Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.

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Bill Cochran, who has spent nearly a half-century writing about the outdoors in Virginia and beyond, has been selected for the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

Cochran, who covered the outdoors beat for The Roanoke Times from 1962 to his retirement in 1998, is among seven Virginians who will be part of the Hall of Fame's 2009 class.

Others in the 38th class include College Football Hall of Fame inductee and former Virginia head coach George Welsh, world record setting swimmer Matt Dolan, and pro football and baseball player Brian Jordan, a two-sport star at the University of Richmond.

Cochran, 71, said he was surprised when he learned of his selection.

"As far as I know I'm the first full-time outdoors writer to be selected," said Cochran, who was continued to write about the outdoors for the Roanoke.com Web site since his retirement. "It's an honor for a guy who never played ball or golf to be in the same hall as Arthur Ashe and Sam Snead.

"Notice I said 'the same hall' and not 'the same league.' "

Cochran captured the atmosphere of a range topics ranging from deer hunting to snowmobiling to tournament bass fishing with rich, descriptive writing that made him a reader favorite and earned him multiple awards from the Virginia Press Association, the Virginia Outdoor Writers.

Cochran, who was honored in 1999 by the Virginia General Assembly with a joint resolution, said the real joy he got from the job didn't come in the form of special recognition.

"I was blessed to be able to combine two of the things I loved, writing and the outdoors," said Cochran, who lives in Catawba with his wife, Katherine. "And by virtue of my profession I've been able to introduce many people to the joys of the outdoors."

Among those Cochran personally introduced to the outdoors was his son, Preston. Now he is enjoying spending time outdoors with his 5-year-old granddaughter, Kalei.

Cochran published his first outdoors story while he was still a student at William Fleming High School.

He graduated from Lynchburg College with a degree in English in 1960.

Cochran began contributing to The Roanoke Times in 1962, after he wrote a letter to the paper's executive editor saying that he could do better than the paper's "lousy" outdoors coverage. He was hired as a full-time staffer the next year.

Cochran and his wife manage a 400-acre Christmas tree farm in West Virginia.

The class also includes Harry "Red" Caughron, who was a football All-American in at William and Mary and the longtime coach at Woodberry Forest School.

Tom Duquette, a lacrosse All-American at Virginia, was also selected, as was amateur golfer Jane Mack.