Lasting Legacies
by Emily Messer
Former Major League Baseball player Dennis Aust has invested his support in the elk country he loves.
It was mid-October of 1994 when Dennis Aust woke up in his tent at elk camp in the mountains near Gunnison, Colorado. Eight thousand feet up, it had taken two hours on horseback to get to camp. Dennis remembers the mercury never climbing above 30 degrees—cold for anyone, and especially a Floridian. Each day he, his wife Karen and a mix of guides and hunters would ride from dawn until dusk hunting elk.
Early on the final morning of the trip with no one finding success yet, Dennis spotted 10 elk on the other side of the hill. Two big bulls were fighting near a herd of cows, and he knew this was his chance. After dismounting from the horses and swiftly tying them to trees, they began to hike toward the elk. Their pursuit was cut short when the guide said, “They see you, start shooting!”
Dennis says in that moment, the once-fighting bulls stood still. A sturdy 5×5 was looking straight at Dennis, and he “knocked him down.” Adding to the sweetness of the moment, this was an elk hunting trip Dennis had won at a banquet put on by the Tampa, Florida, RMEF chapter, one that he had been involved in for about 15 years. After years of attending banquets, he became a Life Member in 1992 and is now a part of the Trails Society to further his support for elk country.
Now 84 years old, Dennis is retired and living back in Florida after spending many years of his young life in different states working various jobs.
Back in the day, his father was a barber in their small town outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, and also raised greyhounds for racing. When Dennis was a junior in high school, his father moved their family to Tampa where the greyhound-racing scene was prominent.
Dennis grew up hunting deer and fishing for trout, but sports were the predominant force in his life—baseball in particular. He started playing baseball at a young age and honed his skills all the way through high school. While Dennis’s parents couldn’t afford to send him to college, he was lucky enough to get a scholarship to the University of Florida.
Dennis played for the Gators for three years but never completed his business degree.
“I never failed anything, but I was not a very good student,” he says with a laugh. “I was a baseball player.” He jokes that he received one of his only As in college after his baseball coach nudged his golfing buddy, who was also the accounting professor, to help Dennis out.
In 1961 he played his last college season as a right-handed pitcher and still holds the university’s single-game strikeout record to this day, with 17.
After earning all-conference honors with the Gators his junior year, the big leagues came calling. Dennis signed with the St. Louis Cardinals. He played in the minor leagues until 1965 before a call up to the majors. As a relief pitcher, Dennis played in 15 games, pitching against “some of the old timers” including legends such as Willie Mays, Richie Allen and Willie McCovey. But after two seasons with the Cardinals, he was sent back to the minors, later being traded to the Dodgers organization before hanging up his glove and cleats.
Dennis spent his post-playing years briefly working in St. Louis at a brewery and then in real estate in both Nevada and California. But when the housing crisis started in California in the 1970s, Dennis decided it was time for a change.
“I decided I could starve in Florida as well as I could starve in California. So, I packed everything up. I had an old, beat-up van and drove from California to Florida,” he says.
Once in Florida, Dennis started his own business providing temporary workers to companies that needed extra hands while taking care of their payroll, 401(k)s and insurance. His business was successful and grew quickly, which led him to sell it to ADP in 1995—an offer he couldn’t decline at 55 years of age. He’s been retired ever since.
In retirement, elk hunting trips weren’t Dennis’s only outdoor adventures. With no kids, he and Karen went through three motorhomes while towing their Yukon XL from the Sunshine State to fly fish the rivers and streams near Bozeman, Montana. Dennis and Karen met in the early ‘90s after a mutual friend introduced them in Florida, and they were married three years later. Along with Montana fishing trips, they often fished the coast and deer hunted on Karen’s family property in Alabama. Karen, a hunter and angler herself, has taken three elk, one “bigger than I did,” Dennis says. “We just love to hunt, and we love to participate.”
After his early success in business, Dennis feels it is right to give back to RMEF as a member of the Trails Society. The Trails Society is a group of individuals that have included RMEF as a beneficiary of their will, life insurance policy or retirement account. Dennis was proud to include RMEF as a beneficiary of his trust.
“I wish I was still hunting, but I can’t climb those mountains anymore,” he says. “ is really something I want to do and a way to help out.”