Inductees

The story goes that a kind neighborly gentleman would drop off outdoors magazines at his house back when he was in junior high school. At first, it was a nice gesture. Then it became obsession.

Kenneth “Kenny” L. Kieser remembers it all so well. He wouldn’t simply thumb through Outdoor Life or Field & Stream or Sports Afield. No, he devoured every word, every photo, every edition front to back.

“It was fascinating,” Kieser said. “They could put you right there (in the boat or hunting field).”

Years later, Kieser (pronounced Kee-zer) turned the trick himself, penning hunting and fishing adventures for newspapers and top outdoors magazines across the country for 45 years as a freelance writer. Which is why the the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to induct Kieser with the Class of 2020.

A graduate of Park Hill High School, Kieser’s work has appeared in newspapers such as the Independence Examiner, the Blue Springs Examiner, St. Joseph News-Press and Kansas City Star.

Ducks Unlimited, Field & Stream, Ultimate Team Hunting, Sporting Classics and Gray’s Sporting Journal – to name a few – have carried his bylines, too.

Kieser would venture on a trip to promote hunting in a certain part of the country and then produce at least four stories for the next edition.

His travels include the Chesapeake Bay, eider ducks in Rhode Island, seven species of Canada geese in Oregon, Beaver Dam Lake in Mississippi, duck hunts on the Great Salt Lake and in Louisiana, plus hunting in the Devil’s Lake region of North Dakota.

Kieser also wrote news releases for the Department of Conservation and authored a number of books. They include “Ride the Trail of Death,” “Black Moon’s Revenge,” and “Missouri’s Great Flood of ’93 – Revisiting an Epic Natural Disaster” – which won first place in the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers’ book division at the 2014 Excellence in Crafts awards. The book also is being considered by the state Legislature as the official state work chronicling the 1993 flood.

Best of all, he crafts stories much in the same way as the writers he idolized.

“They could put you right there,” Kieser said. “I don’t want my readers to read about a bass boat. I want them to feel what it’s like to be in the bass boat, or in a duck blind.”

The outdoors has long meant much to Kieser, who would ride in the back seat of his great-grandparents’ Model A car as they headed through a bumpy pasture on the way to a spring creek.

So, when a neighbor would give Kieser outdoors magazines, it opened his eyes to what could be.

“It was just a really big escape,” Kieser said.

When a high school teacher told him he had a gift for writing, it planted seed. Years later, in the late 1970s, he started a career.

Eventually in 1987, he approached the publisher of the Blue Springs and Independence newspapers and, on a handshake agreement, produced weekly outdoors columns. It remains a popular feature.

Along the way, Dr. Andrew Cline – now a professor in Missouri State University’s Media, Journalism & Film Department – taught him the value of writing manuscripts. Bill Bennett of the St. Joseph News-Press encouraged him to produce stories that “are a reflection of you.” Brent Frazee, a prolific outdoors writer for years at the Kansas City Star, offered valuable tips.

From there, Kieser’s reputation only grew. At outdoor writer conferences, magazines and companies would hire him for hunting or fishing excursions, with the idea to produce promotional stories.

His work, however, has not been confined.

In the 1990s, Kieser developed fishing programs for mentally and physically challenged children with the Easter Seals and the Kansas City Chiefs at Smithville Lake. He also led an effort to steer an electric company away from running power lines through Loees Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Missouri.

It’s no wonder, then, that Kieser has won numerous awards, including the Conservation Writer of the Year for both Missouri and Kansas. He also been inducted into the Waterfowlers Hall of Fame and the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.

He attributes his success to his wife, Cathy, and their children: daughter Holley and stepsons Adam and Eric.

“I appreciate their patience and understanding for me being away on trips,” Kieser said. “It truly means a lot, since I was able to chase my dream.”