Mary Loveland
Daily Elk Citian

A small town boy grew up to teach "city folk" what it's like to experience the outdoors.

Dan Mannering, an Elk City High School graduate of 1982, has taken his knowledge of growing up in a small town to teach an 'Outdoor Adventures' at Arbor Creek Middle School in Carrollton, Texas and was recently named Outdoor Adventures Educator of the Year by the Dallas Safari Club.

"Basically, it's like Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts on overdrive," Mannering said.

The class curriculum, which is now at 125 schools across Texas and making its way into other states, teaches students every aspect of being outdoors. The class focuses on subjects like fishing, hunting, camping and survival skills that takes the place of your typical P.E. (physical education) class and has kids running to the door everyday, Mannering said.

"These kids didn't grow up like where I grew up where you could walk out the back door and go fishing," Mannering said. "We bring hunting, fishing, boating, first aid and camping and let these kids have an experience at it."

The Dallas Safari Club is a big-game conservation group. Their nonprofit organization is the Dallas Ecological Foundation (DEF), who's mission is to "serve as a grant and funding medium for public and youth education and wildlife and habitat conservation programs worldwide," according to their website.

The Outdoor Adventures class is a direct product of that mission.

Mannering, who teaches 6th, 7th and 8th grade, gets to teach kids who have never gone fishing before how to cast a line, shoot a bow and the safety incolved with shooting a gun.

"It's like a dream job," Mannering said. "I take kids down to the coast and The Dallas Safari Club puts together dove hunts and deer hunts for us."

In order to be named Outdoor Adventures Educator of the Year, the teacher must meet three main qualifications.

"One, you have to have a teacher that loves the outdoors, and that's Dan," Scot McClure, Outdoor Adventures Coordinator for DEF, said. "Second, we look for the teacher to do stuff outside of the classroom. And most importantly, we want the teacher to be engaged with the student and to do the activities with them, I think that's critical."

McClure said Mannering does exactly that.

In addition to their regular class time, Mannering plans several excursions throughout the year.

"When we go off campus, that's outside the umbrella of our school," he said. "It's not sponsored by our school. I call it enrichment and I tell the parents to go too."

Each year, Mannering takes four guided fishing trips, two dove hunting trips and occasional deer hunting trips.

In just a couple of weeks, students will be going to compete in the Texas Scholarship Archery Shoot.

Mannering said these types of trips gives the students an opportunity to get involved with school and get a taste of a "non-Nintendo environment."

"The thing that I see, like in a lot of sports, is if you get a kid involved in school then school has a purpose," Mannering said. "They know they can't get in trouble if they want to keep doing what they're involved in at school. You have the group of kids that aren't involved with sports, band or choir and now that kid has a place where he can fit in."

Mannering was named educator of the year earlier this month.

"He's changing the kids' lives," McClure said. "He's teaching them life-long skills."

"It was an honor," Mannering said. "I never expected it. I never expect anything for doing my job except my paycheck."

According to McClure, the first school to teach the class was in 1999. In 2008, an official curriculum was created. Between 2008 and now, the class has grown from 20 schools to 125.

Pryor, Oklahoma will host the first Oklahoma school to carry this program.

DEF will be presenting this program to all 50 of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in the country on Feb. 21 in Tempe, Arizona in hopes of reaching out to more schools nationwide.

"Just today I saw a kid I had in class and he said, 'You know Mr. Mannering, that's a good class. If I was put on a desert island with just a pocket knife, I think I could survive for a week,'" Mannering said.

Mannering's mother, Shirley Sessions, still lives in Elk City. Mannering has been a teacher in the Lewisville School District for 21 years where he was previously a science teacher.

For more information about the Outdoor Adventures class or the Dallas Ecological Foundation please visit www.dallasecologicalfoundation.org.