Of all the many members of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission I’ve covered in eight years, Ron Pierce of Mountain Home was one of the most enigmatic.
Pierce, whose seven-year term on the commission will expire June 30, attended his last meeting as a member Thursday. There is no point in rehashing all the drama that occurred during his term. It has all been well documented, and Pierce played a major role in it.
In his official capacity, Pierce exhibited two distinct facets. The public side was alternately comical and tragic. In commission meetings, he often seemed lost and indifferent. He often brought discussions to screeching halts by blurting out nonsequiturs that left the rest of the commission speechless. He often slept through long portions of meetings. Several AGFC staff members and former commissioners teased him about it Wednesday during his farewell ceremony at Arkansas State University-Mountain Home.
When AGFC staff members and public advocates went too long in their presentations to the commission, Pierce’s snoring often had the merciful effect of cuttingthem short. Coincidentally, that’s when he miraculously snapped back to attention, and he always seemed to have heard every word. I suspect his naps were partly theatric, kind of a cultivated Columbo act.
Then, there was the Ron Pierce that others didn’t see.
After commission meetings, when everybody else left the AGFC’s auditorium, Pierce often talked to me for hours at the press table at the back of the room. That Ron Pierce was engaged, quick-witted and razor sharp. His voice was clear, and his thoughts were fluid. That’s how I realized how much he actually heard while he was supposedly sleeping.
He firmly grasped the nuances of the policies under deliberation. He grasped thebiological and sociological aspects of the policies and regulations the commission considered. He was also quite aware of all the intrigues and politics that swirled around him, and he was aware of his role in all of it. He was especially tuned in to how the internal workings of the commission affected the commission’s employees, especially those who were most vulnerable to the rising and falling tides of power.
I learned a lot about the commission’s inner workings from those bull sessions, and those who claimed Pierce didn’t know what was going on were wrong. He was always outnumbered on every issue that was important to him, so he had to find creative ways to be relevant.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee appointed Pierce to the commission in 2006. He immediately got crossways with Sheffield Nelson, with whom he served for one year, over comments he made in Mountain Home criticizing an agreement with the Corps of Engineers to create a minimum flow regimen for the Bull Shoals tailwater. The AGFC had been working on the agreement for at least seven years and had some hardwon support in Congress to bring it to fruition.
Nelson hammered him hard and even lobbied Huckabee to demand Pierce’s resignation. The acrimony continued long after Nelson’s term ended in 2007. Mentioning Nelson’s name to Pierce was like waving a red cape in front of a bull, and his antipathy proved to be useful when commissioner Emon Mahony and former commissioners Craig Campbell and Rick Watkins courted him to create an impenetrable bloc.
Even then he could be cantankerous. The hiring of former director Loren Hitchcock comes to mind. Hitchcock’s interview and the “spontaneous” vote to appoint him as director were well scripted. Pierce refused to follow the script and turned the meeting into a Monty Python skit.
A term on the commission is an emotional and financial grind. It is often a clash of titans, an ongoing chess match with six other Type A personalities in which a member can never let down his guard.
It’s a tough assignment, and Pierce got through it with his integrity intact.
Sports, Pages 27 on 06/23/2013