Knoxville resident Sam Venable was honored for his induction into the Tennessee Hunter Education Instructor Hall of Fame during the September meeting of the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission held in Gatlinburg.
Mr. Venable was announced as an inductee in August, but was unable to attend the annual awards banquet. An award-winning outdoors writer and author of 13 books, he was outdoors editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel when he helped start the Knoxville News-Sentinel Hunter Safety Clinic in 1973.
The clinic became an annual event that proved to be quite popular with the newspaper’s readers. Thousands of East Tennessee residents earned their hunter safety card through this process and helped students develop a responsible attitude toward firearms and hunting ethics.
Mr. Venable is the 20th instructor to be inducted into the TWRA Hunter Education Hall of Fame. The inaugural class was in 2010 with six inductees.
In addition to his induction into the Tennessee Instructor Hall of Fame, he is a member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame and the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of more than three dozen state, regional, and national writing awards. He has compiled more than 150 periodical credits.
In recent years, Mr. Venable has become popular as a comedic entertainer and currently teamed with TV personality Bill Landry, singer/storyteller Elizabeth Rose, and hillbilly funnyman Jim Claborn on the “Talk Is Cheap” comedy tour. The trio entertains at venues throughout the region.