MOSES LAKE - Columbia Basin Herald columnist and photographer Dennis Clay was recognized recently by the Northwest Outdoor Writers' Association for Excellence in Craft.

He received a first and second place award in the Hunting/Shooting Article: Newspaper Category, and another second place award in the Humor Category.

The Columbia Basin Herald caught up with Clay on his first camping trip of the year. He had just sat down for his first drink under his freshly erected canopy. During the interview, he called out, "Good luck, guys!" to a couple fishermen heading out into the water in their boat.

That is the kind of camaraderie Clay wrote about in his first place, two-part column "Why do I hunt?" where he asks himself that question. He wrote about being with three friends at Deer Camp. "We laugh, we scold and we tease as if we were brothers and we are as close as brothers; the camaraderie is exceptional. This is why I hunt," he wrote.

For Clay, it is not the kill that draws him back to the woods or water. It is the friendships and the interactions he has with folks and fauna that keep him going back, and fodders content for his columns.

In his second place column, the last paragraph states, "The hunt has been successful, yet the trigger had not been pulled. I had been able to catch up with them (a deer herd) several times and outsmarted them when able to be at their front unexpectedly. It was truly a most pleasurable hunt."

For his humor category award he wrote on a wedding he attended last summer, and how great it would be to have a really outdoorsy wedding with "venison, elk and walleye of course" served for dinner, and Old Crow and Wild Turkey whiskey for drinks along with a slew of animal-themed beers like Dogfish Head and Moose drool.

Clay has been writing outdoors columns for the Herald for 24 years. He has a loyal following of readers who are constantly filling up his e-mail inbox and calling his radio show every from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday on KBSN-AM 1470.

Clay said he writes for his readers, and stories he would like to read. Most of his writing is based on true events, he said, and his readers like columns in which animals or his wife, Garnet, get the best of him.

His writing began taking shape under the eye of his high school English teacher Mrs. Smith, who he honors every Saturday by playing "It's a Wonderful World" by Louie Armstrong during his radio show. Clay said it was Mrs. Smith who taught him there are many ways to say the same thing.

"Words are powerful," he said. With a story, you can make people laugh or cry, Clay said. He likes to make people laugh.

"If they (the reader) had a bad day and they read a story and it perked them up a bit, that would make me feel good," he said.

Clay is in the process of writing two books. One is a series of humorous stories of him and his friend Rick called "The Adventures of Rick and I." The other is called "I was Minding my Own Business When..." and it will feature short stories that all begin that way.

He hopes to have them both done in time for Christmas shopping.

And with all that said, it was time for another drink.