Park Cities Quail to Honor Ted Turner

Park Cities Quail (PCQ) will honor entrepreneur, conservationist and avid sportsman Ted Turner with the T. Boone Pickens Lifetime Sportsman Award at its annual Dinner and Auction at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, in Dallas, on March 8, 2012.

“We are proud to honor Ted with this award," said PCQ Chairman Joe Crafton. "He has a global reputation as a conservationist and humanitarian. Ted is a man of action who uses his considerable resources and influence to make this world a better place. Lesser known is Ted’s passion for quail hunting. As the owner of several respected ranches and plantations, Ted has restored habitat, funded research and created opportunities for hundreds of youth and sportsmen to get outdoors and share his favorite pastimes.”

“I applaud the work of Park Cities Quail and its grass-roots fundraising for research and education,” Turner said. “I look forward to attending the event in Dallas on March 8 and swapping bird hunting stories with my friend Boone Pickens.”

Turner is chairman of the Turner Foundation, an independent family foundation that supports efforts for improving air and water quality, developing a sustainable-energy future to protect the earth’s climate, safeguarding environmental health, protecting and maintaining wildlife habitat, and developing practices and policies to curb population growth rates. He is chairman of the United Nations Foundation, which promotes a more peaceful, prosperous and just world; co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; and co-founder of Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant chain, which operates 46 locations nationwide. Turner is also chairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc., a private company that manages his business interests, land holdings and investments, including the oversight of 2 million acres in 12 states and Argentina, as well as more than 50,000 bison head. To learn more about Ted Turner, visit www.tedturner.com.

“This is our sixth year, and it continues to get better,” said PCQ 2012 Dinner and Auction Chairman Scott Asbury. “We have a great party that is becoming known as ‘Conservation’s Greatest Night.’” This has resulted in more than $1.9 million in direct donations to the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch, in Roby, Texas, and the Texas Bobwhite Brigade.

“Unlike most sporting conservation groups, Park Cities Quail is 100% volunteer," Crafton said. "A committee of eighteen committed volunteers makes it all possible. This allows us to keep our expenses extremely low and maximize our donation to the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch.”

The Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch is a 4,700-acre research and demonstration facility dedicated to fostering the understanding and management of bobwhite and scaled quail in West Texas. The ranch’s mission is to “sustain Texas’s wild quail hunting heritage for this and future generations.” The Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation has funded $2 million in research to be completed in the region during the next three years.

The Lifetime Sportsman Award is a specially commissioned, one-of-a-kind bronze sculpture of three flushing bobwhite quail by noted sculptor Walter Matia. Tickets to the event are available at www.parkcitiesquail.org.

Park Cities Quail is a member of the Quail Coalition, which is a 501(C) 3 organization based in Dallas and comprised of 11 chapters across Texas. More information is available at www.quailcoalition.org and www.quailresearch.org. For more information, contact Joe Crafton at 469-814-1201 or Scott Asbury at 214-566-8699.