Category Archives: museums

Sports: Norm’s In; Going Opposite Directions; New AD on the Horizon? And a Few More

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(NORM)—Former Missouri Tiger basketball coach Norm Stewart finally is getting his place in the Hall of Famous Missourians at the State Capitol.  The bust will be unveiled at 1 p.m., May 1 in the House Chamber. It later will be moved to the rotunda, joining more than three dozen other busts of famous Missourians.

Stewart turned 89 in January.

His teams rang up a record of 731-375 in 38 seasons as a head coach, 634 of them at his alma mater.

(BASEBALL)—One of our teams finished last week at 13-9.  The other one finished at 9-13, with some folks remembering last year when the team started 10-24.

(KANSAS CITY)—The 13-9 record isn’t the only statistic that shows how much the Royals’ season is a turnaround from last year. Here’s another one:

The Royals were held without a run by Baltimore on Sunday, their first shutout of the year. Last year they failed to score fifteen times.  Seth Lugo took his first loss and gave up his first home runs of the year after winning three straight to start his season and not giving up a homer in 41.1 innings.

Kansas City is led this year by catcher/first-baseman Salvador Perez, who starts this week hitting .333 with six homers and Bobby Witt, Jr., at .300. The pitching is among the best in baseball with a 3.18 ERA, which normally would be an outstanding year for an individual, let alone a team.  The pitching continues to carry the team, which is batting a cumulative .237, Perez and Witt notwithstanding.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals on theother hand are 9-13.   Wilson Contrares has the longest hitting streak in Major League Baseball, 14 games, at the end of the playing week.  Shortstop Masyn Win and Contreras are above .300 at the plate but the ‘Birds as a team are hitting only .219. But with an offense like that, the pitching staff’s 3.95 ERA, solid thought it be in today’s game, isn’t good enough.

The Optimist Award for 2024 goes to Sonny Gray, the pitching ace who says the Cardinals are going to turn things around big-time soon. Gray is doing his part, going 2-0 without an ERA and an 11-0 strikeout to walk ratio in his first two starts. Sunday, a dozen of the 19 outs he got were strikeouts. He did give up his first walk of the year and his first home run and that was enough for the Brewers in a 2-0 shutout.

(FOOTBALL)—As we were going to press (as they used to say in the journalism biz), reports were coming out that the new Athletic Director at the University was going to be Laird Veatch, the AD at Memphis for the last five years.

It’s a return for Veatch, who supervised fund raising for the athletic deaatment, 2000=2002. He later was the general manager of Mizzou Sports Properties in 2003, coordinating external media operators for Learfield Sports, which has multimedia rights with Tiger sports teams.  His first big job, other than lining up all of the NIL deals, will be raise half of the money for the $250 million dollar make over of the north end of Memorial Stadium.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—A big offensive day for the St. Louis Battlehawks coupled with a solid offensive day gave them a 32-17 win over the Memphis Showboats and a 3-1 record. St. Louis again led the UFL in attendance with 31,575 people in the Dome.

‘Hawks quarterback A. J. McCarron threw the ball an all-time high of 45 times, completed 35 of them for 222 yards and three touchdowns. Running back Jacob Saylors rushed for 103 yards. The defense gave up only 127 yards and let Memphis convert only one of ten third and fourth down attempts.

(Playing with Engines)

(INDYCAR)—Nobody INDYCAR “makes fuel” as Scott Dixon does.  He proved it again with his win at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Dixon went about 50 of the race’s 85 laps without refueling and had to hold off Josef Newgarden, who was closing the gap with ten laps left before   Newgarden was hit from behind by Colton Herta’s car.Herta went on to finish second, about one second behind Dixon.

The win extends Dixon’s record of having at leat one victory to twenty consecutive years.

(NASCAR)—The “big one” didn’t happen until the field was roaring toward the checkered flag at Talladega Superspeedway. With cars crashing ahead of him, and more crashing behind him, Tyler Reddick kept his foot on the floor and steered out of harms way to the win.

The crash was triggered when pole sitter Michael McDowell tried to block Brad Keselowski but touched Keselowski’s car at 200 mph and turned into the wall.  Reddick let the wrecking cars move out of his way while he slipped Keselowski for the win.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen adds the trophy for the Chinese Grand Prix to his shelf, posting a 13 second victory over runnerup Lando Norris.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Man’s Vision—4 

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A state-of- the-art comprehensive Jefferson City/Cole County History Museum, at the old prison—discussed in the previous entry in this series—should be only a start.

Let’s shoot for the moon.

What really would be a giant step toward greatness would be he acquisition of another museum, one destined for a Smithsonian-quality reputation.

