Phil Bloom

Phil Bloom is an award-winning journalist and lifelong resident of Indiana with a deep interest in nature that was cultivated at an early age. An avid hunter, angler, hiker and camper, Bloom was introduced to the great outdoors on family trips led by his parents. He broadened his outdoor experiences as a Boy Scout and earned the coveted rank of Eagle Scout, Scouting's highest achievement. He also is a certified Indiana Master Naturalist. The knowledge and skills Bloom developed from those experiences came in handy in his professional life, where he spent the last 16 years of a 33-year newspaper career as outdoors editor for the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette. His reporting on the newspaper's popular weekly outdoors page received numerous state, regional and national awards. The outdoors page itself was twice honored as the nation's best by the Outdoor Writers Association of America, the world's largest organization of professional outdoor communicators. He joined OWAA in 1991 and served as the group's president from 2008-09. His travels as an outdoor writer have taken him from the Everglades of Florida to old growth forests of Oregon, from the majestic peaks of Glacier National Park to the raging waters of the New River Gorge in West Virginia. Since retiring from the newspaper profession in 2007, Bloom has worked as director of communications for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. In that capacity, he is editor of Outdoor Indiana magazine, which has been telling the DNR story for more than 75 years. He is the author of Hiking Indiana (Globe-Pequot), which recently was released in an updated 2nd edition. Hiking Indiana highlights more than 70 of the best adventures in the Hoosier state, from family-friendly day hikes to the challenging Knobstone Trail that stretches for 57 miles through the rugged ridges and valleys of southern Indiana.