(Rudy Mancke) The reason I was interested in doing "“NatureScene"” I want people to genuinely realize they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

(Allen Sharpe) "“NatureScene,"” for Rudy and I especially was a labor of love.

(Beryl Dakers) "“NatureScene"” exposed South Carolinians to the wonderful treasure that is our state.

(Jim Welch) Walking with Rudy was one of my greatest adventures through 40 years in television.

(Rudy) And we did it.

This network did it.

I just can't tell you.

It just makes me proud to be a little part of this thing.

♪ "“Carolina Stories"” presents... ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (Rudy) Well, "NatureScene"” to me is a 30-minute field trip experience.

It's as if I'm leading a walk in the woods.

I do that a lot.

When we started thinking about ho w were gonna mold the show, that two people on camera with a dialogue is very much like somebody leading a walk in the woods, and maybe the camera was the ot her person, eavesdropping.

But it's a field trip experience, never knowing what you're gonna see til you get there.

"“NatureScene"” combines his words and my pictures, words and pictures that go together, or pictures and words.

So it's a very visual program.

It's program that can be informative and entertaining.

"“NatureScene"” is a tribute to my mother who was a high school science teacher.

When I worked in commercial television, she always said that I underused the resource, that if she had the opportunity what she'd do is take the camera out into the field so people could really experience things first hand.

and at the same time, I interviewed this young man who was the Curator of Natural History at the South Carolina State Museum, Rudy Mancke.

He would bring things into the studio, and we'd look at them, and he'd say, "Gosh, this is ju st not as good as it would be if we could see it in the wild.

"” And we talked abt it, and we both resolved that if we ever had the opportunity, we would create a program where we could do that, Take the cameras and the audience into the field.

When we decided to do the first show, we gave Rudy the opportunity of picking the place, where we should go and what we should do, and he came up with this location that he called an autumn field.

The first show we did was in October of 1978, and I didn't take them to really spectacular place.

I took '‘em down Bluff Road in Columbia.

It was a power line right-of-way.

Goldenrod was flowering, and I knew there were lots of insects, spiders.

There was gonna be a lot of action.

They didn't know that, but I did.

Allen and I sort of dubiously looked at each other and went, "Hmm, wonder how this is gonna work?"

But Rudy was very confident that it would be wonderful.

When we came away, we were really surprised, and we hadn't gone more than a hundred feet.

Goldenrod fields are great for insects and butterflies, dragonflies.

We had spiders, all kind of things.

If you slow down enough and you've got somebody that can identify '‘em, it makes it really easy, and it's fun.

You can go in your backyard or down the road to a field with some goldenrod in it and other things and have as exciting an experience as if you went to South America or Asia or wherever.

(Rudy) We did a 30-minute program without walking 100 yards.

And I saw in their eyes that, "“Hey, this is neat.

"” And they saw in my eyes, "“Hey,this is neat.

"” The program has been the same since the first show.

It's kind of a show-and-tell.

We do little field trip, a "walk and talk"” we call it.

We've refined it a little bit.

We've tried to make it more compact, if you will.

(Beryl) The one thing the audiences may not be are of, people were always saying they'd love to go on a "“NatureScene"” because you can envision just seeing all these wonderful things in a half hour.

That half hour generly took at least eight hours to produce because the need to go back and to photograph close-ups.

(Rudy) This is the old days, the old way.

Nobody does this anymore.

You take a camera and a crew out an d do it in an afternoon without scouting a thing, edit it, and have it ready for next week...wow!

(Allen) There were five people: Rudy, Jim or Beryl, the two on-camera people-- and they carried equipment; everybody had to.

I was the person that carried the camera.

I'm very proud of this.

I was the one that Allen entrusted with the camera most of the time.

(Allen) There was me, and I directed the show and ran a camera, Director of Photography on it.

An audio person was with us in the field, and a number of great people over the years did that.

We also had a production coordinator who timed each scene.

Each scene was ad-libbed.

People wanted the script; there was no script.

No, the shows we not scripted.

Obviously, what you see is what you get.

Rudy would start talking, and I would ask questions, or later Jim would ask questions, and that's the way it would evolve.

(Rudy) We knew what we wanted.

We wanted a good 26-minute program.

And we scouted, and we kind of knew where the scenes were.

