A Conversation With ... Larry Whiteley

I basically oversee the department, handle all the media inquiries … handle crisis PR – all companies as big as ours have crisis PR staff – donation requests, our outdoor education efforts (and) customer complaints – if anything comes up like that, I handle it. It comes into me, and I take care of it, or I delegate it. I do all the intercom message-on-holds for every store we have, and for the stores’ overhead sound systems, the messages that come across them, I do all those. I host our internationally syndicated radio show, and I write weekly newspaper tips for more than 3,000 weekly newspapers across America.

How long have you been with Bass Pro, and how did you get there?

I’ve been here 17 years. I did my own local radio show, called “The Great Ozarks Outdoors,” for 20 years … on KTTS radio. From that, I went into doing outdoor tips on KSPR 33 news and also had my own outdoor weekly newspaper. Johnny Morris (Bass Pro founder and owner) listened to my radio show and picked up one of my newspapers one time, and I had a kid on the front of it with a Bass Pro cap on. He called me to see if I’d be interested in doing that type of thing for him, as far as newspaper type of stuff. I basically started off at Bass Pro doing newsletters for Big Cedar and for our travel agency at that time, and it evolved into the PR. I continued to do radio and TV while working for Bass Pro, and eventually (Morris) came to me and wanted to know if I could do a radio show for them, too. That was 14 years ago, and it’s now on 400-plus stations in 48 states and 175 foreign countries.

What’s your favorite thing to do in the great outdoors?

Probably share it with my grandkids, and other kids, too. I love to see kids’ faces when they get involved in the outdoors.

How do you most like to get involved in the Ozarks outdoors?

I enjoy it all but probably hunting. I enjoy the challenge of that, when I actually take (an animal) on a hunt. A lot of times, I don’t – I just enjoy being out there and enjoying nature. You just sit in a tree stand and the animals don’t even know you’re there. It’s neat – you blend into the woods and become like the animal, really.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention fishing. Do you fish?

I do enjoy fishing, yes. I have a cabin down at Mark Twain National Forest, south of Ozark. We try to spend every weekend there, and summer days, and fish the creek. I really enjoy wading the creek and fishing.

In terms of your work, what goals are you working on now?

Challenging everyone to look outside the box and (find) better ways to get out the story of Bass Pro Shops and our … branded products. Our biggest goal, though, is our outdoor education efforts.

What’s your favorite part of the Bass Pro story to share?

The stores – the way we’ve grown, too – but it’s the experience of the stores. When someone calls me and they haven’t been into a store, and they ask, ‘Well, can you tell me what your stores are like?’ and I tell them that they’re an aquarium, a museum, an art gallery, an antique shop … they’re an outdoor education center, and oh, yeah, they’re a retail store, too. What’s unique about our stores, too, is that (none) of them are alike. You won’t go into another one of our stores and find what you do in Springfield or what you do in Oklahoma City or Pennsylvania or whatever. They’re all designed uniquely to their area of the country. … School groups tour our stores; we have Boy Scout and Girl Scout campouts in our stores. It’s not just a retail store – and it’s not just hunting and fishing, and that’s the story we’re trying to tell people now, too.

Your office is in Bass Pro’s Sportsman’s Park. Do you get to spend much time in the Springfield flagship store?

We are so busy with other stores now … that I hardly ever get to the store, really. You can hear me over there when you walk in, but I’m not there. My granddaughter walked in one day with some kids and a teacher and she said, ‘My grandpa works on the roof here.’ When the intercom message went off, she said, ‘See, there he is!’

Tell us about your family and hobbies.

I have a wife, Maryann, and three boys, all grown with families. I have seven grandkids and one great-grandchild. Down at my cabin, I have a workshop, and where we’ve had to cut down trees or if trees are already down, I take the limbs or the trunks and make what I call Adirondack-style accessories – lamps, towel holders, coat racks, candleholders, wooden vases. I love doing that, taking a piece of wood with the bark on it and everything, and you think it’s kind of ugly, but then you strip that off and sand it, and seal it, and I may carve into it or seal feathers into it, and it just is amazing to me how that piece of wood turns into something beautiful.