Six years ago we had a shot at getting the Steamboat Arabia museum to move here from Kansas City. But our planning group never got beyond talking, talking, talking and the expertise I hoped would develop when the group was formed never did develop. In effect, we decided we are good enough, as is. And one important business leader straight-out told me it wouldn’t work here.

None of the people I thought would take the practical lead did. But another smaller, more ambitious town went beyond talking and what it discovered for itself speaks volumes of what Jefferson City would have discovered had there been some initiative generated by all of that talking and should be a challenge to Jefferson City to show it wants to be more than the state capitol, more than a convention center can give us, more than we are.

City leaders in Marshall reportedly raised $150,000 for a feasibility study of a steamboat museum at I-70 and Highway 65. The initial investment would be high. The payoff will be large and long-lasting

The findings show that the payoff of this major commitment will be multiples of what was forecast for the Marshall/Sedalia/Lexington area.

I took a lot of notes at the meeting where the findings by the consulting firm of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets (PGAV) were revealed three years ago.

PGAV called the museum proposal “a chance to put something iconic in Central Missouri.’  It described a state of the art museum with a national and regional strategy. It addressed continued investment that renewed the museum’s life cycle, the development of supporting amenities, the financial sustainability for generations, and the leadership the project would provide for future development.

The company looked at tourism strategies—attracting people to the area, creating support for the project, and connecting the museum to other parts of the country by defining a larger region to draw from.

They saw the museum as being a local draw and, more important, a destination attraction. PGAV calculated the trade area for the museum south of Marshall at more than 7.5 million people within a three-hour travel time.  The study forecast the operating costs would be about $2.4 million a year, based on an $18 adult admission fee, retail sales, and food and beverage income, among other things. It could be operated with 18 fulltime employees.

The first phase would be a 77,000 square foot museum (about double the present footprint, that would hold the Arabia and a second boat (we’ll discuss that later) and provide support and storage space on 3.7 acres, including parking. Estimated cost: $37 million.  That’s what we built the Center for Missouri Studies for in Columbia—a three-story, 77-thousand square feet building.  By the time the third phase of the steamboat museum would be completed, the complex would cover 8 acres, including parking

PGAV’s site analysis pointed to the great visibility of the museum from I-70 and to the great amount of open land at Marshall Junction.

The company found that museums are “economic engines” for an area—that non-profit art and culture attractions have an economic impact of more than one-billion dollars in Missouri (that’s a 2015 study).  They calculated that $1 generated by such a museum would generate $3.20 for the economy.

The study identifies several financial tools created by state law—Community Development Block Grants, Neighborhood Assistance tax credits, Community Improvement Districts, and ta exempt bonds issued by the Missouri Development Finance Board.

Additionally, PGAV calculated the national 250th anniversary celebration in 2026 will create federal funding capabilities for projects with about two-billion dollars allocated for state signature projects—and the museum, they said, would be a prime choice that a signature project (Jefferson City benefitted from the Bicentennial in 1976 by getting funding for restoration of Lohman’s Landing when it was declared a statewide bicentennial project).

In Summary, PGAV concluded that the Marshall-centered market would be enough to support a destination museum that would be an anchor for other tourism assets in the region (Arrow Rock, Sedalia and the State Fair, Santa Fe Trail sites, etc.  It would develop tourism synergies for local tourism in a three-county region (or broader), it would trigger multiple development opportunities near the Marshall Junction interchange and would create an economic development opportunity when combined with other attractions.  The study indicated the museum would draw 3.7 million visitors when phase one opens in 2026.

If that is true for Marshall, consider what it would mean for Jefferson City.

The population of Columbia, Jefferson City, and Fulton tops 182,000.  The combined populations of Marshall, Sedalia, Lexington, Boonville, and Moberly is about one-third that.

Seven state or private institutions of higher education within thirty miles of Jefferson City have more than 44,000 students. Another thirty miles, north and south, are Moberly Area Community College and the Missouri University of Science and Technology that add another 12,000 students. Sporting events and parental visits bring tens of thousands more people to those schools.

Add tto that, that Jefferson City is on the way to the Lake of the Ozarks. Lake Expo recently estimated 2.5-million people visit the Lake every year, 75% of them between May and September.

Increased tourism is only part of the benefit. The steamboat museum here could offer academic opportunities in technology, archaeology, textile preservation, museum management, American Western history, and other programs at or through those higher education institutions. The museum could benefit them and could gain benefits from them.