But the way it all fell together is the way it all fell together.

It wasn't planned down to every little jot and tittle, and I love that.

I think that's the strength of it.

That makes it feel like a field trip.

I think that's the spontaneity that makes it work.

(Jim) " “NatureScene" began as a quick walk through nature.

I think I slowed it down some.

When we took it nationally in 1985, Allen's thought was, "“You know, we might be "“on the national PBS schedule for a few years, and stations might use us, but it won't last that long.

"” And Rudy's thought was, "“We want to do all the biotic provinces and all the different habitats for plants and animals.

"” and my thought was, "“we're going national, so we want to do all 50 states.

"” But it wasn't just a three- or four-hour walk by then.

It became three, four, five days.

In some cases, we'd spend seven or eight days shooting and pulling together the 30-minute program, So it changed in that respect, an d because we spent more time, we were able to put in more animals, especially the birds.

So it changed in that sense, but we still continued the basic format that Beryl and Rudy started back in 1978.

And then of course-- (Jim) I see a coyote!

(Rudy) Look at the tail just wigglin' there, Waggin its tail, ju mping up and down, looking for something in the grasses!

(Beryl) Rudy's contribution was enormous I don't think we could have had a better guide or naturalist.

Rudy has an insatiable appetite for information and an incurable love of nature and an enthusiasm that's unparalleled, and that's what you got.

You got the best of his knowledge, but more than that, you got the love and the willingness to share that love and that excitement with every show.

So in many ways, Rudy and "“NatureScene"” are synonymous.

Rudy brought enthusiasm to the show.

He was also an encyclopedia of knowledge, but his enthusiasm every day kept us going.

(Jim) Rudy brought the passion and the excitement to nature.

and all the discoveries that we had in it.

And he had a profound knowledge of everything in natural history, dating from his very early ye ars in Spartanburg.

But walking with Rudy was one of my greatest adventures through 40 years in television.

The reason that I was interested in doing "“NatureScene,"” or appearing in television or radio, or leading walks, or teaching, is that I have some information that's pretty darned exciting, and I think other people find it exciting too.

And I want to share it in every way that I possibly can.

Join us again next month, when we go beachcombing in November.

Of course, Rudy, you'll be leading the way.

We hope you'll join us too.

(Allen) Beryl Dakers was the original host, and she did most of the programs fo r the first several years-- that's probably six or seven years-- before we decided we could go nationally.

She did most of the programs in South Carolina that we did basically in one day.

Without Beryl Dakers, there would never have been a program.

And that's how important she is to the whole thing.

On camera, we hit it off.

We had a good chemistry there.

She was genuinely interested in what I was saying.

I think that's the thing that really impressed me about Beryl early.

She was asking questions the general public would be as king were they standing there, and that makes a field trip experience work.

And I always, again, thought that the camera was just the person at home, the viewer, eavesdropping, you know, "“This is kind of neat.

Wow, what a good question."

(Beryl) I think"“NatureScene"” for me was an opportunity to know that I, too, could create television programming that was meaningful and lasting.

I think one of the greatest joys th at I've ever had is the fact that I can encounter ge nerations of folks that say, "“I grew up watching that program in school,"” or "I learned so much about So uth Carolina once I moved here by watching '‘NatureScene.'"

So to know that I had something to do with creating this lasting treasure is very special.

Fall is the perfect time to come to Yellowstone National Park.

Early visitors called it a "“wonderland,"” and they truly were right.

When Rudy came to work at ETV in 1985, Beryl had two small children.

We were gonna start traveling and doing a national program, so she couldn't do it any longer.

And Jim Welch, who had done a lot of anchor work for ETV and other stations, news, sports, a lot of things, he's a good on-camera guy, plus he liked the outdoors, so we said, "Okay, well, let's just try it."

And join us again on the next "“NatureScene."

Jim loved it; he enjoyed it from the beginning.

Allen Sharpe enjoyed what he was doing.

I mean, he just got in this.

He did tons of other things, but for the run of "“NatureScene," that was his baby.

(Jim) I worked 40 years, anchoring for 8 years over at WIS, doing the 7/11, the weekends and mid-weeks, daytime shows, the morning hours, but "“NatureScene"” is the pinnacle, and that, of course, is something I'll take... to my grave, all those great memories of a wonderful 20 years.

