Chapter Three

Where’s My Hat?
Draft 4.0
April 3, 2026

It wasn’t exactly a marriage made in heaven. We had Big Bird. They had a hunting season on big birds.

Few people know this now, but Outdoor Idaho began in 1983 as a co-production between Idaho Fish & Game and Idaho Public Television. There was no blueprint for that kind of partnership, but on paper it made sense.

Fish & Game had stories to tell—good ones. They were proud of their work and wanted hunters and anglers to see where their license fees were going. They already had a glossy four-color magazine. Why not a TV show, also?

The format was straightforward: a monthly half-hour program built around “hook and bullet” stories: hunter orange, salmon counts over Lower Granite Dam, chukar survival rates. Solid, useful, constituency-driven content.

 

Idaho Public Television, for its part, was a scrappy statewide PBS network. Shows like Nature and National Geographic performed well, so a program focused on Idaho’s outdoors had real potential. And the $25,000 from the Fish & Game Department didn’t hurt. It covered travel and some production costs. The station picked up the rest: staff, cameras, editing.

It was a practical arrangement, if not a romantic one. And it worked, for a number of years.

In those early years, the heavy lifting fell to two people: Royce Williams, the writer from Fish & Game, and Peter Morrill from IdahoPTV, who seemed to do everything else. Royce could turn a phrase; Peter could make it sing on screen. A young Ric Ochoa and a younger Jeff Tuck, still in high school, increasingly handled the shooting and editing.

The host was Doug Copsey, one of the founders of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Comfortable onstage, comfortable outdoors. But in those first seasons, the show might just as well have been called Indoor Idaho. Doug introduced segments from behind a desk in the station’s studio, linking together field pieces and interviews.

 

The first episode in 1983 covered kokanee salmon, a problem grizzly bear, elk habitat, antelope near Arco, and a studio conversation with raptor expert Morley Nelson. It was a classic magazine format, with segments that didn’t necessarily relate to one another.

That would eventually change.

By the third season, Doug stepped away, and the show followed him, outside. No more desk. No more studio. If it was going to be called Outdoor Idaho, it needed to earn the name.

What it needed now was a host, which turned out to be me.

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“He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” Wise words from author George Orwell. I thought of that often when I considered my luck. I hadn’t come to Idaho as a ready-made outdoorsman and storyteller. But over time and circumstance my image became one with the state such that I’ve often been asked if I’m a native Idahoan.

But why me? Not because I was the most qualified outdoorsman in Idaho. Sure, I loved to fish and usually had elk or venison in the freezer. I had also built a log cabin outside Idaho City in the 1970s, salvaging ponderosa and lodgepole pine from a blowdown near Graham and Trinity Mountain with a borrowed two-ton truck with failing brakes and an even more unreliable McCulloch chainsaw.

But that wasn’t it.

I’m pretty sure I got the job because the price was right. I was already on staff, working for the daily public affairs show Idaho Reports. Management didn’t want to write another paycheck. In theory, I was “free.” It’s amazing how employable you become when you’re free.

 

Besides. I thought I made a pretty convincing argument to those who questioned my qualifications. I had learned a lot about structure and deadlines in high school, and I knew how to handle myself when things got rowdy in a bar. It also helped that I didn’t require much makeup back then and had a halfway pleasant voice, or so I was told. But let’s face it, by then everyone knew my main selling point was that I came cheap. 

And I wore a hat. Granted, it was a black Greek fisherman’s cap I’d picked up while drifting around Europe one winter in the 1970s and later in Mexico and South America. I had convinced myself that real outdoorsmen wore hats on television. So for my first appearances, I wore it proudly.

Looking back, that was a rookie mistake. So were the cowboy boots at Bruneau Dunes.

 

After an episode or two, Royce and Peter staged a quiet intervention. The cap had to go. The boots would be situational. A wardrobe department was never discussed. This was public television. Viewers expected us to look a little… different.

With the new host came a new approach. We left the studio behind and went looking for Idaho: Priest Lake, Henry’s Fork, Silver City, the St. Joe River.

