History
I have been connected to tomatoes since I was a toddler. I dislike their taste, but I’ve lived among the plants since I could crawl (literally, among them). Mountains of bright red, vine-ripe tomatoes spread out on big tables in our basement are a summer memory extending from my infancy through...
In Part 1 of this article, I highlighted the impact of the Hannah Harper effect on the singer’s adopted hometown, Willow Springs, and recounted the adventurous trips of Birch Tree resident Beverly Barnes Ledgerwood to Los Angeles for the American Idol live shows. I’ll continue the story now with...
By now, most folks in Missouri—and maybe, the entire solar system (with ET supposedly lurking about)—know that Hannah Harper, winner of the 2026 American Idol singing competition, claims Willow Springs as her adopted hometown. She wrote her latest song, “Married into This Town,” as an homage to...
I was in North Pole, Alaska, on May 6, when Hannah Harper’s return to Willow Springs made national news. The first major network clip I saw zoomed in on the stage beneath a sign that read “Palenske Field,” my hometown football-track field! As the Willow Springs High School song goes, it's the...
Each year, Alumni Weekend in Willow Springs, Missouri, (now, the adopted hometown of American Idol winner Hannah Harper) provides plenty of writing material for this column. This year was no exception.
The ceremonial unveiling of the wall mural at Bailey Legacy Park, an interactive children...
Drusilla Casson McKellip, my maternal great grandmother, is, without doubt, one of the more colorful characters in my ancestry. I don’t recall when I met her (I was a baby), but if I had possessed greater awareness at the time, I would have given her a high-five. More on that aspect later...
Most long-term residents of Willow Springs know of the "Reservoir," about a mile north of downtown. It is a hidden gem in the crown of our part of the Ozarks nestled between the Highway 60/63 bypass and business route at the north end of Willow Springs. Driving by, you would not know a lake is...
Last week, as I was searching my mind for an article to write, I had a series of thoughts, which in a way felt connected, but with no obvious causal link between them. Were these nudges by a muse?
Facebook posts about Montier. Ozark giraffe houses. Singer Jerry Jeff Walker’s song “Getting’...
One hundred years ago this week, the front page of our local paper carried the news of the completion of the clubhouse at Saratoga Springs.
Around three miles northwest of Willow Springs, near the Pine Grove Community, Big Indian Creek winds through the wooded hills and hollows of northwest...
A walk in the woods after our recent snowfall had me following animal tracks and reminded me of a story by Howell County Gazette editor-publisher Will Zorn, published in 1915.
Zorn wrote of the reappearance of a strange phenomenon, reported in western Howell and eastern Douglas County...