Doug Outdoors--About Doug, Vern and Mike

About Doug, Vern & Mike

About Doug Markham
 
Doug Markham’s mom and dad encouraged him to hunt and fish growing up in Middle Tennessee. A native and still resident of Nashville, he was fortunate to have parents who encouraged his outdoors infatuation and always made sure he rod and reel in the house, a tackle box full of hooks, floats, and sinkers, and a rifle or shotgun just large enough for his hunting development and the needed safety lessons that parents were obligated to instill.
Doug’s parents also underscored early in life that he should attend college, but they realized it wouldn't be Harvard and they didn’t pressure him to be a doctor or lawyer. So, he became a journalist with a degree from Middle Tennessee State University where he learned quickly how much more money doctors and lawyers make than journalists. 

For a few years after graduation, Doug worked at small newspapers in Carthage and Pulaski, both Middle Tennessee publications—the former near the Caney Fork River and the latter near Pigeon Roost Creek. Doug’s love for streams was renewed in his early 20s. Today it still bothers him that he never waded the Stones River during his college days in Murfreesboro. 
In 1987, after meeting the County wildlife officer while covering an outdoors beat, Doug learned about an information and education position with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in Nashville—a job that required a degree in journalism in a building three miles from where he grew up. At that point Doug knew there was a reason for everything.   It was during his TWRA job that he met Jimmy Holt and Glenn Smith, the co-hosts of the long-running and locally famous Tennessee Outdoorsmen show. Eventually Doug became a regular guest on the program providing TWRA updates and participating in eventual outdoors outings on tape. It was era that he will also appreciate. 

He also met Vernon Summerlin in the early 1990s, who eventually invited him to become a co-host on a radio program aired by the Tennessee Radio Network named Outdoors With Vern and Doug. Radio was never any more enjoyable than the days working with a great guy with a voice equally as baritone as Doug’s (smile). 

In 1999 Doug contacted WLAC---a Nashville clear-channel radio station on the AM dial. That’s when he began talking live about Tennessee’s hunting and fishing opportunities on his program Outdoors With Doug Markham. A few years later he left WLAC for 99.7 WTN, a 100,000-watt FM station that stay is the constant leader in Middle Tennessee radio talk. Doug’s show has aired live Saturday mornings from 5 to 7 a.m. since 2003. 
The best part of Outdoors With Doug Markham is segments with his guests. The show isn’t about Doug, but rather emphasizes interviews with far more consummate anglers and hunters. Always a sportsman, but only a fair one compared to the guests he interviews, Doug is an inquisitive radio host who has asked a million question since departing MTSU’s campus in 1983. 
His wife is Dian and his daughter is Sara. He loves the outdoors, but he loves dogs even more. All dogs. 
Doug is also the author of two books: Boxes, Rockets, and Pens: A History Of Wildlife Restoration In Tennessee, and The Complete Tennessee Angler (co-authored with Vernon Summerlin). He is a 2004 inductee into MTSU’s Journalism Wall Of Fame. He is also the past president of both the Southeastern and the Tennessee outdoor writers associations. He was the Tennessee Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Communicator of the Year in 2002.

About Vernon Summerlin 

 Vernon Summerlin's second career began in 1987 as an outdoor writer/photographer. He wrote for regional and national magazines as well as weekly newspapers in Middle Tennessee. Two Dozen Fishin' Holes- A Guide to Middle Tennessee, his first of nine books, was published in 1992.
 
 His second fishing book, The Complete Tennessee Angler, was co-written with Doug Markham in 1999 and covers the entire state of Tennessee. Meanwhile his wife, Cathy and Vernon wrote five travel guides about the South.

	He was editor Tennessee Angler magazine for five years during the 1990s and had Tennessee Angler Radio Show, a four-minute daily broadcast for five years. His next step was an hour-long radio show with Doug Markham called Outdoors with Vern and Doug that ran for three years and broadcast on stations in Tennessee, Alabama and Florida. 

	His next radio show was co-hosted with his wife, Cathy, called Summerlin's Destination Outdoors, a weekly, hour-long program on Clear Channel. 

	He is the past-president of Southeastern Outdoor Press Association (SEOPA) and Tennessee Outdoor Writers Association (TOWA). He is the recipient of more than 30 awards for magazine and newspaper articles, TV, radio, photography and books.

 In 1998, he was honored as "Friend of Fisheries" by Tennessee Chapter of American Fisheries Society.
	 
 Presently, Vernon is again working with his long time friend Doug Markham on this web site as the Chef of the Fishy Dishes segment on dougoutdoors.com’s Outdoors South. He also writes many columns and articles for the website.
 
 Cathy and Vernon are the mother and father of Jake Summerlin, the happy-faced dog you see with Doug when you register to become a D.O.G.S. member. 

 As Vernon always “sez”, Happy Hooking!

About Mike Bradley