This Bud’s for Richard Mode

Richard Mode of Morganton has spent the last three decades mobilizing outdoors-loving people into a powerful force that has impacted local, state and federal resource management decisions and legislation. For his efforts, he recently earned Budweiser’s national “Conservationist of the Year” award at the Orlando, Fla., SHOT Show. “It’s not a matter of what you can do,” he said. “True conservation achievement is a function of how many other hunters, anglers, and wildlife-lovers you can bring to the resource management decision table.”

Mode is the second Tar Heel in three years to capture the honor, which includes a $50,000 check he donated to the N.C. Wildlife Federation. Eddie Bridges of Greensboro, executive director of the N.C. Wildlife Habitat Foundation, won the award two years ago. Mode is the founder of his local Table Rock Trout Unlimited chapter, as well as an active TU volunteer in various capacities.  He has served as national TU president, ceo and chairman of the board of national TU.  He currently serves as Affiliate Representative of the N.C. Wildlife Federation to The National Wildlife Federation.  He is a past winner of the NCWF’s Conservationist of the Year award and the national TU Conservationist of the year award. Mode also has worked on behalf of clean water, high-quality trout habitat, forests has made a  measurable impacts on the wildlife resources of the Southeast.

His work spans a lifetime of wildlife-habitat advocacy and organizational development. He has volunteered thousands of hours to positively impact public policy, resource management and legislation as they relate to wildlife, water quality, air quality, and the public’s access to wildlife resources.  Mode, through work with  in NCWF, NWF, and TU, has been involved in fights to save rivers, to completely overhaul hydropower management decisions so they take into account wildlife and fishery resources, in getting federal and state agencies to manage timber and mining operations to minimize impacts on fish and wildlife, and in advocacy for effective water quality and air quality legislation.