The Ralph McDowell Story

To Ward Burton - driver of the Catepillar sponsored #22 Dodge - elk country and NASCAR are both familiar scenes. For 36 straight weekends of the year, Ward drives the Bill Davis Racing Team's yellow and black Dodge in NASCAR'S Winston Cup Series, this country's most popular form of auto racing. When not before the crowds, Ward is criss-crossing the country, practicing, testing cars, and fulfilling sponsor obligations. During his limited time off, however, he's apt to be found in elk country, duck country, or bear country, indulging his passion for the outdoors.
During his childhood in south central ( "Southside" ) Virginia, both Ward's father and grandfather spent time with him afield. He recalls his grandfather with great fondness : " If you've ever read The Old Man and The Boy by Robert Ruark, it reminds me of my relationship with him. We hunted and fished a lot together, and he instilled in me a passion for the outdoors. He also taught me about giving back."
The more Ward learned, the more he sought to learn. When still a preteen, he convinced his parents to drop him off in a remote area, owned by a family friend, each Friday after school. On Sunday, they'd return to pick him up.
" I stayed in a little cabin and learned how to get my own food, and how to cook it", Ward says. " No electricity, no running water. I was self- sufficient. Even if it was just for two days, at 12 years old it left a huge impression on me. I had no other distractions, and wandered the swamps and hills and learned about the animals - from the otter to the deer, I came to love this land. As I grew older, I learned I could influence the land in a positive way".
Before Ward left the cabin - and his childhood - he had decided to dedicate his life to natural resource conservation. One of his first goals was to protect his neck of the woods in Southside, Virginia, and his first NASCAR Winston Cup win in 1995 gave him that opportunity. That's when he decided to form a wildlife foundation.
MBNA Bank, the race team's sponsor at the time, made a generous contribution to the fledgling Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation. " I still fund the foundation out of my own pocket," says Ward," but MBNA made such a huge difference. They took a tremendous load off me with their donation, and we are deeply indebted to them. They didn't reaaly get anything out of it - never did ask for anything - but they put us on the map." The foundation land now covers 2,300 contiguos acres of the Southside map.
Recently I spent a day with Ward on a portion of those protected wild lands. As we toured the hundred-year-old hardwood forests, abandoned fields, thick pine, and cedar groves, lush wetlands, and river frontage, Ward commented on some of his labors. Along the Staunton River floodplain, working with Ducks Unlimited, he's restored wetlamds that were drained for agriculture production years ago. In the uplands, he's selectively cleared areas for successional habitat and through controlled burns, maintained them. Scattered throughout, he's installed food plots of both native and agricultural plantings.
And the wildlife responded. " We have a good mix of wildlife here," Ward says," white-tailed deer, lots of turkey and quail, rabbit, squirrel, beaver, otter, waterfowl, and black bear. The bear have been moving back into this area for a while now."
One of his groups first cooperative projects with the state was the printing of a reward poster for the game department, offering $1000 for information leading to the conviction of anyone poaching a bear. His foundation also partnered with the National Wild Turkey Federation to provide state game wardens with mobile hunter education and shooting simulators to use as teaching aids.
" We also work with the 4H program and the local Soil and Water Conservation District," Ward says. " We purchase seed for kids who then plant food plots for wildlife on their parents' properties. Then the conservation agencies review the results. We donate cash prizes, racing apparel and model cars to the winners."
The Wildlife Foundation also supports and contributes to other like-minded conservation programs. Not only is Ward a life member of several wildlife and habitat organizations, including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, he works on behalf of them as well, especially the Elk Foundation.
" I got hooked up with the Elk Foundation through Buddy Smith, one of its directors. He's become a good friend, and all of them are great to work with," he says.
Working in partnership with the Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation and Perry Hunsaker of Timberline Outfitters, Ward participated in the New Mexico Celebrity Elk Hunt, auctioned at the Elk Foundation's national convention in 2001. Verizon Wireless also partnered with Ward to provide a trip for four to the NASCAR races that year. The two trips, along with Ward's autographed, limited edition model racecar, raised a total of $38,700.
The Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation would like to do more. To take the next step, Ward recently hired a full-time executive director, Dennis Campbell, from the National Wild Turkey Federation. " Racing keeps me so busy, I just don't have time to do the follow-up," Ward says. " Campbell has the background to make our ideas reality. We'd like to grow to the national level, start our own chapters, acquire and manage more land, and educate others so they can work on their own properties too. There's so much existing programs, like conservation easements, so people can save their land for future generations."
He'd like to see his foundation partner with groups like the Elk Foundation to help protect elk and grizzly habitats in the west. " Putting together this piece in Virginia was a dream," he says," but we'd like to continue. It's a jewel and shows what we can do."
Ward's foundation land is indeed a jewel, rich not only in diverse wildlife habitat but also history. His appreciation of history, and a promise made, has added even more value to the land.
