St. Louis, Missouri Project

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St. Louis, Missouri Project

Project Mentors

STEVE BAKER, MENTOR

St. Peters, Missouri

I am a 68 year old native to St. Louis. Went into the Navy out of high school and served four years aboard the USS Enterprise with three tours off the coast of Viet Nam. My rating was a marine mechanic with a rank of E4. I married in 1973 and returned home with a wife and son and added a daughter to the family in 1978. I went through an amicable divorce in 1992. Remarried in 1996 and now have a blended family consisting of 5 children with 11 grandchildren and one great grand child.
After the service I went to work as a meat cutter and worked for a local food chain until 2011 when I retired. I had managed to stay busy with all the grand-kids but felt the need to get involved in something more. In 2015 I began delivering meals for the local senior center and have been delivering meals once a week ever since.
I had done a lot of fishing with my family as a kid, mostly for pan fish. Got away from fishing for a while and then tried fly fishing in the mid 90’s for a brief time but didn’t stay with it. I was reintroduced in 2016 and I’m hooked. In 2018 I was looking to hook up with other fly fishermen and ran across the website for Fly Fishers at the Crossing. Not only did it give me an opportunity to meet other fly fishers but they are an organization that is involved in community service and contributing time for groups that need help in various ways. I have enjoyed volunteering and it affords me the opportunity to become more involved. Through facebook I learned of the Mayfly Project and in learning what they do and through contacts at F.A.T.C. I wanted to become involved.

KEATON KEENUM, MENTOR

Pacific, Missouri

I am a Missouri native that has been fortunate enough to catch fish from coast to coast, on bait casters and on the fly. I’m a father of three with a love to share the outdoors with young people. Being in the water and with nature is almost more important than catching fish to me. I fished my first two-day bass tournament at the age of 8 and was entering and fishing bass tournaments alone at 14. I picked up a fly rod first to catch panfish in a pond that I would frequently walk to growing up. I picked up the fly rod again as an adult 4 years ago with the love of more primitive fishing style and hope to catch as many species on the fly as I can. I’m looking forward to sharing my knowledge and hopefully being a part of future fishing stories.

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