Outdoor-Loving Educators and Young Writers, Here's Your Chance!

Outdoor Writers

One of the best ways to show your love and support of an activity is through writing. Whether it’s an opinion piece, personal anecdote or short fictional story, you can use your words and imagination to show your commitment and adoration for the great pastime.

Oklahoma Station Chapter Safari Club International and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation are sponsoring the 2015 Creative Writing Competition. The competition is broken into two age divisions, 11 to 14 and 15 to 17, and two winners will be chosen from each age group.

Writers can choose from two themes: “Hunting: Sharing the Heritage” or “Archery: What I Like About Archery in the Schools and Bowhunting.” Essays cannot exceed 500 words, and if short stories are your forté, keep this one to 1,000 words.

As a junior winner (ages 11 to 14) your amazing writing skills will get you an outdoor vacation for you and your legal guardian! Winners can choose between a hunting trip to the Chain Ranch in Canton, Oklahoma, to take on a hog or a ram, or a scholarship to the Outdoor Texas Camp for the summer of 2016.

The Outdoor Texas Camp in Bandera, Texas, offers camps specific to hunting, archery, fly fishing, saltwater, waterfowl and so much more. The camps are usually seven days long, but time will fly, so be sure to enjoy every moment.  

Senior writers (ages 15 to 17) that win the Creative Writing Competition will go on a guided antelope hunt in the Texas Panhandle.

All four winners and their legal guardians will be invited to attend an awards ceremony. Their stories or essays will be published in “Safari Trials,” which qualifies them for the Outdoor Writers Association of America Youth Writing Contest.

The deadline for the Creative Writing Competition is November 13, 2015, so get those fingers to a keyboard or that pencil to paper! 

For specifics on writer eligibility and submission requirements please visit www.wildlifedepartment.com and visit the 2015 Competitive Writing Competition page.

Outdoor Educators

Dear teachers and educators of the vast subject that is the great outdoors,

All of your time spent creating lesson plans, listening to students and expanding your own knowledge should be rewarded. The 2015 Conservation Education Scholarship for Educators is a chance for you to showcase your outdoor accomplishments in instruction and guidance. The Scholarship is open to numerous types of educators, and the categories that will be judged range from training in conservation education to teachers of state winners in the youth writing contest (like the one above!).

Two will awarded the 2015 Conservation Education Scholarship for Educators, which is an eight-day program and trip to the Safari Club International’s American Wilderness Leadership School near Jackson, Wyoming, with lodging, meals, training materials and transportation taken care of.

For more information, please visit www.wildlifedepartment.com and visit the 2015 Conservation Education Scholarship for Educators page.

Best of luck to all!