Allison Fisher and Gordon Miller, queen and king of the French Club Mardi Gras, AI colorized/enhanced from the 1970 Maryville, Missouri, High School Maryvillian Yearbook.
Allison Fisher was flying solo in planes and co-owned a Cessna during her junior year in high school. This would be prophetic, as she launched an aviation career in which she sold planes and helicopters and provided aviation consulting in Colorado, Oregon, and Texas.
Below is the high school story about her in 1970.
Here’s an amazing 1953 story about Morris Chick, one of the players scolded by L.E. Zieger in 1920 as “a bunch of Spoofhounds,” who wound up with one of the plaster casts of a Spoofhound that was sold during the dedication of the Liberty Memorial.
Included in this very funny stunt was Homer Ogden, president of the school board in 1953, who was also part of the Ziegler scolding. Ogden “borrowed” Chick’s Spoofhound during a visit to set up the punchline that Chick, an employee of Nodaway Valley Bank, would decide to place the statue for safekeeping in the bank’s vault.
The article says the statue was thought to be the only one in existence. But there are multiple statues, including one that I own. The AI colorization/enhancement on a very poor quality Forum photo may not get the participants’ faces right, but it is spot on for Spoofy, as that is a copy of the one I have.
The Hanamo (Holt, Atchison, Nodaway, Andrew – Missouri) Telephone Company opened April 26, 1897 and was organized by H.E. Ralston
Club 71, from a DX gas station in Pumpkin Center, had to be one of the most exciting and eclectic music roadhouses anywhere. It could be hosting square dances and fox hunt dances, and, seemingly most out of place, the black music scene in this very white rural setting.
Nat Towles and his orchestra played there multiple times and would stop there as the first gig after performances at Chicago’s famous Savoy Hall in a very stylish truck trailer.
Below is the Forum article about the visit, followed by references for the photos, then a discussion of the truck trailer, and a few jokes.
Above is an AI colorized and enhanced image of the article referenced below
Men Who Promote the Fox Hunt – Nodaway County Tribune, September 4, 1941, Page 4. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/nodaway-county-tribune-pumpkin-center-fo/196061801/ )
J. W. Clayton, Fay Baker, Bert Icke, Chester Espey, and Bill Hall, left to right, are officers of the Pumpkin Center Fox Hunters Association who arranged for this annual event, which closed last week. Mr. Clayton, Mr. Icke, Mr. Espey, and Mr. Hall have served as directors since the association was formed 14 years ago. Mr. Baker is master of hounds, Mr. Icke is president, Mr. Espey is secretary, and Mr. Hall is director of grounds.
Below is some background
The backstory of the 71 Club in Pumpkin Center is probably the most interesting of many interesting stories about nightclubs in Nodaway County. The Club ran from 1938 to 1941 and was in a DX Filling Station. The club offered a very eclectic range, from square dancing and white folks bands to black bands.
Its location was used for dance activities, and I think it was the site of the Pumpkin Center Fox Hunt Association dances (which I believe continued there during its tenure). The venue was often on the police logs for fights and dice gambling escapades in the parking lot. Since adultery was still a crime at the time, that crime inevitably got bundled in the charges. The charges were sometimes dropped on the condition that the violators never return to Nodaway County (I’m not including links to those stories since I don’t know the full details of their depositions).
Here are newspaper stories about the club’s history.
I have never heard bottled water called “Containered H2O,” but this map says the phrase is an Upper Midwest term, including Atchison County north to South Dakota and the Kansas City metro.
Here’s a promotion for KenRex at the Sheffield Theatre in London with writer/actor Jack Holden This shows scenes from the show in which he plays 30 characters from the Skidmore Ken Rex McElroy case.
