Alan> First and foremost, Rudy Mancke was a teacher who loved to share his knowledge of nature with anyone willing to listen, young or old.

Ellen> Rudy was himself.

He was genuine and people could relate to him.

Rudy> We encourage you to get out on the beaches in South Carolina or into the mountains or wherever, and have these experiences for yourself, it's worth more than money.

Beryl> He encouraged us to slow down, slow down, just look at the world, learn from it, appreciate it, and marvel at the wonder of it.

And I find those things now that Rudy Mancke taught me, to look for.

I'm grateful for that.

That's the kind of, you know, perspective that made him special.

And he shared it with the rest of the world.

I have lived a richer life than I would have ever lived otherwise.

It has to do with those wonderful experiences, that I had a chance to have myself, and share with other people.

♪ ♪ ♪ Austin> I'd say a naturalist, you know, Rudy's definition was always, it's a person who looks at the natural world and marvels at it.

And to me, that means you're number one, just innately excited about exploring the natural world and walking in the woods and fields and... but you're also, if you're marveling at it, you're sharing it with other people, and I think that's what he encapsulated so well.

Yeah, I think that is, is what a naturalist is.

The definition for me would be Rudy Mancke.

Rudy> My final word is going to be a word about conservation.

You know, you really don't want to have too negative effect on this world.

Ellen> He used to say that, a naturalist is someone who looks at nature and marvels at it.

And that's what he did.

And, he did a lot of collecting, brought home a lot of things.

Everything from snakes to bones, to seashells, to flowers.

Rudy> When I was a kid growing up in Spartanburg, my mother's mother lived with us.

Her name was "Mahmah," or we called her "Mahmah."

Rebie Mixson was her name, but we called her "Mahmah."

And she and her generation, grew up sort of living off the land a little bit, at least supplementing their diet with what they could hunt and fish for and grow.

And she told all sorts of really interesting stories to me.

She told me unbelievable stories, really, about snakes.

And as I got older, I found out, why the stories were unbelievable... none of them turned out to be true.

So how did I, How did I find out the truth?

I went to the county library, I went to the school libraries, I read.

I got information, and then I started catching snakes.

And snakes were the beginning, although I'm a naturalist, so I study rocks, minerals, fossils, fungi, bacteria, plants, a little bit of everything, but snakes got me started.

They were my first preference, maybe the way to say it.

Lera> I can't think beyond back far enough to tell you, when he was interested in snakes.

He was such a tiny little thing.

And, then the... as he got older himself, he would pick bigger ones to enjoy.

And we lived right by the lake, and it was easy for him to find one on a little walk around, and would always bring it back to the house, and into the basement.

Tom > I would follow Rudolph out in the woods on these adventures, and primarily I think it was snakes that took us out there, you know there's fascination.

Back then, We would entertain ourselves after dark, out going around the lake looking for snakes.

And when you're out looking for snakes, you bump into all these other things.

And you know, bones and rocks and plants and other animals.

So it's, that's kind of how it started, one adventure after another one.

Ellen> Rudy and I both grew up in Spartanburg, and we went to the same schools, and we went to the same church.

And Rudy's sister and I were in first grade together.

He was two years ahead of us.

I think I first started realizing who he was, probably in middle school age or something like that.

They had a science fair, and of course his science project had a snake in it, and it got loose in the gym.

So from then on, we kind of knew what was, what he was up to and, and how he was looking at life.

We went to the same church and, First Baptist in Spartanburg.

And Rudy always led a nature walk when we were out there.

So he was, he knew where all of the, the good things were at the church property, the good trees and the plants and where he could find snakes and catch one.

Rudy> And I was encouraged by people who I met.

Rodney Smith was a fellow student of mine in Spartanburg High School.

We both had Major Rhodes as, as a teacher there, and he encouraged me, they encouraged me to go out into the field and to, to be what, what I should be, a naturalist.

I was pre-med at Wofford, worked my way through school as a trainer for football and basketball.

And Doctor Hubbard and Doctor Leonard and Doctor Dobbs and Doctor Patton got to know me real well.

