Mary Rhode is equally at home in a board room as she is in a South Dakota ditch.
The backseat of her car proves it.
“It has my three‑inch, high‑heeled black shoes that I wore to the office that day, next to my hunting boots,” says the On Broadway vice president of marketing and communications. “It’s my life.”
Growing up in small‑town Wisconsin, Rhode was exposed to hunting by extended family members, but it was her husband who finally opened the door — he’d been pheasant hunting in South Dakota with his father since he was a teenager.
Rhode tagged along on her first South Dakota trip in 2016 but didn’t participate until three years later. A big part of what drew her to the sport was the relationship between hunter and dog — in this case, her springer spaniels Cabella and Lucy.
“Hunting was something I never thought I would be into,” Rhode says. “Reaping the rewards of what you hunt is great. But, honestly, seeing the dogs do what they love to do is so rewarding and I wanted to see that for myself.”
On that hunt in 2019, Cabella tracked, flushed and retrieved Rhode’s very first bird.
“It is such an emotional moment that I think any pheasant hunter who’s experienced that with their own dog would probably know what I’m talking about,” she says. “Since 2019, my love for pheasant hunting has just skyrocketed.”
Rhode’s love for the sport led to a partnership with Prois, a clothing line designed specifically for female hunters, which she discovered while searching for gear that fit. That connected her to a women‑only Midwest hunting group.
“It’s really expanded much more beyond just hunting,” Rhode says. “We talk about networking all the time as professionals, but to get together with 14 other women who are as passionate about bird hunting as you are, it’s hard to explain that connection and that energy.”
Now Rhode is building her own local women’s networking event around clay pigeon shooting — “something that wasn’t coffee, that wasn’t drinks, but that was getting us outdoors,” she says.
Spending time in nature is a mental reset for Rhode, who says the joy carries directly into her work. That joy is now something she’s passing on to her 8‑year‑old son, who has been tagging along on hunts since he was in preschool. This spring, he’ll join his parents for his very first turkey hunt.
“It’s so rewarding to see his excitement and to be able to pass it on to him,” Rhode says.
