A life-long friend died today. I’ll post more when I think of something to say. This a photo of Joanne with her (twin) brother, Richard. It was taken at the old train station in Kennett, MO. Here are a few more photos.
Joanne
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Tag Archives: kennett
Fan letter
I had heard this story over the years but always assumed it was apocryphal. Too good to be true. Rudy Pylant (“Mister Rudy”) was a local radio personality in my hometown. His fans were legion and he got lots of letters. Like this one his daughter recently discovered and shares.
Joe Bankhead
Joe Bankhead died this week. Not sure of his age but he was well into his 90’s. He was a good friend of my father’s and one of the original employees of KBOA, the radio station where they both worked. And I did a 12 year stint there many years ago. Joe was one of the most self-confident people I ever met. Part of his story is here.
Hallelujah Chorus – Kennett,MO
Announced this event on Dec. 19th in church, put on facebook and a little article in paper. This is the result. No rehearsal. Accompaniment being played in mustang convertible with the top down. (Which turned out not to be loud enough for all to hear, thus we almost had a train wreck in the middle) But it turned out to be such fun. We are making this an annual event on December 23rd, 5:30 pm on court house steps. We will be better prepared next year. Louder sound system for accomp., lights and more music. (see the famous Crows on front row, 3 sharing the same book).
Kennett’s Opera House
The little southeast Missouri town of Kennett, Missouri, once had a thriving “downtown,” situated around the county courthouse. Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, you bought your clothes and shoes and just about anything except farm equipment from one of the stores “on the square.”
James Kahn’s Department occupied one corner and although it had a second story, I never had occasion to go up there. From time to time someone would mention the “old opera house” above the department store. James Kahn’s is gone now and the opera house has been renovated.
Kennett’s favorite daughter Sheryl Crow is home for the holidays and christened the Opera House with a performance.
smays.com Kennett corespondent Charles Jolliff shares the photo above.
One final thought (shop-talk, really). It wasn’t so long ago that a town or a business would create a web page for something like the Opera House. A really, nasty-ass, ugly, useless web page. Thank you Mark Zuckerberg for giving the world a much better way.
Palace Theater goes dark
The Palace Theater will close its doors this Sunday. It has been Kennett’s only theater for a long time. Growing up in the 50’s, we had a second theater for a while, until the Ritz burned (can’t recall the year). During the early 50’s, The Palace was “segregated” with people of color sitting in the balcony and colorless people below. I’m not sure if this was by choice or enforced. (Just the sort of question a white kid would ask, no?)
In front of the Palace Theater in Kennett, MO
Based on the movies on the marquee, I believe this photo was taken in 1954. My father is the one riding in the wheelbarrow. Jimmy Haggett is pushing him (in the annual Fall Festival Parade, I believe) because pop won a popularity contest pitting “pop” music against country.
In its day, The Palace was a fine old theater. We were lucky to have it.
Oak Tree
Oak Tree Surprise, originally uploaded by mshhoward.
Matt Howard found this spot in the Buffalo River area. Looks like a painting. How nice that there are spots like this and people like Matt to find and share them.
KBOA photos (high rez scans)
One of my first attempts at a website was KBOA830.com. That was about 13 years ago and I’ve moved it around several times since then. The impetus for the site was a bunch of photos from the late ’40s, given to me by one of the original employees of the station.
When flickr came along, I uploaded the photos there but the scans were low rez because I didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve thought about rescanning but that’s one tedious chore.
A couple of months ago I boxed up 120 of the prints and sent them off to ScanCafe where they were “scanned by hand” for about 29 cents each. It took a while (I think the scanning is done in India) but the prints were safely returned along with a DVD of 300dpi images.
Turns out I can’t delete the lorez images yet because I’ve linked to them from the KBOA site. Once I get that all sorted out I can get rid of the duplicates.
If you have a box of prints (or 35m slides or negatives), send them to ScanCafe (or one fo the similar services) and get them digitized. And then put them online, because that is the only hope you have of giving them a life beyond your own.
Footnote: I never tire of looking at these images. The tower and the transmitters and the studios… all of the expensive stuff it took to communicate in 1947. If you had something to say to your community (forget the world) you had to build/buy/go to work for one of these entities (radio station, TV, newspaper). All changed now. And changing. I love it.
Bootheel Sunset
Another beautiful photo by Matt Howard.
The Log Cabin
“The Log Cabin was famous for its barbecue sandwiches and curb-service beer. You simply pulled into the pot-holed parking lot surrounding the tiny building… tooted your horn… and a waitress could come out to the car and take your order. If it was dark enough or the waitress was in a good mood… it was possible to buy a beer before reaching legal drinking age. I have no idea what kind of license allowed them to do business this way.”
Wow. This is a rare find, indeed. I have never seen a photo of the Log Cabin. I’m not sure how someone got this one without getting a serious ass kicking. The Log Cabin parking lot was dark! If the Log Cabin fry cooks didn’t invent curly fries, they perfected them. [Photo courtesy of Dennis Dean]