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By GEORGE WILKENS

gwilkens@tampatrib.com

Published: February 25, 2009

PLANT CITY - Former Plant City resident John R. Pope is poised to be elected president of Ducks Unlimited when the volunteer-based conservation organization holds its national convention in Denver in May.

A University of Florida graduate, Pope, 61, lives in Jacksonville and works as a financial advisor with Raymond James Financial Services.

Born in Tampa, Pope and his family moved to Plant City when he was a child. He relocated to Jacksonville in 1976 where, in 1983, he began his long affiliation with Ducks Unlimited.

He is now the organization's first vice president, the post used to groom the organization's president-elect. The council of state trustees and national delegates of Ducks Unlimited traditionally elects and installs the organization's senior vice president as president during its annual convention.

"If everything goes according to plan, I'll be the 40th president of Ducks Unlimited," Pope said of the organization, which has a long history.

"It was founded in 1937," Pope said. "A group of sportsmen and conservationists were concerned about the decline in waterfowl populations in that period of the Dust Bowl and worldwide drought and depression," he said. "That group of concerned sportsmen on both sides of the U.S. and Canadian borders got together and helped form this alliance we have today."

Today, the Memphis, Tenn.-based group with its mission of habitat conservation has nearly 800,000 members in the United States, Canada and Mexico. As of 2008, the grassroots organization's efforts had conserved 12.2 million acres in North America.

Before being elected senior vice president in 2007, Pope served Ducks Unlimited as regional vice president for the South Atlantic Flyway, was the organization's Florida chairman, state sponsor chairman, district chairman, Jacksonville area chairman and a Jacksonville committee member.

"And I've always been involved with fundraising at the grassroots level," he added.

Despite his lengthy association with Ducks Unlimited, Pope said that a half-dozen years ago he would have never dreamed of rising to the ranks of president.

"I look forward to it; it's going to be an exciting time," Pope said.

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4433.

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