Andrew Bruce Richards (Andy) was born in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, in 1953. He lived on a small farm there, then moved to Flin Flon, Manitoba, where he developed his love of the outdoors. At age thirteen he moved with his mother to the Columbia Valley in British Columbia. He met Hiram Cody Tegart (Cody) in high school, where they developed a close friendship that would last ten years and rekindle twenty years later. After guiding one season for Cody's father, Andy married his high school sweetheart and went to work in the forestry industry. Eventually deciding his career didn't lie in the bush, he enrolled in the Journalism Arts Advertising Program at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Starting in 1980, he worked at weekly newspapers in Quesnel, Salmon Arm and Victoria before joining the Times Colonist Daily. With small-town life calling, Andy and his wife moved to Summerland in 2001. After sixteen years with the Penticton Herald, he retired in 2016 and now spends his time doing the things he loves in the great outdoors.