Budget dictated everything. We’d drive in the morning, shoot all day, and head toward home that night. It saved money, but it meant we often missed the golden hours of light—those soft edges at dawn and dusk that make everything look better than it is.

To give the show that “outdoor” feel, I would walk and talk to the camera along the banks of the Salmon River or in front of an impressive mountain or lake. The words came from Royce. We called them “stand-ups.” A typical show had four or five stand-ups, each about 30 seconds in length and sometimes re-written minutes before delivery. The stand-ups were the bridges between the various segments. Sometimes the topics had little relationship to each other, like backyard bird-feeding followed by fly tying. But there was enough connection that a dexterous writer like Royce could exploit and keep the show flowing. I was always impressed and occasionally amused.

 

But even when the standups were a stretch, we figured it was no different from what host Marlin Perkins was probably doing for Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom,” the leader in national outdoor shows at the time. “While Jim attempts to attach the tracking device to the enraged lion, I’m safe in the chopper. You, too, can be safe with Mutual of Omaha Insurance.”                    

Since the standup was that part of the show where I was on-air, I took those moments seriously. Sometimes it was the 6th or 7th “take” before my walking and talking measured up to everyone’s expectations. We then looked to the cameraman to see if he was happy with his zooms and pans. Sometimes a 30-second standup could take half an hour before everyone was satisfied.

I was beginning to see there was nothing easy about going outside to produce an outdoor show, especially with our old equipment.

And then there were the surprises, and they came quickly. I had recently purchased contact lenses and was still getting used to them. As we hiked to Jump Creek Falls in the Owyhee foothills for my very first standup, I was lost in thought, trying to memorize my lines, and didn't realize I had been brushing against foliage along the trail. The next morning, my face had swollen so badly one eye wouldn’t open. A friend saw me and asked if I was Bruce’s brother.

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By the sixth season, the partnership had begun to fray. Royce and Peter had gone on to other things. Fish and Game writer/producer Sue Nass and I were producing the program. The department wanted more hunting and fishing stories. That’s what their constituents expected. That’s what they were funding, and Sue delivered that.

But the show was heading elsewhere, and I was to blame. We were now doing stories on rock climbing at City of Rocks, packing trips with llamas into the backcountry, morel hunting in the spring after a wildfire, hang gliding and sky diving, kayaking the Bruneau River with the first descenders.

Those were the stories I believed PBS viewers wanted, and the audience seemed to be growing. Ironically, that was part of the problem. It wasn’t just hunters and anglers who were now watching.

 

The good news was that the show was expanding its viewership. The bad news was that Outdoor Idaho was no longer a co-production. That led immediately to the $25,000 question. Would Idaho Public Television carry the show on its own? Or quietly let it go, like most local PBS stations were doing when money got tight?

I remember a brief conversation I had with station manager Jerry Garber. He asked me point-blank, “Can we really pull this off by ourselves?” I blurted out “Hell yes we can, and you won’t regret it!” It was a brave answer. Later I came close to eating those words.

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My path into television hadn’t exactly been traditional. I got into the business because one cold February night, sitting in my unfinished log cabin—plastic sheeting for windows—I watched Idaho Reports glitch off the air mid-broadcast. The show was a live 6:30 pm daily program that covered the antics of the Idaho Legislature. One of the reporters, Jean McNeil, was talking about some legislative issue, and suddenly she just disappeared. "Automation" had apparently kicked in, and a BBC program started airing.

Whatever the reason, it was 7 pm on a dark winter evening—alone in my log cabin outside Idaho City—when I decided I could handle the job. 

So I started writing letters.

Now, I was brash enough to think I could do almost anything I set my mind to.  After all, I was teaching 8th grade in Idaho City; writing and editing the Idaho World, the state’s oldest newspaper; keeping the Boise Basin library operating; and tending bar at O’Leary’s Saloon—all while building my log cabin. Doing all this still kept me below the poverty line, so I was pretty sure I could survive at a public TV station.

I wrote several letters with nary a response, not even a note asking for a donation. I was beginning to realize this was not going to be an easy sell.