And then I took a geology course, John Harrington was the guy's name, they changed the direction of my life.

Ellen> He had a professor that realized his love of everything else in the world, and he encouraged him to, follow his heart, he said.

And so he, he decided to do that and went to graduate school at USC.

And was majoring in herpetology, I think was, that was what his thesis was going to be on.

But, he was drafted before he finished graduate school.

His sister Cathy was getting married in August of that year, and he was going to have to leave before the wedding.

So he had an option, He could enlist for three years, he could wait until after the wedding to, to go to basic training.

And, he got to choose what he did in the army.

And so he chose to be an X-ray technician.

And so that was another thing in Germany especially, he was at the hospital, in the X-ray unit.

We got married in 1970.

Rudy ended up going to Germany.

That meant that I could go and be with him, once he found a place for us to live.

We couldn't live on base, he was not an officer, so he walked to work.

It was about a mile and a half, and so he walked to work and he would pick up things that got hit on the highway, birds that maybe had not been killed, but, you know, he would take them in, X-ray those.

And the doctors would look at them and they would figure out a way if they could fix the bird, they would do it.

He would use the film that was about to expire.

They let him do that, to take pictures of his critters that he brought in.

(laughing) ♪ After he got out of the army, he decided that he wouldn't go back to school.

We were married by then, and, he, we came to Columbia.

And I remember going with him, staying in the car while he went in to all of the different state agencies, and he was trying to get a job in a park, maybe state park, in the summer or all year to be a state naturalist, and start a museum collection or something like that.

Nobody had any work for him.

So we went back to Spartanburg and both of us taught school for two years.

And during that time was when the State Museum was just starting up, and they were ready to hire their first curator.

Rudy> Actually found a job as a, as a naturalist.

If I hadn't prepared myself for that, I would have never been able to get the job as curator of natural history, first curator hired for the State Museum.

And you know where our offices were, right next to an operation called South Carolina Educational Television.

Corner of Woodrow and Millwood.

They got to know me.

I got to know them.

NatureScene... wow.

♪ Beryl Dakers was there.

I worked with Beryl, when she was at WIS, doing some, snake programs, I remember.

And so when she came to ETV, she remembered me, and we had, had a little bit of a connection, and, she was doing ArtScene and a number of other things, with the last part of the name "scene."

So she thought maybe NatureScene would be a good, you know, title for these little things.

So the first show we did was in October 1978, and I didn't take them to a really spectacular place.

I took them, down Bluff Road, in, you know, Columbia, it was a power line, right of way.

And goldenrod was flowering, and I knew that there were lots of insects, spiders, other things, there was going to be a lot of action.

They didn't know that, but I did, and we did a 30 minute program, without walking 100 yards.

And I saw in their eyes that, hey, this is neat.

And they saw in my eyes, hey, this is neat.

Beryl> Rudy, What would you expect to find in a field like this?

Rudy> Well Beryl, this time of year, what you expect to find, of course, a great deal of are plants like goldenrod, the composites.

They're flowering at this time of the year and giving lots of nectar and pollen to anybody that wants it.

And there are going to be lots of animals showing up for the feast.

Well, NatureScene to me is a 30 minute, field trip experience.

It's as if I'm leading a walk in the woods, I do that a lot.

And when we started thinking about how we were going to mold for the show... you know that two people on camera with a dialog is very much like somebody leading a walk in the woods, and maybe the camera was the, the, other person eavesdropping.

And that's kind of what NatureScene, I think, has been all these years, a 30 minute, walk in the woods with two people chatting, hopefully, answering and asking, you know, questions that the viewer would be asking.

But it's a field trip experience, never knowing for sure what you're going to see until you get there.

(sounds of nature) ♪ (birds flocking) (moose bellows) ♪ ♪ ♪ Rudy> It works anywhere, any time.

It works in Russia.

It works in the Ukraine.

It works everywhere we've ever gone.

Everywhere we went to shoot.

We had all these people getting excited about what we were doing.

Xavier> Well it's curious, people are curious, people want to know- Rudy> they're born with that curiosity and it just...

