Legends Ranch

Dr. Kroll, or "Dr. Deer" as he is known around the country, is a native Texan born and reared near Waco. He grew up on his family's farm where he learned to hunt at a very early age. He played football at Baylor University and received both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biology there. He received his Doctoral degree in Wildlife Science from Texas A&M University in 1973 at the age of 26. He was awarded the Distinguished Doctoral Graduate Award for that year.

After briefly teaching and coaching football in West Virginia, Dr. Kroll moved back to Texas and accepted a position developing a wildlife program for the College of Forestry at Stephen F. Austin State University. He founded the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research in 1975 and remains its director. He also serves as Regents' Professor and director of the Forest Resources Institute, a high-tech research center funded by the T. L. L. Temple Foundation.

Dr. Kroll has published more than 200 technical and popular articles, written for 37 outdoor magazines, authored eight books, produced five videos and now appears regularly on the Fox Outdoors Network as "Dr. Deer." He is a noted speaker and was selected by the National Rifle Association for its Great American Hunters Tour during which he visited 29 cities in the Northeast. He serves on numerous conservation boards and is a regular advisor to state and provincial natural resource agencies.

Dr. Kroll was the first to develop mineral supplements for deer and has studied deer nutrition for more than 25 years. Most recently, he has been involved in genetics work with whitetails and has pioneered the field of artificial insemination in the species. His White-tailed Deer Breeding and Nutrition Research Center is the largest in the country, housing more than 600 deer. He also manages several thousands of acres for White-tailed Deer from Mexico to Canada.

THE LEGENDS—SKIPPER BETTIS

Growing up in the small Texas town of Winnie, Skipper Bettis roamed the swamps and rice fields hunting small game, ducks and geese. At nineteen he was taken on his first whitetail hunt in the Texas Hill Country. After harvesting his first deer, Skipper caught the big game hunting fever.

In 1975, Skipper's dreams of the wild North began to materialize as he traveled to the Northwest Territories to become a guide/outfitter. Skipper settled in northern British Columbia where he spent the next ten years developing the 3.5 million acres of Turnagain River Outfitters into a successful hunting concession. Seeing the demand for trophy northern White-tailed Deer, he relocated to Michigan area and began developing the Sanctuary in 1986. Having hunted all over North America, parts of Africa, guiding for brown bears with Alaskan Master Guide Keith Johnson in the spring along with managing trophy whitetails during the Michigan autumn kept Skipper in tune with the hunting industry. In the 1990's Skipper began to take northern whitetails to new level with advanced nutrition, genetics, age and innovative management techniques.

Skipper has written for several prestigious magazines and books including Safari Club International, Texas Trophy Hunters Association and Hunters Guide to Professional Outfitters. He has given seminars across the nation for various whitetail interest groups. Skipper has been involved with such distinguished hunting videos as "The King of the North" series, "Realtree Monster Bucks" series and "Mossy Oak's Mega Bucks" series. Skipper is currently helping to produce the LEGENDS OF OLD MOSSY hunting video series. He has frequently appeared on television programs such as Mossy Oak's Hunting the Country, Realtree Outdoors, Adventure Bound, The Georgia Sportsman, Keith Warren's Hunting and Outdoors Adventures and Bass Pro Shop's Outdoor World.

In 1998, Skipper Bettis opened the LEGENDS RANCH and the next step in white-tailed deer management began. He now makes his 24 years of experience in game management, along with Dr. James Kroll and most modern nutrition information, available for hunters and deer manager's alike through
LEGENDS DEER FEEDS.