Retiring State Senator Mike Bell Looks Forward to Serving Tennessee with Wildlife Resources Agency

Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed retiring State Senator Mike Bell (R-Riceville) to the newsmaker line to discuss retiring from the Tennessee General Assembly and his new role at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line our very good friend and soon-to-be-former State Senator Mike Bell, who’s now been named a senior adviser to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Good morning, Mike.

Bell: Good morning. How are you?

Leahy: Well, you are ending a 15-year career in the Tennessee General Assembly. Your last day is August 31. That’s what, a week from Wednesday? And then on Thursday, you begin your new role as a senior policy and legislative affairs advisor with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. How did this come about, Mike?

Bell: As you and I have spoken before, I think we’ve spoken on the air at least once since I announced I wasn’t running again. The legislature is not a place where you make a wage to live off of. I’m getting older.

I’ve been self-employed, pressure-washing houses and cleaning windows for 30 years. And I knew when I announced that I was not going to run again in October of last year that there probably would be some possibilities out there for me to continue my service in state government.

And there have been a couple of different things that I’ve looked at over the last several months, over the last almost year. But TWRA and the opportunity to work for them has come up time and time again.

And that opportunity came about a few months ago, or a few weeks ago, I should say, when I met with the director and he offered me the job. And I’m looking forward to going there. I’m a lifetime outdoorsman. I live out in the woods.

I’ve got a little house out in the woods. I’ve got a lake behind me that I’ve got stocked with fish. I kill deer and turkey off the property I live on.

And I’ve been living outdoors and enjoying the beautiful creation of God in our state since I was 2 and 3 years old when my grandfather first started taking me trotline fishing on the Tennessee River in Birchwood.

And so I’m excited about this opportunity, and I think it’s no secret that TWRA’s had some bumps in the last few years with the legislature. And I believe I have a good relationship with my colleagues in the Senate and in the House.

And maybe I can help some in that area with building that relationship, making it even stronger between TWRA and the general assembly, and I look forward to doing that.

Leahy: In terms of your full-time gig, which has been all the time that you’ve been doing the Tennessee General Assembly work as a state senator and before that as a state representative, you have this pressure washing business, and you got up and you did pressure washing on houses, like, four or five times a day, and it kind of wears on you, doesn’t it?

Bell: (Chuckles) It does. In fact, I had hip replacement surgery about two months ago. Now, that was actually from a firefighting accident. I’ve also been a volunteer fire and rescue worker, a certified first responder. And at a house fire back in ’08, I had a little run-in with a hose and broke my hip.

And then after 14 years, the bone finally died. I had necrosis set in and the doctor said I had no choice but to get it replaced. So I’m no longer walking with a cane, but I am still limping a little bit while I’m recovering from hip replacement surgery.

Leahy: Wow. So what’s it going to be like not having to go up and climb up houses and do the pressure washing?

Bell: (Laughs) Well, it’ll be – in fact, it’s already been different. I’ve not worked since last December because of the physical limitations on my hip. And so it is strange. I miss it. There’s something about physical labor I think that’s unique. It makes you feel good to get out and do physical labor.

And I’ll say, of course I was getting paid, but I call it almost like a service. I’ve been serving literally hundreds of customers in four or five counties and even in three states. I had customers in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia that I worked for.

And I enjoyed working for them. I actually missed seeing them. I built relationships with them over the years, and I’m going to miss that interaction I’ve had with them, but I’m going to replace it with something else – working with TWRA and getting to meet not only their fantastic employees and the officers that they have all over the state, but also interacting with the general assembly and other people around the state where TWRA may have an issue. And so I’m looking forward to this new role.

Leahy: So let’s talk about how big is the TWRA and what are its duties and authorities, statutorily.

Bell: Well, I can’t answer all those questions yet. I do know they have several 100 wildlife officers throughout the state of Tennessee, and their main focus is protecting our beautiful outdoors that we have here and enforcing our game laws. Michael, I’m 59 years old.

I was almost probably 26 or 27 before I saw my first whitetail deer in the wild. Now, I saw tracks as a teenager and thought I’d seen a ghost. There just weren’t that many whitetail deer in the state of Tennessee, except for a few isolated pockets.

And we look back, and now we’ve got so many deer that they’re now probably the number one cause of insurance claims. I’ve hit three deer with my car in my life, and they’re from one end of the state to the other.

But it’s a true success story about how the whitetail deer have been restored in the state of Tennessee, and the wild turkey. And that’s been because of the hard work of our wildlife agency and the enforcement of our game laws.

Back before we had game laws and you just had unrestricted hunting, we literally wiped out the white-tailed population, the wild turkey population, and other animals.

But now that we have reasonable restrictions on when you can take them, and how many you can take, we’ve seen their populations flourish all over the state, and it’s nothing to see deer while driving through a suburb of Nashville.

They’re everywhere. And it’s really a success story that we’ve had here in Tennessee, and it’s due to the hard work of our wildlife agency and having reasonable restrictions on when you can take deer and other wildlife.

Leahy: Will you be working out of the Nashville office or down there in the Chattanooga area where you’re from? Where will you be based?

Bell: Right, I’ll be working primarily out of the Nashville office, but working in other areas of the state as well, going to meet with people and maybe local government who may have an issue that’s come up concerning wildlife and going around the state, meeting with our employees and listening to them about what we can do better.

But I will be working out of the office in Nashville, but getting home as often as I can and working from home as often as I can as well.

Listen to the interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.