(Allen) And...cut.

Buddy?

- Sounds good.

(Allen) Scott?

- Fine.

(Allen) Okay, that's it for here guys.

(Jim) Allen is the unsung hero of the group.

Allen was our producer, director, cameraman, videographer, and editor.

Well, Allen brought... everything... behind the camera to the show.

We would do scenes, and then Allen would bring the camera back to where I was and do a point-of-view, a POV shot from there, looking at the flower that I was lo oking at and talking about.

But Allen was keeping all that in his head, as I had to do.

And Allen and Rudy, honestly, it's crazy to say this, but we became one mind.

I mean, I knew what he need me to do, and he knew what I needed him to do.

It was crazy and it worked really well.

But Allen was kind of magician.

He was able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

You say you never saw Allen, but you did.

You saw him in every shot when you looked at a "NatureScene"” program.

to be able to capture a butterfly or a dragonfly in that moment when it sits on your fingertip or to follow that single bird in flight, knowing that you only had one shot at doing it, that was a challenge for him, and it was one which he perfected over the years.

I always thought of every video image as a still picture and tried to have much action as I could take place within the frame.

♪ [waves breaking] [insects chirping] [birds cawing noisily] ♪ [bugling] ♪ ♪ [waterfall babbling] ♪ ♪ [surf lapping gently] "“NatureScene"” was very much a product of the people who did it, and that is, um...I think that's born out by the fact that they really loved what ty were doing.

It wasn't just doing a television show.

It wasn't an assignment.

It was carrying out a love affair.

I think it was an idea that came to fruition at the right time and in the right place and I'm just glad I was a part of it.

(Rudy) Yeah, this is really spectacular.

What a wonderful place, and what a great view of the spread of the Teton Range.

The final two years of "“NatureScene,"” we went back the favorite places that we had been in the first 15 ye ars of traveling the country.

(Jim) When we made the move to high definition, or HD, it was great to go back to places that were the true gems of the National Park System, places like Yellowstone, where, having been there for a week shooting, to go back again and to know th at we're gonna see grizzlies, to know we're going to see Denali.

Of course, Denali, one never knows.

Mt.

Kinley often is in the clouds.

But both trips that we made there, we were so fortunate to see it in the blue sky, and the blue sky and that big white mountain in HD was so fantastic.

Denali National Park, it's kind of hard to beat that.

Large mammals everywhere, and Allen Sharpe went crazy.

I mean, the was the best single day of large mammal shooting we ever had.

Yellowstone was that way too, but Denali, that was pretty incredible.

There are so many places-- Rocky Mountain National Park, we spent some time at Estes Park, Colorado, and that was our first visit to the Rocky Mountains.

We did that in HD.

There were elk herds everywhere, but the wilderness of the Rockies was what was so exciting.

There's so many great places, it's hard to pick one special place.

Before we finished "“NatureScene,"” I said, "“Rudy, I want to take you to the farm I grew up on.

"” The farm in Vermont was carved out of the wilderness in 1800.

I said, "“Let's do '‘NatureScene' on the homeplace,"” and we did.

So that will always be special, th inking of that one.

I have always loved the state of South Carolina.

The mountains-to-the-sea feeling here has always been an impressive thing for me.

I've been from the mountains to the sea numerous times, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

Natural history doesn't get old.

Go back to the same place next year; it's as if you've never been there before.

I like that, I really do, and that's what nature gives us if we are willing to notice it.

I have lots of favorite spots from "NatureScene.

"” some places that you just revere for their sheer beauty and the fact of communing with nature and knowing that there has to be a higher power just because you're there.

One spot in particular though is maybe Issaqueena Falls, or Raven Falls.

That was just a beautiful, beautiful spot in the Upstate, in Pickens County, which I'll always remember.

The Congaree program that we did in HD was very good, I think, because we were along the river as well as in the National Park itself.

So that was fun.

We did all sorts of nice things th ose last two years, went back to places that we had been to and were very favorably impressed with, so we did the show twice.

The other nice thing about the programs-- and the HD programs maybe will be the best of them but they're archival material.

They show you what this place looked like when we were there on a precise date.

And you could go back to the same place and compare it, and we did that with Hurricane Hugo.

We were on Bulls Island before Hugo came.

