By ERIN BOWLEY | May 27, 2026

You may have heard his name spoken at city council meetings, city halls, near the lakes, or you may have just heard of his last name in town. If you hear his name and wonder who he is, I’ve got the answer.

Don George is the District Fisheries Biologist III for Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. His job includes managing lakes, monitoring fish populations, and helping establish harvest regulations. He works with the communities and cities to improve access to the lakes and availability to different species of fish. He is also the aquatic educator in this region, and through that, he works to promote Linn County’s lakes and the areas surrounding the lakes. 

“God gave me that gift to love biology,” George said. He always wanted to make people’s lives better and was very interested in aquatics from a young age. He grew up in St. Paul, Kan., where he spent time with much of his family. He attended Pittsburg State University and majored in Field Biology. During his time at Pitt-State, he met his wife, Dee, at an event. “She is a beautiful, patient person…organized, too. More than I am.” He graduated in December, before Christmas. He needed a job and eventually found one near Parsons, Kan., working with farm equipment. This is where he worked for a couple of months before an ice storm hit, which shut the business down.

George found a new job, in Oklahoma, one that was a crew leader at a fish hatchery. Dee and George later married in August and moved to western Oklahoma. The Georges have two daughters: Audrey and Mary Katherine. Both daughters attended Pittsburg State University and majored in very distinguished subjects. 

While Oklahoma held many adventures for the George family, including playing pitch with older couples who taught them a lot, they eventually moved back to Kansas. As a Fisheries Biologist, George started teaching aquatic education and hunter safety classes, with the intention of improving opportunities for people. Hunter safety classes were held at night until we started teaching hunter safety in schools. It was a little different carrying guns into the schools to teach people about guns and hunting safety.  The first class was held by Charlie Beckman, a teacher from Jayhawk-Linn, he started teaching the classes in the classroom. This saved parents a lot of hassle of taking kids all over to get the class.  Now this is in the curriculum. Eventually, the same type of classes was introduced to the Pleasanton School Board, which got approved, and Darick Chapman started teaching them. “This provides an opportunity to learn about it, see what’s out there, and see what they like,” George explained. 

Sometimes there aren’t a lot of funds to go toward what he does, so he spoke to Schneider Funeral Home. Grieving families usually donate money to cancer societies and different charities. He thought giving the option for those families to donate money to somehow better the youth in the hunter safety classes would be a good way for the family to give back to the community and the youth. Along the way, George met Ann Ware. She had her own screen-print business and offered to make the hunter safety hats if he paid for the hats themselves. Now, families have an option to give back to their community and the youth in it. “It’s a neat operation to be able to give the kids something.” Ann was a great supporter of the project and is a great person.

Aside from education, his job is to go to meetings with the city council and the county commissioner to get them to do something. Pleasanton Mayor John Johnson was the best mayor he had ever worked with. “He was always looking to improve.” Johnson had seen George and his work as valuable assets. County Commissioner Mike Page was one of the best he’d ever worked with. “He was a very good go-to guy,” George said. Page helped improve Linn County’s lakes and their tourism opportunities.