And think what a museum dedicated to grow in coming years or decades to capture the history of  the golden decades of Missouri River commerce and frontier development (1820-1880) could do.  The goal of the museum is to have artifacts—and maybe complete steamboats—excavated from past river channels, now farm fields from each of those decades.  Arabia museum President Dave Hawley has one of those boats located and test borings indicate the Malta might be complete enough to bring up as whole as possible. He would love to open a new museum with an 1841 steamboat in it.

Think about that.

Six years ago, we had the chance to raise about five million dollars to pay the costs of excavating the Malta and having it here, keeping the museum project highly visible while he rest of the project developed. Only one person was asking, “How do we do that?”  Nobody answered.

At the time, major fund-raising was focused on the Bicentennial Bridge or on the Missouri River Port.

I wrote at the time that I didn’t see hundreds of school buses with thousands of school children and their adult chaperones visiting a river port or taking in the view from Adrian’s Island as they would visit a steamboat museum.  To be clear, I think Adrian’s Island will be appreciated more in ten years than it was then or might be appreciated now. I can’t recall the last time I heard anything about the riverport but it’s not likely something I will take visiting relatives to see.

The Arabia museum is running out of time before it closes and the collection possibly moves to Pennsylvania, significantly, in November, 2026. Making the acquisition of that museum for our city as the official Capital City Bicentennial Project would be about a $50 million initial commitment. But it would transform our city and it would be an incredible driver to prison redevelopment as well as an incredible complement to the convention center/capitol avenue restoration and redevelopment effort.

Based on my conversations with Joe and Josephine Jeffcity, the steamboat museum would enhance chances for approval of a bond issue for the convention center, the library, and the historical museum, together or separately.

How can we make this step toward greatness happen?

Why should we do it?

Some of us are old enough to remember President Kennedy’s September 12, 1962 speech at Rice University when he set the goal of a manned moon landing within the decade:

“But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

The steamboat museum can be, should be, Jefferson City’s moonshot.

At the risk of sinking into hyperbole, bringing this museum to Jefferson City could be the greatest reach for greatness in city history since civic leaders organized the construction of our first Missouri River bridge that helped blunt Sedalia’s effort to steal the capital in 1896.

How can we organize and measure the best of our energies and skills to make it happen?

How can we do it?

 

One Man’s Vision—3 

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I am writing this series of entries—six of them in all at this point—not entirely comfortably because they are intimately personal thoughts, and suspecting that they might be perceived as self-aggrandizing and presumptuous, two characteristics I have not much appreciated in the people I covered in my long life as a political reporter.

Why am I indulging in this exercise that involves unflattering questions about whether our city is so self-satisfied as the capital city that it is reluctant or even resistant to striving to be not just good but great?

And who am I to do it?

Asking the second question is a partial answer to the first question.  Why sholdn’t we expect more from ourselves, FOR ourselves, and for those who come after us?

This city is where I have had a successful career, where I have raised my family, where I have participated in its activities, and where I long to return to regardless of what part of the world I have been in.

I have never sought or wanted to seek public office—-although I have been asked a few times if I was interested. I’m just one of forty-thousand or so citizens living on a quiet street, retired from daily job responsibilities but involved in a few church and civic activities.

I care passionately about my town and what it can be.

—-because I know what it has been and what it is.

That’s right. MY town.  I have a proprietary interest in it, as do you, or as should you. And I want it to be better.  I look around and I see ways that it could be and I wonder if it has the courage to reach for greatness.

I came to Jefferson City fifty-seven years ago to report news for a radio station that no longer has its studios here.  Fifty years ago this November, I joined with one of my best friends, Clyde Lear, to create The Missourinet.  At the time, I was the Secretary of the Jefferson City American Revolution Bicentennial Commission—-I count the successful 18-month effort to bring the American Freedom Train to the town named for the principal author of the Declaration of Independence as one of the best things I’ve ever done for my city.

I am now the president of the regional library board, a member of the Cole County America 250 Committee—a group formed to commemorate, in just two years, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—a life member of the Cole County Historical Society, and Past-President of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

My sixth book, all of which deal with some part of Missouri and/or Jefferson City history, is under consideration for publication with the University of Kansas Press.

It is a mistake to think that historians live in the past.  We don’t. We use the past as lessons to consider the future, and I have been thinking a lot recently about the future of my town, and yours.

A coincident combination of recent events and circumstances has triggered all of this:

—The decision to give up on the penitentiary as the site for a hotel and convention center.

—A “for sale” sign in the window of our former family pharmacy

—The defeat last August of the library’s proposed levy increase to bring our 1970s library system into the third decade of the 21st century, thanks to a secret committee that spread a giant lie to voters throughout the county.

