome monumen-
tal physical obstacles from birth defects to his arms, hands,
legs and feet. A wheelchair during his youth and multiple
surgeries over a lifetime could not stop him from becoming
today’s most widely-recognized outdoorsman in Oklahoma.

tODD CrAIGHEAD/ODWC

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