After a sufficient amount of time had passed and no reply letter appeared, I drove my truck down from Idaho City to pester the PBS staff in person. But I never got past the receptionist, a diminutive woman with a no-nonsense attitude.

 

I realized what I must do. Since I wasn’t going to go back to school to learn the craft, I needed to get serious and volunteer for three months during the summer break from teaching 8th grade students in Idaho City. That seemed to free the ice jam, and the receptionist finally walked me down a long hall to a little room on the Boise State University campus, where the Idaho Reports staff was working.

I finally got to meet Marc Johnson, Gary Richardson, Ric Ochoa, and Jean McNeil, the woman who had mysteriously disappeared from the TV screen that cold winter evening.

They welcomed me as one welcomes someone you’re convinced doesn’t belong there; but they were cordial enough and even allowed me to sit at a desk. A few weeks earlier, a reporter had left for San Francisco. Talk about serendipity. But I knew I had three months to make myself indispensable. Even I realized volunteering would only get me so far.

 

My task was to learn the TV lingo and to come up with story ideas for the daily half-hour ‘Idaho Reports’ show, hosted by Marc. I still remember the pride I felt seeing my name in the credits for the first time, under “Production Assistance.” Cheap help has a way of sticking around.

The staff no doubt questioned some of my first stories: on Idaho wineries, Idaho gambling, drunk driving on Highway 21, horseracing at Les Bois Park near Boise. But with each half-hour show under my belt, I was feeling better about my lifestyle choice.

I was on my way, and I knew my 8th grade students in Idaho City were wrong to laugh when I told them I was going into television and would not be coming back the following year.

 

When the time came three months later to depart my volunteer tenure, I said my goodbyes to everyone and began heading out the door, heart in hand. I was literally walking down the sidewalk when Operations Director Bob Pyle called me back. They had found some extra money and thought they could pay me for the next month or two. I was delighted they were willing to take a chance on me. By then everyone knew I was a sincere, cheap employee. 

I remember filling out lots of generic state employment forms. One form asked: “Where do you get your ideas?” It was an innocuous question when I look back on it, but I had reached my limit with forms.  Why couldn’t it just be a handshake, like it was in Idaho City? Convinced that no one would even read my answers, I decided to test my theory.

“I get my ideas from Voices. I hear Voices.” And sure enough, no one said a word about my silly answer. No one had even read it. I suppose the only thing more distressing is that they had read it and figured it made perfect sense.  

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A hat is never just a hat. It says something about you. Maybe it says you haven’t come to terms with losing your hair. Maybe it’s an adult security blanket. Those who wear hats don’t really need a reason. But here’s one for you.  

One of the “duties as assigned” at IdahoPTV was to travel around the state with our development team, the ones who raise money for the station. We would speak to large groups of supporters who were hoping to be entertained with clips of upcoming shows and a few tall tales from the Outdoor Idaho staff. They wanted to know we were putting their $10 donation to good use.

 

I'm not sure how serious he was, but one day Governor Phil Batt saw me in the State Capitol, came up to me and said, "Reichert, you got the best damn job in the State." I thanked him. I already knew I was lucky. The least I could do was to follow our development team across the state to rub shoulders with people I didn’t know, to keep that job funded. I beat back my innate shyness and made myself available.  

We were in Lewiston one evening, and when it was my turn to speak, I decided not to wear my hat on stage.   As I was describing our latest Outdoor Idaho show, on the River of No Return, someone in the back of the auditorium yelled out, “Where's your hat? Put your hat back on!” The audience applauded. As I later told my colleagues, they only have to tell me once. Apparently, my hat had become a thing.

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It can be scary, but it happens a lot, to a lot of people. You begin waiting tables. Then one day you manage the others who are waiting tables. Your tasks grow larger, and as you learn the ropes, people learn to trust you with more duties.

One day there comes a chance to run the whole operation. And you ask yourself, is this something I really want to do? You're pretty sure it will consume your life. Chances are, it will also come to define you.

