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QUARTERLY VOL. I '25 Welcome members! Exciting News from Okefenokee Joe Enterprise! We’re thrilled to announce that the Okefenokee Joe Newsletter will now be released quarterly! This will allow us to dive deeper into the latest news, stories, and events surrounding Okefenokee Joe (Dick Flood)—keeping his remarkable legacy alive and well. Thanks to your participation in our recent survey, we’ve gathered some incredible insights. In the next newsletter, we’ll share how we plan to incorporate your feedback to make the Okefenokee Joe experience even more meaningful for his devoted fans. We’re grateful for your continued support as we honor and celebrate Joe's life, his music, and Okefenokee Joe's message to all ‘Earth Day Every Day’. Stay tuned—there’s so much more to come! With gratitude,
The Okefenokee Joe Enterprise Team
info@okefenokeejoe.com
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The recent broadcast of Opry 100: A Live Celebration stirred up fond memories of Dick Flood aka Okefenokee Joe—gracing the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. His transformation from a Nashville songwriter to the beloved storyteller is a powerful reminder of the courage it takes to reinvent oneself. Through his music and message, Joe became a legend not only in the eyes of his fans but also in the heart of God’s creation. May his journey of wisdom, wonder, and reverence for nature continue to inspire us all. He tells it in his own words with the story behind writing of the song ‘Swampwise’.
Swampwise
I left the city a long time ago
For reasons I don’t need to disclose
And I won’t make excuses for the way I appear
Or this laid back life I have chose
I don’t bother nobody, I just like bein’ free
Free as the wind in the trees
In the Okefenokee I can be as I please
The swamp is home to me
And I’m Swampwise
ha ha ha Swampwise
I can stalk a buck deer, take him by surprise
I can disappear, right in front of your eyes
With a knife and a blanket I can survive
I’m Swampwise
ha ha ha Swampwise Polin’ my boat thru the black mirrored water
Enjoyin’ the sun in the sky
Livin’ my dream the way a man oughtta’
Happy with each day that goes by
And I know what it means to live off the land
To me it comes naturally
I’m wild as a mountain, untamed as the sea
The swamp is home to me
And I’m Swampwise
ha ha ha Swampwise I can face a black bear with my huntin’ knife
Catch a cottonmouth moccasin before it can strike
Cross me, and you’d better run for your life
I’m Swampwise Here in the land of the tremblin’ earth
Time moves easy and slow
A man can stay lost, and gone forever
And never, ever care who knows
And I'm Swampwise
I can grab a bull gator, tan his ugly hide
Move like a panther thru the dark of the night
Pole a boat to Fargo just for the ride
I’m Swampwise
ha ha ha Swampwise 
Ever since I was a kid, long before I lived in the Okefenokee Swamp, I had been into wilderness survival. I love that feeling of self reliance! Knowing that if all the grocery stores closed down, I could survive, is a solid and good feeling! As far back as I can remember I have always loved the things of nature, camping, breathing fresh air, feeling the sun on my back, working hard, and just being close to the earth. I began hunting snakes when I was about nine years old. I wanted to be “Swampwise”!
Over my years as a professional entertainer, I wrote a lot of country songs. Many of them were recorded, and some even made nationwide hits in Europe, Canada, and the United States! As I recall, one, entitled “Gee” **“Gee” ** was recorded by George Hamilton IV, and did well for me especially in Europe in 1959! “Trouble's back in town”, sung by the Wilburn brothers, ** “Troubles' back in town” **was voted by Billboard Magazine the number one country song of the year in 1962!
I knew pretty well what was marketable or sellable, and what was not in songwriting. But some years after I had left Nashville, and the music business, and I was living in the Great Okefenokee Swamp, I found myself writing a song entitled “Swampwise”! Even as I was writing it the “professional Song Writer” in me was telling me that, “This type of song could never sell in today's market. Why in the world am I writing it?”
But lo and behold, some years later, after I had left the Okefenokee Swamp in 1988 Georgia Public Television came along, and we did an entire one hour documentary entitled “Swampwise”! And my song “Swampwise” was the perfect choice for the theme song of the project!
In the documentary we tracked the four seasons in the Okefenokee Swamp; Winter, summer, spring, and fall. Knowing it would be a good idea to have a song for each season, I sat down, and thought back in time to the days when I lived there. I tried to recall scenes, sounds, feelings, and even the smells of the different times of the year. In the documentary itself we did not have time to do most of those songs in their entirety. They can all be heard in their entirety in my album “My life in the Okefenokee”, and of course in this series of short stories and songs. “Swampwise” was not only the title song, but the entire theme of the documentary was laced with Swamp Wisdom! The show even went on to receive a Southeastern Emmy award! And is still the most requested show that GPB has ever produced locally!
Because of my GPTV documentaries the name Okefenokee Joe actually became almost a household word in the state of Georgia! It was GPTV that put me back on the map, so to speak, as an entertainer! But now I had become known as “Okefenokee Joe”!
The song “Swampwise” was instrumental in making it all happen! And before all that went down, I had been wondering why I was writing such a noncommercial song!
So I ceased to worry about whether my songs would sell or not, and I got back into song writing. Although a lot of my songs are not about people, they are still love songs. Most of them are written as praise to all of God's Creation.
Thru the years, as Okefenokee Joe one of my favorite slogans in my lectures became, “Streetwise is cool, Swampwise is awesome!”
Okefenokee Joe aka Dick Flood 1932 - 2023
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