Slowing his pickup to let a flock of turkeys cross, Ward pointed out a weathered house set back from the road, a plantation house built in the 1760"s. " I sat in the basement last spring and called up a beautiful old gobbler for the camera. The bird came right up, within 30 feet, and you could hear his feathers ruffle. It just made my day. Mr. Watts, the man I got this piece from, lived to be 100, and I promised him and his family that I'd take care of his land. That's what's so great about the foundation, when I leave this world, this land will be protected, and that's what he wanted. That gives me peace of mind."
On another part of the property stands an old log cabin with a lot of history. It was a gift to a slave from the plantation owner, along with 100 acres of land. The slave's son lived there for many years, and then passed it on to his child, who lived there until the 1980's. He and his family enjoy spending time there.
Ward hopes his own conservation ethic will rub off on his children. But like any concerned parent, he wonders how much they'll retain. " It's nothing for them to see a bobwhite, or even 30 or 40 turkeys in a day. And because they've lived it all their lives, it would be easy for them to take it for granted."
He hopes his children grow up to see the " big picture " and share his love of nature. Like his parents and grandfather did for him, he gives his children the chance to learn about the woods by getting out there with them. " I'm trying to pass is on," he says," When you're a grandfather, or a father, or friend of a child, and you go hunting together, you can learn something new everytime you're in the woods and you form a bond. You remember together."
Ward is thankful for his own experiences in the woods, and through his wildlife foundation hopes to save enough wild land for future generations to understand what he's talking about. He's thankful for his success in NASCAR and for the opportunity it gives him to pass on his land ethic. " It's amazing to me how popular Winston Cup racing has become and how many requests I get to become involved in other issues. I don't know that I deserve it, but it's been laid in my lap. Without the exposure I receive through NASCAR, I don't think all this would have happened as quickly as it has. Racing has helped a great deal."
The racing team's current primary sponsor, Caterpillar Inc., is helping the wildlife foundation by donating the use of heavy equipment, even for projects on other properties. Several Ducks Unlimited wetland restoration projects in Virginia have benefited from the loan of yellow and black CAT equipment.
As we continued motoring along the dirt roads, wildlife kept interrupting our conversation. Passing a field filled with new grass after a recent controlled burn, Ward motioned to our right, pointing out a herd of deer and a little fawn. He laughed as the fawn bounded off. " Looks like a beagle!" A few yards farther, and more turkeys popped out in front of us.
"With this land, we have to strike a balance," Ward says. "If we had heavy traffic in here everyday, we'd never see all this." As if to make a point, a covey of quail flushed from a roadside ditch.
Stopping the truck, we got out, edged along a cornfield and followed a well worn trail downhill through the woods. "The beavers come up here and drag the corn down to the swamp. The beaver's the best friend we've got for the waterfowl, "Ward said. Ducking beneath a broken branch hanging from a good sized pine, he noted, " That would have been done by a bear."
After checking on a wood duck nesting box, we hiked back toward the truck. " The more I get to walking this property," he said," The more I'm enthused about it. And we're still learning how to make it better."
Ward said that he's bringing in a private biologist to conduct a deer survey on the property. "It'll be interesting to see what he says about managing the herd. We do allow a few youngsters to take some does out of here, but we haven't shot a buck in eight years. I've seen bigger bucks in here than I've ever shot in my life."
Ward had hunted all his life, but this place is about "giving back," he says," I carry a gun into the woods, but there are not many times I come out with meat. Turkeys... Hell, you wouldn't believe all the turkeys I pass up. I just shoot one a year for Thanksgiving. Hunting teaches you the responsibility of saving for future generations. That's what my foundation is about and what groups like Rocky Mountain Elk, Ducks, the Wild Turkey Federation and others are about. It's about those of us who have introduced to the land - mostly through hunting - and have the energy and desire to reinvest. That's what a lot of these animal rights and anti-gun groups don't seem to understand. I wish they could walk in my shoes for awhile and see what I'm doing - see what I'm trying to accomplish for the next generation and see what I'm trying to teach my children. Maybe they'd see what we do in a different light. I can't say it in the perfect words I need to say it in."
With Ward's " not perfect" words, our time together ended. In two hours he had to catch a plane for the racetrack: Practicing, qualifying, and then another race around another endless oval.
After we parted, I recalled some of Ward's other "not perfect" words from earlier in the day. " The land is like a child to me," he said. "I can nurture it and take care of it, or I can abuse it. I see it just sitting there and it can't speak. It doesn't have a voice and doesn't have any rights. If I don't take care of it, who will?"
This self-effacing man's dedication and action give eloquent representation to land vulnerable and without a voice: or maybe a voice, but one which fewer and fewer can hear. Ward Burton not only gives eloquent voice to the land, he speaks rather well for an unassuming country boy who made a commitment at age 12. His words and deeds have already made a tremendous difference, but he wants to do more. Someday, an elk's bugle may once again roll across the morning hills to thrill future generations in his beloved "Southside." If and when that day arrives, the land will have been given back one more voicethanks to one man's drive.

Ralph McDowell lives on an upland game preserve in rural Virginia, where he works as a wetlands consultant. Much of his "consulting," however, seems to require an inordinate amount of time afield with duck or turkey decoys.