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Kenny Davis and the Whitetail Frenzy team are partnering with the state Division of Natural Resources and brightening the lives of West Virginia children.
This story was originally published in the November 2024 issue of Wonderful West Virginia. To subscribe, visit wonderfulwv.com.
Written by Tara Wine-Queen
photos courtesy of Kenny Davis
Now in its 11th season on national television, the team at Whitetail Frenzy is doing great work bringing positive attention to the Mountain State and enriching the lives of her people. The brainchild of host Kenny Davis, the outdoors show is expanding its influence over time, with an eye toward the future of West Virginia children.
“My earliest memories were hunting and fishing with my parents and my brother,” says Davis. “I grew up in Cabin Creek, which was a heavy mining area, in a coal mining family.” He and his brother, Aharon, who also is part of the Whitetail Frenzy family, believe they are the first men in their family not to go the route of the mines.
Davis attended West Virginia State University, where he played football while pursuing his degree. He was eventually recruited to the state’s minor league team out of Charleston, the West Virginia Lightning. During his tenure, the team won multiple national championships.
While playing ball was dear to his heart, his dream to create a show like Whitetail Frenzy was one he’d nursed since he’d gone hunting as a boy. “It was just a childhood dream, you know? Growing up, there weren’t nearly as many hunting shows on TV. Harvesting big bucks wasn’t as common back then.”
He knew it wouldn’t come easily. His family didn’t come from money, and Davis didn’t have the connections that might make funding and other support readily available. Instead, he would have to grind to have enough expendable income to begin investing in his dream. So, when he finished playing professional ball, he focused his energy on his career in the pharmaceutical industry in the hopes that he could provide for his family while putting some funding aside to chase his boyhood goal.
“We didn’t just have someone say, ‘Hey, here’s $100,000, go start a show.’ I had to put a lot of my own money into it for years, and we would have big sponsors fall through and things not work out. There were tons of times that I wanted to quit, but there were people that I met along the way that I feel like God put in my life on purpose,” Davis says. “Those people are the ones that talked me out of quitting.”
The idea for the show he had was simple: He wanted to show folks outside of West Virginia what it was like harvesting big deer in Appalachia. In the beginning, the show’s name reflected that goal: Appalachian Big Game TV. It was later changed to Whitetail Frenzy when it was discovered that another show had a similar name, and Davis and the show’s partners wanted to avoid confusion.
While Whitetail Frenzy naturally focuses on deer hunting, the team works to ensure their show gives more to the audience than just the thrill of the kill. Davis and his team put in months of groundwork before deer season arrives. “We try to show the story, instead of being a show that just goes out and sits in a treestand. We try to relate more to the average, everyday hunter and show the whole process from beginning to end, from scouting to finding the deer to hanging the stands. We put a lot of time into summer pre-season scouting so you can see how the whole process plays out.”
Not everything that the crew does is deer-focused, though, and not all of it makes it to the show—their annual Buck and Boar trip, for example, is an excellent chance for the group to recalibrate before deer season starts.
Educating the Next Generation
In recent years, Davis and crew have taken on youth initiatives that encourage the children of West Virginia to get outdoors. Working with the residential Mountaineer Challenge Academy for at-risk youth, Whitetail Frenzy has helped students from the school experience hunting firsthand, many of them for the first time. “Hearing some of their stories, most of them have never been hunting in their life,” Davis says. “It’s one thing not to have anybody to take you hunting, but these are kids that don’t even have someone to pass the ball with in the yard. They’re stir-crazy. We can introduce them to hunting and maybe give them an outlet in life, something that they want to do, something that’ll keep them out of trouble, keep them off the streets.” Davis hopes to continue his work with the MCA in upcoming seasons, and he’s working on other youth initiatives, too.
In partnership with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, Whitetail Frenzy hosted its first annual Youth Cast and Blast Weekend in May of this year. “One of my good friends owns some land and has a creek that runs to it, and there’s a nearby wildlife management area with public hunting minutes from his house. He and I both have very strong faith, and we feel like hunting and the outdoors is one of the biggest ways we have to connect with God. When you’re at home or in town or driving around, you’re seeing everything manmade, but when you go hunting and you get in the woods before daylight and you’re sitting there in the stand seeing everything around you, and in the sunrise, you see God’s creation come to life.” It’s this attention to the natural world that Davis and his friends want to impart on the youth who spend time outdoors with them. “That’s what I talk with the kids about: Don’t focus so much on the heart or the kill, because you’re gonna miss this.”
For the event, kids from across the state won the opportunity to have a true West Virginia outdoors experience. The WVDNR stocked the creek with trout so that the kids could be taught not only to fish but to clean and process their catches. They were also able to turkey hunt on the public land nearby and camp on Davis’ friend’s property. “It was so cool to see them all just come together, playing together, and having fun fishing—just experiencing something outdoors, not being on an iPad or cell phone.”
Spending this time with West Virginia’s young folk has answered the question for Davis of what he is supposed to be doing in life, and he is grateful to the WVDNR for the relationship it has developed with the show and its partnership with him to provide opportunities around the state.
Upcoming Programs
Whitetail Frenzy’s partnership with the WVDNR isn’t only for the benefit of kids. After participating in one of the WVDNR’s lottery hunts—hunters can apply to have their name entered in a drawing to hunt at state parks across West Virginia—and falling in love with the experience, Davis proposed an idea to WVDNR Director Brett McMillion for one of this year’s lottery winners. While 15 spots are open for the normal lottery experience at Twin Falls Resort State Park, held November 6–8 and 11–13 this year, one lucky winner will have the opportunity for an extraordinary experience.
Governor Jim Justice, who announced the opportunity back in July, will draw the name of one entrant who will win not only the chance to bow hunt at the park, but a prize package worth thousands of dollars, thanks to the WVDNR and many of the sponsors of the show. The package includes lodging and food from Twin Falls Resort State Park for the duration of their trip, a Fission Cycles e-bike, an Elite Archery bow, a Killer Instinct Vital X crossbow, a ScentBlocker hunting suit, a Spartan GoLive cellular trail camera, a stand from Trophy Treestands, and more. Most exciting, though, is that the winner’s hunt will be filmed and produced by Whitetail Frenzy for national television.
Looking toward the future, Davis has many plans in the works, one of which he hopes will be taking West Virginia veterans on special hunts in the coming years. Whitetail Frenzy will also participate in Governor’s One Shot Whitetail Hunt that fundraises and collects venison for the Hunters Helping the Hungry (HHH) program. HHH has been around for decades, delivering venison to families in need throughout the state, and the One Shot Hunt is an opportunity for hunters to donate not only venison, but money as well, to contribute to this worthy cause through Mountaineer Food Bank.
Davis and his team at Whitetail Frenzy look forward to hunting with future Mountaineer Challenge Academy students, repeating the Youth Cast and Blast experience for years to come, and continuing to encourage West Virginia’s children to embrace the outdoors. “The future of hunting is our youth—but it’s not just in the future,” Davis says. “Introducing kids to the outdoors can have a positive impact on their life, so we’re going to continue trying to do that, and do as much of that with the WVDNR as we can.”
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