By BY LYDIA GRIMES – Features Reporter
Deer season is here and no one could be happier than Dale Faust. Faust spends a lot of time in the woods hunting and working on his own television production company.
Faust has been working with Sportsman's Showcase for several years and has always been interested in the outdoors. He hunted as a small child in Mississippi and eventually took up the video camera to film the things he loves about the outdoors. Today he owns his own business in Brewton and the results of his company are being shown on the Outdoor Channel which airs nationally to about 19 million viewers.
Last year the company produced 37 shows in 52 weeks and out of those, eight or nine were about fishing. The hunting season starts earlier in some places such as Kentucky and Quebec and that gives Faust and his team more time to put shows together. They usually go with the big game all the way through January and then in March move to turkey season.
The plans for next year have already been made and there are hunts scheduled in Wisconsin, Kansas and Texas.
Faust has several employees including David Whiteford who edits the film. Faust has worked with Whiteford for 10 years.
John Hart, a native of Brewton is his main camera man. There are others that he employs from time to time, but Hart does most of the filming.
Faust bought Sportsman's Showcase from the original owner, Ken Tucker, about three years ago after having worked there several years.
Right now the company is working on two new shows, one of which will be aired on a new channel called The Sportsman Channel which is similar to The Outdoor Channel. Faust is very excited to be going to the new channel which he said is branching out into other outdoor activities and getting away from the big hunts. Faust said there may be a show that will feature Danny Joyner doing some wild game cooking.
Faust never knew that he would wind up in the film business when he was growing up in south Mississippi. He knew that he loved the outdoors and when he was little he started taking photographs of wildlife.
He was born in Mississippi, grew up there and attended school at Wilkinson County Christian Academy. He went to work at the Louisiana State Prison drawing blood to ship to California.
He worked at that facility for three years before moving to Tennessee and eventually to Cook County, Ill., doing the same type of work. He worked with drawing blood for about 10 years.
Faust returned to his home state of Mississippi and went to work with Lynch Turkey Calls in Liberty, Miss. about 20 years ago.
Since that time, he has been doing something related to the outdoors. While working with the turkey calls he bought the equipment to make video about the proper sales. He became interested in the process of video and taking other people hunting. Eventually he bought out the turkey calling business and started doing his own show.
Since he bought the business, Faust has decided to make some changes. Starting Dec. 31 the show will be called "Eye in the Woods" and will be on Saturday nights at 9 p.m.
Faust has been able to set up his office at home in what was a storage house and garage. He has enlarged the building and his wife, Gayle, is the receptionist. There is an editing room filled with video tapes of the shows he has done over the years. This room is outfitted for editing and Whiteford is kept busy there putting film together.
Faust's office is not exactly like most offices. It is a large paneled room with all kinds of mounted animals sitting around. There are turkeys, ducks, several deer heads and perched up on the ceiling fan is a squirrel holding a nut as if he belonged there. On the wall of the office is a huge bear skin that he brought home from one of his hunts. His dog, Sport, is not only welcome in the offices, but he even has his own place next to the desk.
Faust and his wife have two children each, three girls and one boy, from former marriages. Like their parents, the three girls love to hunt and Faust is proud to point out the photographs of them when they killed their first deer. The son is married and lives in New Jersey.
Faust is living the life he enjoys the most. He travels, does the type of work he loves and has a good time while doing it. Who could wish for anything else?