Kim Broadhurst raised a few eyebrows when she entered beauty pageants back in high school and college.
And while that may have had something to do with grace, poise or the evening gown she was wearing, another surefire attention-getter was her response to the standard beauty pageant interview question.
“They always asked ‘What are you most passionate about?’ and I always said hunting, without a doubt,” she said, laughing. “All the boys would hoot and holler, because for a girl, I guess it was a really unique thing … The pageants were a good mix for me. I definitely was a ‘girly girl’ and liked to dress with my big earrings and my makeup. But when I went home, I liked to paint up my face, put on my camo, wash all the perfume off and go hunting.”
No telling whether Kim’s interview answer helped her win a pageant, but her love of the outdoors did help her score the heart of Lincoln County (Tenn.) High School classmate Brandon Lester. The two met in geometry class as juniors, and they dated for several years, though they eventually married other people. Six years passed and, both single again, they reconnected in Fayetteville, Tenn.
Kim and Brandon Lester married on Nov. 11, 2016. A sign that read “We interrupt hunting season for this marriage” was prominently displayed on wedding day.
It was the truth, but not because Kim came to appreciate outdoors pursuits to suit Brandon, who enters his seventh year on the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2020.
Kim, 32, grew up in Athens, Ala., one of six children from a family that avidly hunted and fished. She fondly recalls spending time on her grandparents’ farm in the tiny community of Harvest, Ala., where Kim experienced, among other things, “delivering a cow, administering shots to animals and grabbing chicken eggs out of the coop.” And for her Sweet 16 birthday present, Kim’s father, Mike, built a deer stand in a tree on the property where they lived (and hunted).
“A lot of girls at 16, if they’re doing outdoors things, it’s because their boyfriends are doing it,” she said. “It’s an avenue into the outdoors for a lot of girls, and that’s great. But I had this love instilled in me by my daddy and my granddaddy. It was a way of life for us.”
When Kim and the rest of the Broadhurst family moved to Fayetteville before Kim’s junior year of high school, she didn’t have trouble finding places to hunt or fish in a community where both are popular pursuits. Her friendship with Brandon eased the process, and they spent their first date fishing on a neighbor’s pond. Brandon was there a few months later when Kim squeezed the trigger on her first deer, too.
“There was a fallen tree, and we sat on ground,” Kim recalled. “I had a spike walk right beside me. (A spike is a 1-year-old whitetail buck.) It was so close, we could’ve reached out and touched it. About 30 minutes later, a doe stepped out. Brandon counted ‘1, 2, 3. Breathe. Now shoot.’ I dropped her right there. He was freaking out for me, screaming how it was the perfect shot.
“That heart-pounding feeling, that adrenaline rush, is something I love,” Kim said. “Even if I don’t shoot.”
Not much has changed since Kim and Brandon first met, as the majority of their dates still are spent in a treestand or a bass boat. Kim received a turkey gun as a Mothers’ Day gift three years ago, and she said the elusive bird remains her favorite quarry. After daughter Shiloh was born 20 months ago, Kim left work as a teacher’s assistant, which she said has allowed more time for “hunting dates” with Brandon.
The Lesters spent a good portion of the past deer season jockeying for a shot on a 12-point buck that is frequenting one of their deer leases in southern Tennessee. Kim, who bagged her first buck on the last day of deer season, said she’s still antsy thinking she might see a majestic 12-pointer.
“I have really bad buck fever,” she said. “Everything shakes. Something goes wrong. I can’t get my glove off. I want to shoot a buck so bad. I mean, I’d be OK with a good 6-pointer or a 9, but now that we’ve seen that 12, it’s competitive.”
She’s joking – sort of.
“Brandon went the other day and he saw a doe, but the buck didn’t step out,” Kim said days before deer season closed. “I told him that’s because that buck is waiting on me.”
Kim does credit Brandon with showing her the finer points of bass fishing technique, though she refuses to let him do all the work on the water. She’s been a solid angler for years, but she wants to keep learning. That her tutor is a successful Elite Series pro is an opportunity not to be wasted, she said.
“I give him props for things like teaching me how to skip a jig,” she said. “It took me a couple days, but I finally got it. I get mad if he catches one and I don’t.
“Like I told him, ‘I don’t just want to hold up your fish. I want to hold up my own fish.’”
Kim’s teaching her two daughters to be confident in the outdoors, too. Leann, 8, is excited for her first youth archery hunt this winter, Kim said, and Shiloh heads for the door as soon as she awakens each morning.
Kim said it’s important to find the right balance of indoors and outdoors time for her children, and she described an encounter she and Brandon had in a treestand recently that underscored her belief.
“It was raining just hard enough to be annoying, and little after daylight, about 40 or 50 turkeys started strutting into where we were,” she said. “They were like little soldiers. And then this little button buck comes in and starts chasing the turkeys. We watched him play for 30 minutes, running back and forth.
“So here we are, sitting in the steady rain, and you know what? It was worth it, to connect with nature and to see the animals be so free.
“We want those opportunities for the girls too,” Kim said. “We instill in them that computers are fun, and it’s nice to have everything at your fingertips. But you can’t replace the experience of being in the outdoors. We want them to have that as much as possible.”