It’s one thing, as host, to memorize someone else’s words. But now you will be the one to write those words. Now your task is to create the entire program, to find the experts, to conduct the interviews and to work everything into a coherent script that people want to watch.

Will there be three segments or five, or maybe one long segment? Will each segment follow Freytag’s Pyramid, a dramatic structure that storytellers have used for centuries: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution?

And how will the segments line up with each other? Do you start “strong” or save your best stuff for the end?  Do you use your narrative voice to weave things together or just let the interviews tell the story?

The show had to end exactly at 26:46 minutes to allow promotional material to play before starting the next program exactly on the hour.

And each show needs to be somewhat “evergreen” as well as up to date. Not always easy, but no TV producer wants a program that can only air once or twice. Who would have guessed that some Outdoor Idaho shows would still be airing 30 years later?  So be careful what you write. Oh, and make sure the show is both timely and evergreen so that viewers will want to watch it at least once a year.

 

Most of all, learn to respect the marriage of images and words. There’s a balance, and that’s where the real magic lies. If the words overpower the visuals, you’ve lost.

I learned to lean on the people around me—talented videographers and editors who quietly saved the show more than once. Sauni Symonds, Pat Metzler, Jay Krajic, John Crancer, Jeff Tucker, Roger Fuhrman, Vickie Osborn—these are some of the names that come immediately to mind.

I also received a piece of advice in those early years from Peter Morrill, who had worked his way up from videographer to producer to general manager.  When it’s all becoming overwhelming, he told me, take a moment and break things down into components. That way the tasks won’t seem so daunting.

And learn how to relax. Once you finish a program—sometimes only hours before air-time—take a break. Maybe grab a beer or treat yourself to a nice meal. Because the next show already has an air-date, and it's sneaking up on you. Plan to tackle that show on Monday.

 

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After the amicable divorce between Fish & Game and IdahoPTV, an astute observer might notice that the main difference in Outdoor Idaho was one of organization. Is the show about many different topics, as in the past, or does each show have one single, overarching theme?

We wasted no time answering that question. Our first production without F&G was "Pend Oreille Country." It focused entirely on life around Idaho’s largest, deepest lake. To show there was no lingering bitterness after our split with Fish & Game, we interviewed F&G Commissioner Dick Hanson, a local who lived along the lake and truly understood the region's complex sporting culture.

 

Seeking a touch of cinematic grandeur, we hauled my Coronado 15 sailboat to the lake for the "standup" segments. I envisioned how it would play out: me at the helm, smiling confidently as the hull sliced through the whitecaps. I would turn to the camera, delivering my lines with effortless authority before gazing into the horizon.

I still think it could have worked, except for one of the sudden squalls that Idaho’s largest lake is famous for. The wind slammed into us, pounding the boat sideways. The jib snapped across like a hammer. I nearly went overboard.

Apparently, we’d stayed out far too long while I was trying to memorize my lines. Everyone said it was my fault.

I still think the idea had merit. The effort wasn’t all in vain, however. We got some decent material for the Christmas party. And, for the record, I didn’t lose my hat.

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The diversity of those first programs was impressive: “The High Desert,” “Winter Solitude,” “Under Idaho,” “Idaho Horses,” “The Big Game State,” “Vanishing Idaho,” “A State Without a National Park,” “Empire of the Snake,” “Searching for the Soul of the Forest Service.” 

An astute observer might also notice that Outdoor Idaho had begun what some viewed as a perilous slide into dangerous territory. “Stay in your own lane,” said a friend who worried the show was getting too political, with stories on timber and grazing and mining and pollution. “Birds, bass fishing, and beautiful places is where Outdoor Idaho needs to camp out,” he told me.

 

He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t entirely right, either. Idaho isn’t simple. Its landscapes aren’t. Its issues certainly aren’t. I believed there was a way to tell those deeper stories—about land, water, policy, and people—without losing the audience.

And I was determined to find it. Because by then the show had become, at least for me, a way of explaining Idaho to itself.

And, who knows, maybe Outdoor Idaho could even play a role in connecting a state confounded by its tortuous geology.

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