—An ongoing effort to keep an irreplaceable historical resource from leaving the state

—A legislative refusal to fund a major restoration project filled with the lessons of history, and

—-And a citywide social problem

All of this has come together as we look the bicentennial of the City of Jefferson becoming the seat of state government on October 1, 1826, and the bicentennial of the first legislative session held here, beginning that November 20th.

So far I have heard of no plans to celebrate the city’s bicentennial as the state capital.  And I think that says something about the cultural character of my town.

I believe the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Jefferson City becoming the capital city of Missouri could change the way we see ourselves and the way others see us going forward.

Inspired by the story of Mayor Cecil Thomas, recounted in the first episode, I am offering this one man’s vision requires us to be better—no, to be GREATER—than we are.  I hope you have, or will have, your own vision.

I have formed the opinion through many years of observing my town that we have a split personality.

First, we seem to think that being the state capital is good enough.

That has never been true.

Being “good enough” is not good enough.  Great cities do not become great by being “good enough.”

I do not want to hear anyone tell me, “We can’t do this.”  Cities don’t become great because they think they cannot accomplish great things.  They become great by asking, “How can we get this done?”

Another impression I have is that we waste too much time comparing Jefferson City to Columbia.  If that is, indeed, the case, we need to get over it. And this is a good time to focus on what we can be, not what we are in comparison, or what they have that we don’t.

And third, I wonder if we are in some respects a cubicle city in which many of us go to work each day, spend the day in our own little cubicle—seldom standing to look around or to communicate with people in other cubicles—and then go to a larger cubicle that is our home. It is hard to think outside the box if you spend your life in a cubicle.

Our family drug store closed last fall. The historic soda fountain that was a landmark part of our city culture remains.  When the “for sale’ sign went into the window late last year, I began to worry about what would happen to that soda fountain under new ownership of the building—and how it needs to be saved and preserved somewhere if it is to be removed.

But Jefferson City has no place to put it, or to preserve other important artifacts from our county’s past that tell the story of how we have become what we are..

While all of this was happening, I was asked to speak at a fund-raising Tea sponsored by the ladies of the Cole County Historical Society. They wanted me to talk about the history of the society, which this year celebrates the 80th anniversary.

And the Cole County America 250 Commission was being formed about then to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

After I saw the “for sale” sign in the Whaley’s window, I sent an email to the Historic City of Jefferson and to the Cole County Historical Society suggesting it is time for the two groups to get together and start planning a meaningful county history museum.

We do not have a museum that preserves the history of our other communities in Cole County.  There are no exhibits about Wardsville or Taos or Russellville or Osage City, Elston, or others including the little communities that winked out; no exhibits about The Foot or Munichberg.  Where can we go to learn about what an international city we are?  Where will we find the stories of Steve the Tailor, Arris the Pizza-maker, Helmut the Restauanteur, Yannis the Coffee Merchant, the pioneers of Temple Beth-el, the stories of those who serve us food from Thailand, China, Japan, Vietnam, India, Mexico—and Ireland.

Where can we learn of the migration of African-Americans, northern Missouri slaves, who crossed the river to come here to escape guerilla warfare, knowing they were safe in the first state capital to be occupied by the U. S. Army in wartime?  We need to show how Lincoln University came to be and how it has transformed through many decades into an institution of higher learning that has served this community far better than we seem to acknowledge. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people of all races in our area are walking around with degrees and advanced degrees from Lincoln.

And sports—where can we learn about Pete and Ray (Adkins and Hentges), and who WAS Dwight T. Reed?  Or where can we learn about our five (at least) major league baseball players and the five, so far, Jefferson Citians with careers in professional football? Or even the story of tennis star Althea Gibson.

We have two historical organizations, neither of which tells the story of our city and county as well as many local museums I have visited—in much smaller towns—have told about their cities and counties.

We need a city/county history museum built inside the old prison that meets modern museum standards for story-telling and is a true value to the people here and to visitors—a museum within a museum. I mentioned this at the most recent meeting of the America 250 Committee as a project that would be our legacy and committee members seemed attracted to the idea.

Developing such a museum would mean a new location for the Cole County Historical Society museum, which now occupies a 150-year old building with severe limits on space with costly upkeep costs that impede expansion.  The building would be desirable to associations or entities such as those that already occupy large amounts of building space close to the Capitol. Instead of the building being a financial drain, the sale of it would provide part of the financial foundation for a truly representative center of Cole County history.

That’s not the only important public institution that needs a new home that would fit well within the renovation of the old penitentiary and be a legacy from this generation to tomorrow’s  greater city.  We’ll explore that possibility next.

