Alumnus of the Year 2018
After graduating from OHS, Steve attended CSU-Chico, and attended graduate school at CSU-Sacramento. Steve has played competitive softball throughout the United States since his college days. In 2004, he was inducted into the National Senior Softball Hall of Fame. Steve and his wife, Kathy, a retired science teacher, live in Palo Cedro, California.
Steve began his 30 year career in wildlife protection in 1974 when he was hired by the California Department of Fish and Game as a warden near the Colorado River. After several years in Southern California, he ultimately spent the remainder of his thirty-year enforcement career in Shasta County. Steve has earned numerous awards for his work in wildlife protection.
Dedicated to conserving California’s natural resources, Steve has worked diligently throughout his adult life on conservation issues: lobbying for protective wildlife corridors in Sacramento County’s general plan; organizing and leading a successful effort to ban the sale of native reptiles; establishing Lake Mathews, in Riverside County, as an ecological reserve for thousands of waterfowl and Southern California’s largest population of wintering bald eagles; and working with Redding and Shasta County planners to establish development-free setbacks along the Sacramento River and its tributaries.
Now retired, Steve is the award-winning author of The Game Warden’s Son, named the “Best Outdoor Book of 2016” by the Outdoor Writers Association of California. His debut book, Badges, Bears, and Eagles—The True-Life Adventures of a California Fish and Game Warden, was a 2013 “Book of the Year” award finalist (ForeWord Reviews). Steve is the recipient of the 2014, 2015, and 2016 “Best Outdoor Magazine Column” awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of California.
Steve and Kathy are passionate about nature, they are avid kayakers, bird-watchers, nature photographers, and scuba divers. Steve uses photographs he’s taken while bird-watching and scuba diving to inspire his wildlife art, which he’s been enthusiastic about since first being encouraged by Orland High School instructor Winston Megorden back in the 1960s.
Having recently completed a manuscript for his third book and signed a contract with his publisher, Steve continues to weave a conservation message throughout everything he writes.
