Joe Knight

Joe Knight spent 34 years as the outdoor writer/conservation reporter for the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, a daily newspaper serving western Wisconsin. His writing has won awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America, Trout Unlimited, the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. 

 Short term, but interesting, jobs have included banding wild geese at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, working on a timber marking crew in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, serving as a naturalist/cross-country ski instructor for a nature center in northern Wisconsin. 

 For 10 years he made regular appearances on public radio station WHWC as part of the “Westside Outside” program along with outdoor communicator Dave Carlson.  He served in Tunisia, North Africa in the Peace Corps, where he met Bonni, his wife of 46 years. They have a daughter, an Italian son-in-law, two grandkids and an English setter. He has served on the Eau Claire County Board for eight years and is currently chairman of the Parks and Forest Committee which oversees a 52,000 acre county forest.

He has written two books, Mostly Woodcock;  A Pink Slip and a Season of Hunting with a Headstrong Setter and Old Friends and Frozen Assets: Reflections on Winter in Northern Wisconsin.  He has an BS and MS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in Wildlife Management and Agricultural Journalism. He was on the Wisconsin rowing team for four years and was part of a crew that briefly was in the Guiness Book of World Records for setting a course record at the Royal Henley Regatta in England. He lives in rural Eau Claire, Wisconsin.