(We are sharing our vision for a greater city.  We are interested in what others hope for a better city for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.  Take some time and let us know in the response box below)

Notes From a Quiet Street (Injured Curmudgeon Edition)

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(being an irregular voyage through some mental flotsam and jetsam that isn’t worth full blogness)

There is so much to writr about these days but unfortunately your constant observer has become a one-fingr typist because was not observant when he went to the mailbox Thursday night and tripped over a little sidewalk wall and found himself in aencounter with a garage door.  The door is fine but the left shoulder of your observer became removed from its socket, said left arm now tightly strapped down.

But I do want anyone in the area to know that on tuesda morning thru Wednesday afternoon I have attanged evhibits from the Steamboat Arabia Museum in KC and National TransportationMuseum in Kirkwood to be in the capitol rotunda to promote legislation to help veterans, provide financial aid to struggling local historical museums, krrp the Arabia in Missouri and help the NMOT achieve its dreams for expansion and protection for and restoration of its collection.

Now onto the original great observations about our times—-

Anybody else getting tired of emails or telephone calls from people wanting to know if your experience with your doctor, your mechanic, your financial advisor, your car salesman, your—-you name it—was a pleasant one?

Feedback Mania has taken hold.

It seems as if every time I go someplace I get an email request almost before I’m out the door wondering if I had a pleasant experience, if the office staff was friendly, or if I would recommend this to others.

Did you enjoy your colonoscopy?  Was the admissions staff chipper enough?  How was the taste of the gallon of stuff you drank?  Was your experience with the drug administered before insertion pleasant?

I’m thinking of saving all of these surveys until I can fill them out while I’m on hold after an impersonal, recorded voice tells me that my call is important.

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I had a dream the other night that I opened my closet door and the only things inside were hangers with t-shirts proclaiming that I had saved a shivering dog or an elephant, that I had helped a school kid get a meal, another kid get healed from a disease (I slept under about three adorable blankets during the night)—you know.

I had bankrupted myself at the rate of $19.95 a month for so many different wonderful causes. In my dream, I decided to go on TV and promise viewers that I would give them a t-shirt that said, “I saved Bob” if they just sent me $19.95 a month.  The t-shirt would cost me 75 cents from the sweatshop in China. I needed the money because I placed a telephone call to see if a Medicare plan was available for me in my zip code and I needed to enroll.

Then I woke up and felt badly because each of these charities is only trying to do good in its small part of the human experience.  All except for the Medicare guy.

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Speaking of insurance:  Can you imagine if Flo and Doug had a child?

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Here is something that is spooky as all get-out:

A few days ago my friend Steve Mays, who was our webmaster at the Missourinet for many years and did great and creative things while some of us sluggards refused to quit living in our  internet caves, was explaining ChatGPT to me.  As I understand it, it’s an artificial intelligence program that lets people feed some information in and the program spits out a theme, a letter, an article, or whatever in whatever format or language or length the user wants.  People talk to it on their cell phones.

Later that day he asked Chat GPT:

Do you have any information about reporting by a man named Bob Priddy?

ChatGPT

Bob Priddy, a renowned journalist in Missouri, retired after a notable 40-year career. He was known for his dedication to government transparency and his critical view on the state of statehouse reporting, especially concerning the decline in media presence and the increasing influence of lobbyists. Priddy also played a significant role in advocating for open government, such as pushing for cameras in judicial chambers. However, he expressed concerns about the worsening state of government transparency in Missouri. His career has been a testament to committed journalism, focusing on impactful stories and the importance of government accountability​​.

As complimentary as it was, I was, and am, a little bit chilled that some lights and wires in a box can churn out something like this about me.

I looked up ChatGPT on Wikipedia.  I wonder who—or what—wrote the article.

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Saw a discussion a few days ago about whether Iowa Hawkeyes’ greatest basketball player should go pro or stay in college. One of the questions is whether Caitlin Clark would take a financial cut if she did.  One sports site, Firstsportz, estimates her net worth already is three-million dollars because of the endorsements of various products and services while in college.

At least Clark has stayed at one school throughout her career instead of being a jock gypsy, as so many athletes have become.

Are we alone in thinking there’s something basically wrong with college sports today?  I doubt it.

The Sacred Burial Site, and Other Musings 

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I knew a man named Ed Bliss who wrote the news for Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite.  They wrote their commentaries; he oversaw the writing of their newscasts.  We often had Ed conduct newswriting seminars at our national broadcast journalism convention.  One day I asked him,  “When is a person no longer ‘late,’ but is only ‘dead?’’  Ed didn’t know.

When will we no longer refer to “the late” Queen Elizabeth II?  Why don’t we refer to “the late Harry Truman?”

King Tut is dead, not “late.”

