History
One of the things I find interesting in writing these articles, and I hope interesting for readers, is learning history I didn’t know. Invariably, even the smallest amount of research reveals new information. Venerable WSHS teacher John Finley is yet another example of how little I really did...
Can it already be that time of the year again? Well, it should not come as a surprise because the yuletide TV advertisements have been hawking the latest “must-have” toys since Halloween.
The Chicago Tribune published a list of the best toys for 2023. The second one in the “best of the best”...
In my quest to find out what happened to the population of Howell County during the Civil War, we take a look at a family who tried to avoid involvement but were destroyed by the conflict. From my reading of the war here, I’ve found the worst thing to do was to not declare a side and be under the...
In Mrs. Munford’s WSHS English class in the 1960s, I vaguely recall reading an abridged version of “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allen Poe. My memory is either faulty, or Poe’s efforts did not make much of an impression on several schoolmates, whose recollections are vaguer than mine....
For this story, we go to opposite ends of Howell County. Around the turn of the century, as our earliest pioneers were at an age to reminiscence, local newspapers began carrying their stories. The West Plains Journal did a series in 1904 and 1905 recounting those times in the participants' own...
Sometime in early 2001, I began my adventure in writing. It was not something I planned or had thought much about. Sitting in the waiting room of a medical office, I perused a copy of Missouri Life magazine to pass the time. A story, written by owner/publisher Greg Wood, about a country barn of...
I live between two of the oldest communities in Howell County, and less than two miles from the location of events and people in this story. The north end of our county developed later than the areas where land was better for farming. It took a hardy set of people who came and farmed the dry...
Earlier this year, alongside 20 other inductees including notables such as Bret Saberhagen (Kansas City Royals pitcher), Tyler Hansbrough (Poplar Bluff High School/University of North Carolina basketball star), and Sean Weatherspoon (University of Missouri, all-American linebacker), the Mizzou...
Some people, especially in small communities, are so proficient, and in this case, so persistent in their line of work they are recognized or identified by their profession. Francis Randolph Anson was the name that came to mind in Willow Springs when a blacksmith was spoken of. For almost seventy...
Of the numerous curiosities and phenomena coming out of the Ozarks, the Spook Light of Hornet, Missouri, located in Newton County, may have the longest shelf life. Numerous eyewitnesses, from the early twentieth century to recent times, have described it as a bobbing jack-o'-lantern, a shimmering...