We went back afterwards and went to the same spot.

Allen dissolved from the way it was to the way it-- that's some powerful television.

If you want to know what a hurricane can do to a barrier island, that's the way to do it.

We went back five years later and put all three together: before, just after, and five years later.

That archive of video, and those programs are incredible.

Favorite places... "“Autumn Fields"” is always gonna be one of my favorites because it was the first, because it was so spectacular and yet ordinary at the same time.

And that, I think, is maybe the real personification of the show: finding the extraordinary among the mundane.

(Jim) It is exciting to be so close to the Chernobyl reactors.

That reactor, Number Four, where the world's wot nuclear accident happened in April of 1986.

(Allen) Chernobyl is in the Ukraine, which was a part originally of the Soviet Union, but it's separate.

I'd seen pictures about it, and everybody kept saying, "“Aren't you worried about turning green or purple?

"” I wasn't worried about that.

Our biggest problem was getting there and getting the equipment there.

(Jim) I was so surprised to find that even near the burnt-out reactors, it was like a national park.

We were there 17 or 18 years after the fire.

(Allen) We went to Pripyat, a city of 50,000.

It was a city that had been built for the workers out there at Chernobyl, and it was abandoned.

They told people to get enough clothes for a few days, and they bused '‘em out of there, and they never came back.

So we went to schoolhouses that they had just left, you know.

What hadn't been vandalized, there was still work there, like their homework and things pinned on the bulletin board.

That was what was strange to walk among the city of Pripyat and see at the amusement park, th e children's toys.

I remember the teddy bear laying next a bumper car.

So it was an eerie experience (Rudy) We shot from the roof in one of the hotels, so we got these incredible shots.

And the wildfife was interesting.

Nature's made a comeback.

It was powerful; it really was.

I just can't tell you.

It just makes me proud to be a little part of this.

Chernobyl was inedible.

It was not a wasteland like I thought it would be.

Nature is resilient; nature comes back.

"“NatureScene"” has given me a great feeling of accomplishment.

We did something that nobody else was doing.

and because nature doesn't change a lot in our lifetime, we've left a lot of good information, pictures and information.

A lot of programs ma y have been done 20 years ago, but are just as good now.

The information is as good as when we did it.

"“NatureScene"” was intended to bring awareness, and so it was our hope that people would have a greater respect for nature and a greater love for nature and want to take their families to enjoy it and, at the same time to protect what is out there.

(Rudy) I want people to realize they're part of something bigger than themselves.

The natural world is impressive, and we're at home out there It's not alien to us.

We're part of that system, and we're supposed to take care of it.

That's the other message that sneaks in.

"“NatureScene"” worked really well on a lot of people because we didn't throw rocks.

We didn't say, "“You shouldn't do that or shouldn't do this.

"” We explained the world, we said "“Wow,"” and they realized, We ought to take better care of it.

(Allen) "“NatureScene,"” for Rudy and I especially, was a labor of love, and that's what I'd like to leave, is that these guys really did a good job and left a lot of good information: good pictures and words, good words/pictures, whichever way you want to look at it, and it's still good.

And we tried to, again, inform or entertain or anywhere in between.

You get whatever you want out of "“NatureScene.

"” I think "“NatureScene"” is a real gift to the people of South Carolina in particular, to the rest of the nation later.

But I think its real value lay in the fact that "“NatureScene"” exposed South Carolinians to the wonderful treasure that is our state.

It gave us a new sense of pride, a new sense of awareness, and most of all a new sense of appreciation for what we have here and what we come to enjoy just by looking at our natural resources, and that, I think, is a real treasure.

My life would not have been as rich as it has been if it had not been for this network, for "“NatureScene"” specifically, and for all the folks who had a hand in making that possible.

I have lived a richer life than I would have lived otherwise because of this program and because of this network and because of this state supporting it.

I think about this often.

I'll never be able to repay a lot of people who made a difference in my life: parents and all, of course, professors at Wofford and the University of South Carolina, friends here at the network, people who watch the show and say things.

How can you ever repay them for those kindnesses?

I've had a lot of joy that's come my way, and as I said, I feel richer than anybody that I know.

And it has nothing to do with money.

It has to do with those wonderful experiences that I had a chance to have and share with other people.

Wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world.

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