A related issue showed up a few days ago in a news story that salvagers plan to start plucking unattached objects from Titanic despite an international agreement that considers the wreckage “a sacred burial site.”

What is a “sacred burial site” and does it become less sacred after a certain number of years?

RMS Titanic Inc., based in Georgia, has the salvage rights to Titanic. It plans an expedition next May to shoot a new film of the deteriorating ship and recover any unattached artifacts despite an agreement among Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and France that the wreckage is considered a sacred burial site off-limits to looters and salvors. There is a United States law supporting that position.

RMST, on the other hand, reached an agreement in 1994 with the owners of Titanic (Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association to be considered the exclusive salvor-in-possession of Titanic. It has retrieved many items from the sinking and has put them on display in museums such as the one in Branson and in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  The place is worth seeing.

Video: (12) Titanic Museum VIP Guided Tour in Branson, Missouri – YouTube

The museums are owned by John Joslyn, who led a 1987 expedition down to the Titanic.  The museums hold artifacts recovered after the sinking but not from the wreck of the ship proper.

Other artifacts are housed in other museums in this country, Canada, and the UK.

(Your correspondent has some of the anthracite coal recovered by RMST from the debris field)

RMST says it does not plan to alter the wreckage.  But deterioration of the hull has opened new ways to get remotely operated vehicles inside. Court documents say the company also would “recover free-standing objects inside the wreck.”  The Associated Press reports that includes items in the Marconi (radio) room that aren’t bolted down.

The telegraph that sent out the distress calls that fateful night is a specific target.  RMST wants to pull it out.  A judge has rejected a federal government challenge to that plan saying the historical and cultural significance of that device should not be lost to decay.

There are fears that the creatures and the elements will leave the wreckage nothing more than a huge pile of rust within another twenty years.

Very large.  A couple of months ago the BBC reported on the completion of the most detailed view of the wreck, shaped from more than 700,000 digital photos that create a 3D rendition.  The network superimposed the image(s) on the stadium used for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never seen before – BBC News

or: Titanic: Scan reveals world’s most famous wreck – BBC Newsround

The concept of the Titanic site as being a sacred gravesite brings us back to the “late/dead” discussion.

We have heard of only one human remain found at the wreck site in the many dives to the site, a finger bone with part of a wedding ring attached that was concreted to the bottom of a soup tureen.  It was retrieved but was returned to the sea floor on a later dive. It is generally concluded that the passengers’ and crews’ bodies have long ago been consumed by various deep sea organisms.

Some have pointed to shoes on the ocean floor as being remnants of the people who wore them.  But that contention is questionable.

Some argue that the Titanic is a graveyard—-an argument heard at the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor and for other lost (and many later found) ships.

But if the bodies have long since disappeared, is it valid to consider such sites as sacred graveyards?

And how long must a body be dead before it can be removed from its burial site, perhaps to be studied by various kinds of scientists?

The mummies of Egypt, mummies found high in the Andes mountains, bodies preserved in peat bogs in northern Europe, skeletons excavated at Williamsburg, Virginia—all of these people clearly are not “late” and society does not demand that they stay buried.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, however, requires that Native American remains that are unearthed or located be transferred to their lineal descendants, for reburial—-the sacred ground philosophy.

And that raises a secondary question.  Is it sacred ground only because it is OUR ancestors, OUR people?

And why shouldn’t the Titanic be explored and artifacts be brought to the surface?  Are we dishonoring the dead by displaying the clothes they were wearing when they died—long after any physical trace of the person who wore those clothes has disappeared?  Or are we instead honoring their memories?

An autoworker in Wichita, Kansas—Joe Combs—was looking for answers when he saw pictures from the titanic debris field of shoes:

Titanic Shoes: Myth & Reality | joeccombs2nd

I think your thoughtful correspondent comes down on Joe’s side—that we honor the victims of the great tragedy—-and those who died less tragically hundreds or thousands of years ago by seeing something tangible about them and in doing that we recognize they were people rather than one of x-number of casualties of a tragedy or citizens of lost civilizations.

This concept is brought home strongly at the Titanic museums when entering visitors are given a card with the name of one of the ship’s passengers on it.  At the end of the trip through the museum, the patron can learn if “they” survived or died in the sinking. It’s a good way to humanize the experience.

As for referring to someone as “the late,” maybe we have the answer.  It comes from Robert Hickey, the director of the Protocol School of Washington. In his 550-page book, Honor & Respect: the Official Guide to Names, Titles, and Forms of Address, he writes:

Use ‘the late’ before a name of someone who is deceased – often recently – when one wants to be respectful. For example, on a wedding program:

—-John Smith, the bride’s uncle, will give away the bride in place of her father the late Thomas Smith.

