Pollick earns place in ODNR Hall of Fame
COLUMBUS - Fremonter Steve Pollick's writings about conservation and his outdoors adventures recently earned him a place in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Hall of Fame.
In July 27 ceremonies at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Pavillion at the Ohio State Fair, Pollick and six others were inducted into the hall of fame.
"It was quite a surprise and I was quite thrilled," Pollick said. "It's not the kind of thing you expect."
Pollick began his writing career at The News-Messenger
Pollick expanded upon a career that began at the News-Messenger, under then-editor Glenn Geib.
"I interned at the News-Messenger in 1969," he said, noting that he later worked for Geib for five or six months in 1970, before attending graduate school at the Ohio State University's School of Natural Resources for Natural Resource Management.
Pollick also \\joined Outdoor Writers of Ohio in 1969 and had received the organization's first scholarship in 1968, while studying journalism, biology and organic chemistry.
Geib's influence had a profound impact on the young outdoors writer and the two became friends, even corresponding after Geib moved to Florida years later.
Pollick moved on to a job at The Blade in 1971
"Glenn was my mentor early on," Pollick said. "One of the reasons that I got the job at The (Toledo) Blade is that I had worked with Glenn Geib."
Pollick joined the staff of the Blade Dec. 20, 1971, working 40 years to the day at the newspaper, which assigned him to stories that would turn his life into one of notable adventure. During his tenure at the Blade, Pollick moved from assisting with science writing in the newspaper's general assignment pool to writing energy and environment stories. In 1982, he began writing outdoors columns under the direction of The Blade's Luke Klewer.
"It was right in my wheelhouse."
As a writer he visited 40 countries over 30 years
In November of 1983, he recalled, then-owner of the newspaper, Paul Block, Jr., had an idea that would thrust Pollick into world travel that would see him visiting 40 countries in 30 years.
"He called me up and said that he wanted me to be his outdoors editor," he said. "It was a rather hectic time. I was a vagabond in a lot of ways."
Between 1987 and 1988, Pollick found himself in China, partnering with the Toledo Zoo to obtain pandas. In 1998, he visitied India and Nepal, studying tigers. Other adventures took him down the Amazon River and to Machu Pichu in the Andes Mountains.
On two occasions, one in 1984 and one in 2009, the writer paddled the Maumee River in a canoe 130 miles from its origin in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to where the river meets Lake Erie at Toledo. In 1985, Pollick canoed the Sandusky River from where it begins, just above Upper Sandusky, to where it enters Sandusky Bay. The inspiration for the river trips was to generate interest in scenic rivers among the public.
"It was important to me to call attention to those rivers," he said.
Pollick traveled to Alaska and reported on the Exxon Valdez oil spill
Other assignments sent him to the Artcic, to live and subsistance hunt for caribou with the Inuit. With the Inuit, Pollick wore clothing made of caribou skins, lived in caribou skin tents and saw by the light of soapstone lamps.
"It was cold, but it was a great adventure," he said.
In 1989, Pollick was sent to cover the Exxon Valdez oil spill and to report on the Iditerod sled dog race in 2000, both taking place in Alaska.
Pollick also tagged along several times with former Ohio State Representative Rex Damschroder, of Tiffin. Damschroder is a pilot whose family owns Fremont Airport. Pollick worked as a deckhand on two legs of a long-distance sailboat trip and an airplane ferrying job from Fostoria to Nairobi, Kenya, which crossed the North Sea and the Sahara Desert. The two had no permission to overfly Sudan, which was in a state of civil war, so they carefully crossed with their radios turned off. After turning the airplane over to its new owner in Nairobi, Pollick and Damschroder took a hot air balloon safari.
"That was quite an adventure, to say the least," Pollick said.
"It's kind of a capstone to my life," Pollick said about his Hall of Fame induction, which he considers one of the two biggest points of recognition in his storied career. The other is his Explorer Emeritus status in New York City's prestigious Explorers Club.
"They were just very, very satisfying to achieve."
mmagnuson@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Pollick earns place in ODNR Hall of Fame
