The National Deer Association is pleased to present its 2025 Signpost Communicator of the Year Award to Andrew McKean of Montana for outstanding coverage of the threat of public land sales in 2025. McKean is the Hunting and Conservation Editor with Outdoor Life. Named after the organization’s first newsletter, the Signpost Award goes to an outdoor communicator who shares accurate information with deer hunters, works to ensure a strong future for whitetails, and supports the NDA and its mission.
“From early in 2025, when we started hearing that some people in federal government wanted to liquidate public lands to generate revenue and create private development opportunities, Andrew was covering the story for hunters and anglers,” said Lindsay Thomas Jr., NDA’s Chief Communications Officer. “With his experience reporting on government and policy matters and communicating the facts to the wildlife conservation community, Andrew was made for this moment.”
McKean began reporting on talk of public land sales early in 2025. He covered the emergence of proposals inserted into a House budget package and their eventual defeat by a group of House Republicans led by Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke. But on the Senate side, Mike Lee (R-Utah) kept the plan alive and proposed selling up to 3 million acres of public land. Lee’s effort seemed to fail once, but it emerged again before a final defeat in late June. McKean reported on the events through regular articles as well as appearances on the Outdoor Life podcast.
In both, McKean’s factual and dispassionate coverage kept hunters, anglers and conservationists well informed of the situation and the seriousness of the potential outcomes. A concerted, organized effort by hunters, anglers and numerous conservation organizations, including the National Deer Association, helped defeat proposed public land sales in 2025.
“The public-lands sale legislation was the animating issue of the year for American hunters, and I’m especially honored to be recognized by NDA as confirmation the issue doesn’t just affect those of us in the West,” said McKean. “Ultimately, hunters from every state stopped this poorly conceived idea, and I hope it confirms to everyone – to include legislators – of the power of American sportsmen and women to influence public policy. I’m also honored to join a pretty stout group of peers who have previously earned this Signpost recognition.”
“It’s not often that hunters and conservationists unite to address a single national issue as they did in 2025 to stop sales of our public lands,” said Thomas. “Though there were many outdoor writers covering and communicating about the danger to public lands, Andrew was to me the clear leader. Without his keeping us informed throughout the year, I don’t know that efforts to stop this would have been as well-timed, organized or effective.”
McKean’s coverage was not limited to the public-land sales issue. In 2025, he also covered the corner-crossing controversy, the roll-back of the Roadless Rule, and more efforts to expand energy development on public land. Meanwhile, he continued to specialize in one of his usual and likely more enjoyable topics – rifle scopes and other optics for hunting.
Read all of Andrew McKean’s writing for Outdoor Life here.
Andrew McKean earned a history degree from Grinnell College in Iowa. He got his start writing for weekly newspapers before he became editor of Rocky Mountain Fishing & Hunting News. He later worked for Montana’s wildlife agency as an educator and communicator before joining Outdoor Life as Hunting Editor in 2008. He worked as executive editor and editor-in-chief for 10 years before returning to the hunting and conservation beats.
Previous winners of NDA’s Signpost Communicator of the Year Award include Dave Maas of Minnesota (2024), Katie Hill of Texas (2024), Alex Robinson of Minnesota (2022), Josh Honeycutt of Kentucky (2021) Mike Hanback of Virginia (2020), Dan Johnson of Iowa (2018), Tony Hansen of Michigan (2016), Will Brantley of Kentucky (2015), Mark Kenyon of Michigan (2014), Scott Bestul of Minnesota (2013), Andy Whitaker of Alabama (2012), Patrick Durkin of Wisconsin (2011), Bob Humphrey of Maine (2010) and C.J. Winand of Maryland (2009).