It's Thursday morning, and Okefenokee Joe is loading up his snakes. A bearded hulking figure clad in blue jeans and boots and sporting a backwoods accent and an easy laugh, Joe exhibits a strength and grace that belie his years as he stacks his guitar and boxes of snakes into the back of his '98 Chevy Tahoe. ¹

From the beginning of the school year each fall till the start of summer vacation, he visits hundreds of schools across the Southeast to talk about nature. However, unlike many lecturers whose message is forgotten before lunch he leaves a lasting impression.

Standing in front of a gym full of elementary students, he looks to be the size of a small mountain. He smiles a mischievous grin children find contagious and speaks in a voice that sounds like distant thunder on a warm spring night. It doesn't scare you but it gets your attention. He plays guitar and sings, "Swampwise," a song accented by a laugh both friendly and wise. Then when you've just about forgotten them, he gets the snakes out.

Live, poisonous snakes. Not in glass cages, but out in the open. The Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, coiled, rattling and ready to strike just a few feet from his boots is "the most dangerous snake in the world," he says, "-and perhaps the most misunderstood." While teachers squirm and children squeal, he appears quite calm and laughs the laugh. It quickly becomes apparent this man knows something most of us don't.²

His video field guide, KNOW YOUR SNAKES, Venomous Snakes of the Southeastern United States, is being used as a teaching tool in hundreds of schools from the elementary to the college level, throughout the world.

His history and his snakes are now staples, of school shows around the South. He and his critters are an even bigger draw at a more comfortable distance, on Georgia Public Television and public television affiliates around the country.

"Swampwise," Joe's Emmy-award winning program about the Okefenokee Swamp made in 1990, has aired hundreds of times. "Okefenokee Joe and Friends" and "The Joy of Snakes," with footage of snakes sleeping, hunting, swimming and fleeing, are requested almost as frequently. "They're some of the most popular programs we ever produced, if not the most popular," says Marcia Killingsworth, GPTV's spokeswoman in Atlanta.

Since Joe's emergence from the swamp in 1981, he has been an unlikely celebrity, marked by contradictions. He is both a snakecharming showman and a grizzled loner, an ardent NRA supporter and conservationist, a lukewarm fan of Rush Limbaugh but a detractor of every politician.

After years as a near-hermit, he now spends hundreds of hours on the highways with his snakes in tow.

On screen he strokes toads, pats a bobcat and sings his songs about them. But he approaches all the swamp animals without sentimentality.

"He's no Dr. Doolittle," says his producer, Carol Fisk, referring to the storybook character who babbles to animals.

Joe's contrasts account for his success on screen, Fisk adds. "Every man wants to be him and every woman wants to marry him. He's got charisma. He's artistic but tough. Sensitive but capable with all the outdoorsy types of activities".³

Joe's message is deeply concerned with much more than just the snakes, and the swamp. As Joe puts it, "Our very existence on this planet depends upon the existence of all the life around us." And everywhere he goes he proves quite conclusively that there are ways for civilized man to coexist and cooperate with all of God's creation. "Civilized man is the one who needs to learn the rules," says Joe.

Okefenokee Joe's fame has grown steadily since he first took his message of conservation and environmentalism on the road in the late 70s. Now he seems ready to spring into a spotlight of recognition few outside the pure entertainment field ever achieve. In addition to his latest CD*, he has been featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal, and was the subject of a segment of NBC's "Dateline". Additionally there is talk of a possible television series and he is now in the beginning stages of writing his autobiography, "Swampwise, The Life and Times of Okefenokee Joe."

He appears both genuinely shocked and, pleased with his sudden recognition after all these years, almost as if, like nature, it was something over which he had no control. Paying homage to humanity's relationship with nature, Joe observes: "All of our technology put together can not stop a tornado, a hurricane or a blizzard, not even a little gust of wind. We can't change the phases of the moon, the tides in the ocean, the sun from rising or the force of gravity. No matter how far we go with our technology, no matter how smart or important we think we are, the natural forces that govern planet Earth are still in charge, and the natural laws that govern life on earth itself are the laws, by which we must learn to abide." ²

A visit with Okefenokee Joe is an awesome and inspiring experience for people of all ages.


* Listen to his music on line.
* Photos and information on line.

¹Okefenokee Joe: An Evangelist for Mother Earth by Drew Davis. Georgia Wildlife Natural Georgia Series, Volume 6 Number I "The Okefenokee Swamp"
² Keeper of the Earth, Shepherd of the Land by Jamie Parker, Georgia Magazine, January 1998
³"Okefenokee Joe Gets Back to Nature" by Jan Gehorsam. Savannah Morning News, March 7, 1996.

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