Game and Fish Commission director announces resignation plans

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director tendered his resignation on Thursday (Nov. 21) at the monthly commission meeting in Little Rock. AG&FC executive director Austin Booth has helmed the state’s hunting, fishing and conservation agency since 2021.

His resignation will become effective Jan. 4, 2025, when he will transition to the private sector, he said. Booth said he wanted to be able to devote more time to his family and allow someone else to take the reins of the agency and its pursuit of conservation.

“I want to thank my wife and my kids and my mom and dad and my in-laws … for keeping me grounded, for their encouragement and for making sacrifices so I can be effective,” said Booth. “It has been an incredible three and a half years and I have no people to thank more than my family.”

During Booth’s service, officials said he oversaw the restoration of the commission’s greentree reservoirs, which aids duck hunting, the rebuilding of the Craig D. Campbell Lake Conway Reservoir, the first-ever stocking of Titan Maxx bass in a public reservoir, an expansion of the state’s bear season, and the elevation of private land enhancement.

His salary was at the center of a controversy in the last fiscal session as lawmakers adjourned their business before passing the Game and Fish Commission budget. A recommended salary for the executive director was later reduced and state legislators passed the commission’s budget in a special session several weeks later.

“On behalf of the other commissioners and the staff of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, I want to thank Austin Booth, our director, for the last three and a half years of tireless dedication to the commission and the people of the great state of Arkansas,” said J.D. Neeley, AGFC Commission chairman. “There’s a saying, ‘Iron sharpens iron.’ His leadership has taken a tremendously skilled group of staff and strengthened our ability to put habitat and people first.”

Booth will be replaced by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission board, which has constitutional independence under state law. Penn’s replacement will be named by Gov. Sarah Sanders.

In other resignation news, retired Maj. Gen. Kendall Penn will step down as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs effective Dec. 31, 2024. Penn announced his pending departure on Wednesday (Nov. 20).

The Department of Veteran Affairs is a state agency created in 1923 by the Arkansas General Assembly to connect veterans and their dependents to state and federal services.