La Porte, Indiana - On Friday, August 13, the prestigious Pinnacle Award was handed out at the fifth Annual POMA Business Conference held in La Porte, Indiana and this year's winner was Dennis Dunn's unique coffee-table book, BAREBOW! An Archer's Fair-Chase Taking Of North America's Big Game 29.
In 2006, Mossy Oak joined forces with the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA) as the title partner of the organization's prestigious Pinnacle Awards. The Pinnacle Awards, considered the "Oscars of the Outdoor Industry", honor journalists annually for exceptional journalistic achievement in traditional outdoor sports-focused magazine writing, newspaper/Web writing, photography/illustration, broadcasting and conservation journalism.
It's important to note that this is not the book's first award; it recently received 1st Place for NOWA's (Northwest Outdoor Writer's Association) Excellence in Craft Competition as well as a "Best of the Best Book Award" for 2010 on the Bulls & Beavers website.
In BAREBOW!, Dunn teams up with award-winning wildlife artists, Hayden and Dallen Lambson, to produce a striking account of Northern American wildlife, and the enduring connection made by one archer in pursuing and harvesting the entire N.A. Super Slam. It was the first one ever completed "barebow" with no sighting devices used for aiming.
Because BAREBOW! contains no photos of dead animals at their recovery sites, it has proven itself to be nearly as enjoyable for the non-hunting reader as the hardcore hunter.
About The Author
Born in Seattle in May of 1940, Dennis Dunn graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1962, with a B.A. degree and a major in Romance Languages and Literature. He became a middle and senior high school French language teacher, and during this period he earned a Masters Degree in Romance Languages from the University of Washington.
He married the late Congresswoman Jennifer Blackburn Dunn in 1965 and fathered two sons: Bryant in 1969, and Reagan in 1971. Both boys are avid bow hunters and firearms hunters. Bryant currently owns and operates a very successful Outfitter/Guide Service in the back-country of Idaho. He specializes in elk and deer --- bow or rifle, as well as in grouse hunting and fly-fishing. His Sun Valley Outfitters is based in Ketchum, Idaho and can be viewed on the web at: www.huntsunvalley.com
Intrigued with politics, Dunn left the teaching profession in 1970, when he was elected Chairman of the King County Republican Party. He served in that position for 6 years, and in 1976 he was elected as the GOP National Committeeman for the state of Washington. He ultimately rose to be a Vice-Chairman of the Republican National Committee, before finally resigning his various Party positions in 1983 and becoming a securities broker. By then, his attention to bow hunting had become a major avocation in life. In 1988, he moved to Vancouver, B.C., where he met Karen, who became his beloved bride in 1989.
A year before returning to Seattle in 1999, Dunn began pursuing actively his passion for opera, and he soon accepted appointment as the Northwest Regional Chairman of the Metropolitan Opera National Council. Dunn served for 10 years as a leader in that organization's quest to find and promote gifted young opera singers onto the stages of the world's opera houses.
He joined the Pope & Young Club in 1972, and he has been a Senior Member of that organization since 1985. In September of 2004, Dunn completed a 40-year odyssey when he harvested a male Alaskan Brown Bear on Baranof Island in S.E. Alaska and completed what has become known in hunting circles as the North American Super Slam: the taking of all 29 huntable big-game animals recognized by the Pope & Young Club. Although six other bowhunters had managed to accomplish that feat prior to Dunn, he was the first to complete the Super Slam barebow --- meaning no pins, no sights, or other aiming devices. In short, his arrows were guided only by instinct.
Of the 29 Pope & Young species, 17 of Dunn's original 29 have been listed in the Club's records. Since the fall of 2004, he has added four more species to the records listings.
The Regular Edition of BAREBOW! is a cloth hardbound book with a laminated jacket, printed in color on high quality paper in a 10" x 15" landscape format of 504 pages and retails for $95.00. In addition to the stunning artwork that dominates the book, Dunn has gathered together 60 of the best color photographs taken with his own cameras over his hunting lifetime - of wildlife, "Live on the Hoof" and stunning wilderness landscapes. The book can be ordered online at www.str8arrows.com
Media members interested in reviewing the book BAREBOW! or interviewing the author, can contact Dennis Dunn via e-mail at str8arrows@earthlink.net or Joe Wieczorek, of The Media Group, joe@themediagroupinc.com at (847) 956-9090.