They can't stand, that I know some of these things.

I'm that way.

I mean, I've always been that way, I'm always excited about it.

And then people who, who watched the show just couldn't believe it.

And we had people after we had done it for, the national series, and it was going everywhere, it's on 300 stations, calling me and saying, okay, would you mind sharing with us how you do it?

Because we want to do it in Oregon.

Xavier> Sure.

Rudy> Or wherever.

Oregon was the one that, was the first one that called and I said, okay, ask me any question, I'll give you the answer.

She said, well... how many days do you go ahead, to scout before you shoot?

And I said, well, we don't, we don't do that.

We don't, we don't scout except the time that we're already there.

So there's this long pause on the phone.

And she said, how many cameras do you use?

I said, we use one camera.

Long pause on the phone.

(laughter) Who writes the script for you?

We don't have a script, Longer pause on the phone.

So I mean, everything they expected us to be doing, we weren't doing, because the script was in my head, and Alan knew what he had to do, and Welch or Beryl knew what they had to do- Xavier> Follow along, sure, yeah.

Rudy> I mean, it just, it worked- Xavier> Write the script.

that's classic- Rudy> Well, they, they expected that, you know, to be scripted so you could have something in front of you or at least have rehearsed it.

We don't rehearse anything.

Go out and do it, and if it's crappy, we do it again.

Xavier> Right.

Rudy> We looked at it every night.

It was a pain.

but we looked at it and we knew we had it.

If we didn't have it- Xavier> go out and do it next day- Rudy> go out and do it tomorrow.

That's what we did because we were, well, I mean, like Russia, you're not going back, Chernobyl, I don't believe I'll be back at Chernobyl.

(laughter) Those were good times.

Jim> It is exciting to be so close to the Chernobyl reactors.

That reactor number four, where the world's worst nuclear accident happened in April of 1986.

Nature is coming back to Chernobyl, plants, animals and people.

And it's good to see it, even though we're in the exclusion zone.

Rudy> Well, nature is very resilient.

There have been modifications, certainly, and the first modifications were death for lots of plants and animals.

But nature is on the way back, just like the receptors are.

Jim> Thanks for watching NatureScene at Chernobyl, Ukraine and we'll see you again, next time.

Rudy> I know Alan Sharpe liked the, you know, the broad views, the big animals, but, but it was a natural history program, which meant we dealt with plants and animals and rocks and minerals and fossils, the whole schmear.

And that's what a naturalist does.

And I infected a lot of people with this interest in natural history.

That's what that program has done for a lot of people.

We're all curious about the world of nature.

It satisfied that curiosity, and I've always felt that that's what a good teacher is supposed to do.

I'm just, I'm just a teacher who's been teaching in a variety of ways, all of my life.

And then, of course- Yes.

You saw it too Rudy> -coyote out there.

Look at the tail, just wiggling there, wagging its tail, jumping up and down, looking for something in the grasses.

Austin> You know, I started watching NatureScene, that was the beginning of the story of, you know, my time with Rudy, so to speak.

So watching NatureScene, mom would take me, she knew I was interested in nature, so she signed me up for some of his nature walks, and we'd go to those, as a kid.

Really, sort of, the closer bond began when I started my graduate work.

He came out in the field with me a number of times, that's when we really started to bond.

And, you know, he believed in me like he does every human being.

But I had the good fortune of, you know, having that exposure for three or four years with him as a committee member, you know, for my PhD work.

Yeah, one of the things about Rudy I think, he'd always say, always expect the surprises.

I'm grateful for that.

That's the kind of, you know, perspective that made him special.

And he shared it with the rest of the world.

I do miss him.

Gosh.

♪ Dr. Faye> I'm Faye Jensen, a member of the South Carolina Hall of Fame's Board of Trustees, and it is my very great pleasure today to honor our next inductee, Rudy Mancke.

He was most well known as co-host of South Carolina ETV's NatureScene.

After retiring from SCETV, Rudy went on to become Naturalist-in-Residence at the University of South Carolina.

Rudy hosted South Carolina Public Radio's Nature Notes from 1999 until he passed in November 2023, at age 78.

