Southeast Kansas Fishing Radio Show Lands AGLOW Honors

A Parsons, Kansas based radio show which airs throughout the summer on the local radio station KLKC was recently crowned "Best of Show" at the annual conference of the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers (AGLOW). The Conference, held late last month in Branson, Missouri annually recognizes excellence in outdoor media from across the Midwest including newspaper columns, radio shows, TV shows, magazines and a number of other categories.

The winning show, Catch of the Week, is written by Labette County Kansas Tourism Director Jim Zaleski and co-hosted by long time KLKC morning host Steve Lardy. In this year's competition the show actually garnered two awards in the Radio-Fishing category taking third place for a show about rattling fishing baits and first place for the show titled, Legislative Fishing.

The first place show was then judged against all other first place entries and chosen as the Best of Show Award for all Written or Electronic Media. The award winning episode discussed Kansas legislation that would affect the 65-year and older exemption from fishing and hunting licenses, explaining the loss of federal excise tax funding for outdoor recreation as the state loses license counts due to the age exemption.

"This was a difficult topic to approach on a radio show," Zaleski explained during the awards ceremony. "Our hope was that the show would be informative and educational without taking a side on what was a very controversial issue, we could not be happier with the recognition."

Zaleski has been involved with the outdoor writers group since the early 90's as a tourism representative and became an active journalist member five years ago after writing and producing a Pittsburg, Kansas based fishing radio show, Fishing the Four States with his tournament fishing partner Zac Udock.

Zaleski currently serves on the Board of Directors for AGLOW as Secretary of the Association. This is the second time Catch of the Week radio has been honored having received a first place in the fishing radio category two years ago.

A column under the same name also appears throughout the summer in the Parsons Sun Newspaper. "This award is humbling and comes as a very pleasant surprise. The media members of AGLOW are some of the best outdoor journalists in the world and it is an honor to be counted among them," Zaleski said.