—-The groom is the son of Mrs. James K. Gifford and the late Stephen R. Gifford

Some style guides say a person can only be ‘the late’ if they have been dead less than a decade. 

That sounds like a reasonable guideline.  Even at that, ten years is a long time to be late.

 

Presidents Day

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On this Presidents Day, we pause to think of Missouri’s Presidents.  There are two, only one of whom is a native. And there might be a third.

And then there are a lot of folks who once entertained thoughts of high political grandeur but who fell by the wayside.  We spent some time back in a Missourinet studio last week talking for today’s edition of “Showme Today” about our presidents and some of our presidential wannabes.

In the old railroad depot in Atchison, Kansas is the smallest presidential library in the country. It’s considered an unofficial one because of the peculiar circumstances of David Rice Atchison’s perhaps-presidency.  His grave stone in Plattsburg tells a story:

Missouri’s northwesternmost county is named for him, way up in the corner. For years, Missouri and Nebraska feuded over 5,000 acres known as McKissick’s Island that was left on the Missouri side of the river after a flood in 1867 changed the river channel. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1904 that McKissick Island was still Nebraska territory. It took 95 more years for the two states to agree on an interstate compact approved by Congress that created the legal boundary. But the only way Nebraskans can get to it is by driving through part of Iowa and into Atchison County, Missouri.

Atchison, Kansas is 24 miles southwest of St. Joseph. David Rice Atchison was from Liberty but in the days of “Bleeding Kansas” when the state was deciding if it would be slave or free, Atchison led one of the groups of “border ruffians” who went to Kansas and voted to elect a pro-slavery legislature.

He served two terms in the U. S. Senate. He was so popular that he was elected president pro tempore thirteen times. In those days, the vice-president presided over the Senate and the pro tem was elected and presided only on those rare times when the vice-president wasn’t there.

Vice-President George M. Dallas left the Senate for the rest of the session on March 2, 1849 and the senate picked Atchison to preside in his place.

Presidents were inaugurated later back there—March 4th (the 25th Amendment adopted in 1933 moved the date to January).  The date fell on a Sunday in 1849. Pesident James Polk signed his last bill early in the moring of March 4 because the Senate had been in session all night. In fact, it didn’t adjourn until 7 a.m.

Incoming President Zachary Taylor did not want to be sworn in on the Sabbath and did not take the oath of office until noon, Monday, March 8.

Some argue that Atchison, as president pro tem, was in line to be president of the country under the succession act of 1792.  But Congress had adjourned its session that Sunday morning, meaning Atchison no longer held a Congressional office and therefore there was no line of succession.

He never claimed he was president, “never for a moment” as he wrote in 1880. The truth seems to be that there was no president and no congress for almost a day. In those days of slow national and international communication, there was no crisis.

That’s why the Atchison presidential library, those two display cases in the railroad depot, is “unofficial.”

Incidentally—there was a corresponding controversy in 1877 when Rutheford B. Hays, apparently seeking to avoid another Atchison affair, took took the oath of office in a private ceremony on Saturday, March 3.  But President Grant’s term did not end officially until March 4th. Some think that meant we had TWO presidents for a day.

Speaking of Grant—

Missouri claims him although he was not a native.  He married Julia Dent, the daughter of a wealthy St. Louis County farmer and took up farming in the area.  Grant was Ohio-born and his real name Hiram Ulysses Grant.  He didn’t like his first name and preferred to be known byhis mddleone. He became known as Ulysses S. Grant because Congressman Thomas Hamer nominated him for appointment to West Point apparently not realizing his first name was Hiram and addig a “S” as a middle initial—Grant’s mother’s maiden name was Simpson.

There is at least one letter from Grant during his West Point years in which he signed, “U. H. Grant.”  In time he came to accept the Ulysses S(for Simpson) Grant.  His tactics during the Civil War led to his nickname of “Unconditional Surrender.

Grant’s father-in-law gave the young couple some of his land for their own farm. But the venture was unsuccessful. He also was unsuccessful in other business ventures.

He rejoined the Army at the start of the war and was a Colonel based in Mexico Missouri when he read in a newspaper that he had been appointe Brigadier General.  He commended the unit at Jefferson City for a few days before being dispatched to southeast Missouri where he began building his fame.

Missourian Mark Twain became his close frend in his last days when the family was living in very poor conditions—there was no presidential pension then—and Grant was slowly dying of throat cancer.  Twain arranged to have Grant’s two-volume autobiography published after his death. Sales gave the family some financial security.

In 1903 the Busch family bought the land, now known as Grant’s Farm. Today his farm, his cabin, and the mansion of the Dent Family are part of the Busch family estate.