Ellen> He was thrilled when he got the news that he was going to be inducted and he was planning to be there.

And so for us, you know, it was just the fulfillment of his response to it.

And we were just glad that they were able to go ahead and present him with that honor.

He loved it, and he loved that idea.

Presenter> On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the South Carolina Hall of Fame, we welcome Rudy Mancke, the 2024 inductee into the South Carolina Hall of Fame, and proudly present this award to his wife, Ellen.

(applause) ♪ ♪ Ellen> I have had so many people tell me what they remember about Rudy.

People knew him in different ways, and, everybody's got their own memories of him and more people than I could ever have imagined, knew Rudy and felt like he was a friend.

Rudy was himself.

He was genuine and people could relate to him, on different levels.

And I think that's, that's basically, what will be remembered.

His personal experiences, whether it was just watching him on TV, and feeling like you knew him, that way, or if, people had an encounter with him, then they knew firsthand, just what a genuine person he was.

He cared about everybody and everything, and I think people knew that.

Austin> I think, probably his legacy is at least partly displayed.

And I remember him telling me, we were on the porch at Sandhill Research and Education Center, and he said to me, Austin you know, this knowledge of nature that you and I love to, you know, ascertain and to, and to search for.

And I said, yeah, Rudy, what about it?

And he said, well, Austin, everyone deserves it.

Everybody deserves to have it.

And that to me is, the legacy of Rudy Mancke.

I mean, we all know something about the natural world or we all experience it.

You don't necessarily have to know what species it is or the natural history and biology behind it, but sharing, just sharing the natural world, whatever piece of it you have access to, sharing that with everybody else that you see, you know, that was, that was the way he spread love throughout the world.

And I think, you know, that is his legacy.

♪ Allen> Rudy Mancke was my friend.

Rudy Mancke was a big brother I never had.

He was a year older than I am.

First and foremost, Rudy Mancke was a teacher who loved to share his knowledge of nature with anyone willing to listen, young or old.

Rudy Mancke and I had the greatest jobs in the world.

I'm Alan Sharpe, and for the 25 years NatureScene was in production, I was fortunate enough to work with Rudy as producer, director, director of photography, and principal videotape editor for the program.

In the 25 years of NatureScene, we produced over 300 shows.

We taped programs all over the United States, in all 50 states in Canada, Costa Rica, Russia and the Ukraine.

Rudy was a great teacher and a great friend.

I'm gonna miss you, buddy.

Beryl> In a world where everything happens in a nanosecond, Rudy was an anachronism.

He encouraged us to slow down, slow down, just look at the world, learn from it, appreciate it, and marvel at the wonder of it.

I too, will miss my friend Rudy.

But while I'm saddened by his passing, I am buoyed by the knowledge that his energy will always surround us.

And I think how blessed we were, to have had him in our midst.

Dr. Pastides> Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family of Rudy Mancke.

If Heaven is a beautiful field of clover, it now has one more four leaf clover.

And Heaven is lucky to have Rudy Mancke, our beloved and fine friend.

May he rest in eternal peace, with the songbirds.

May he see the miraculous as clearly as he did on earth, because, as has been said, to walk with nature, is to see 1000 miracles.

Rudy> My life, would not have been as rich as it has been if it had not been for this network, for NatureScene specifically, and for all the folks who had a hand in making that possible.

I have lived a richer life than I would have ever lived otherwise.

And that change from the State Museum to a national series at Educational Television, was one of those things that happened in my life that made an incredible difference in my life as a naturalist.

And, you know, I think about this often.

I'll never be able to repay, a lot of people who made a difference in my life, parents and all, of course.

But the professors, you know, at Wofford and at the University of South Carolina, friends here at the network, people who watched the show and say things, how can you ever repay them, you know, for those kindnesses.

But I've had a lot of joy that's come my way.

And as I said, I feel richer, than anybody that I know.

And it has nothing to do with money.

It has to do with those wonderful experiences that I had a chance to have myself, and share with other people.

I wouldn't trade places with anybody in the world.

♪