And that brings us to our native-borne president, Harry Truman, who also has an “S” that means nothing. He was born in Lamar, in southwest Missouri, a town where famous Wyatt Earp had his first law enforcement job.  He also has an S between his first and last names but, unlike Grant, it’s not a mistake.  Formally, there’s no period after the letter because it doesn’t stand for any specific name although he often put a period there.  The “S” honors his two grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

His extensive story is a familiar one to Missourians but there’s a special angle that links Jefferson City to the Man from Independence.   In the 1930s while he was the Presiding Judge of the Jackson County administratie court, President Roosevelt appointed him to head the administrations jobs program.  Three days a week, he drove to Jefferson City where he did business out of a fourth-floor room at the Capitol.  It was during that time that the Pendergast political machine in Kansas City called him to a meeting in Sedalia to tell him he was going to challenge incumbent U.S. Senator Roscoe Patterson in the 1934 election.  There are those who think the Pendergasts wanted him to lose so they could put their own man in the presiding judge’s chair and get Truman out of Jackson County politics. Truman, however, beat Patterson, beginning a career in Washington that led him in 1944 to the vice-presidential nomination and ultimately his historic years in the White House.

We’ve had some others who sought the presidency or thought they might seek it.

Governor Benjamin Gratz Brownan Unconditional Unionist in the Civil War and a founder of he Republican Party in Missouri.  He tried to get Abraham Lincoln replaced as the Republican nominee in 1864, strongly opposed President Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, was defeated in the 1872 convention by New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley—and they ultimately were crushed by former Missouri failed farmer U.S. Grant.

Congressman Richard Parks Bland was the leader going into the 1896 Democratic National Convention.  But his marriage to a Catholic woman generated opposition within the party and he lost to William Jennings Bryan on the fifth ballot.

Champ Clark, the only Missourian to serve as Speaker of the House, was the leading candidate at the 1912 Democratic Convention. Although he was favored by a majority of delegates he never could get to the required two-thirds.  It took 46 ballots for the convention to choose Woodrow Wilson over him.

Young Christopher Bond was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party when the convention met in 1976 in Kansas City and was on a short-list of potential running mades for Gerald Ford. His 12,000 vote upset loss to Joseph Teasdale in November crashed dreams of the White House. But he beat Teasdale in a 1980 rematch and went on to a distinguished career as a United States Senator.

Thomas Eagleton sought the vice-presidency under George McGovern’s campaign. But reports that he had undergone some electro-shock treatments for depression ended is VP run a few weeks after the convention.

Congressman Jerry Litton was a charismatic candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1976 who died with his wife and two children and two other people when their airplane crashed on takeoff from the Chillicothe Airport on their way to a victory party in Kansas City.  Litton was known to think he was presidential material. Jimmy Carter, who was elected President that day, thought that Litton would be President some day.  The Senatorship went to John Danforth.  His top aide told me sometime afterwards that Danforth wasn’t sure he could have beaten Litton.  The what-if game can ponder whether we might have seen a Reagan-Litton contest or a Litton-Bush 41.

We haven’t had a serious contestant since, although there are rumors that Josh Hawley would like to be the running mate of Donald Trump in 2024.

Some presidents bring honor to the office. Others bring dishonor and all of them fall somewhere in between.  Today we honor those who served and the office they held.

It is one of the Monday holidays decreed by Congress in 1968. Although we call it Presidents Day, Congress has never changed its original designation:  Washington’s birthday.

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“The Casinos Will Never Buy That”

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My Representative, Dave Griffith, has filed a third bill in the House that allows sports wagering.  But this bill is different because it gives the legislature an important choice—it can vote for casino industry legislation that does nothing for the state or it can vote for Rep. Griffith’s bill that says sports wagering will be permitted, but only on the state’s terms.

It’s House Bill 953 if you want to look it up on the House web page.

It says sports wagering is no different from any other kind of casino gambling, despite the industry claiming that it is some kind of special system with low returns (it’s not) and will be taxed at the same rate, 21% of adjusted revenues (what’s left after all bets are paid) instead of the 10% the casinos want.  Based on the fiscal note for the industry’s bill that passed the House but died in the Senate, the industry bill would let casinos keep more than $30 million in tax breaks while paying the state less than $13 million.  And that’s just the first of the problematic parts of the bill.

Rep. Griffith’s bill also would force the casinos to pay for the expected tripling of problem gambling that comes with sports wagering, instead of taking money away from programs and services the state committed long ago to finance with gambling revenue.

The bill also would increase the admission fee that casinos pay to the state, set in 1993 at two dollars and unchanged since.  The contemporary equivalent of two 1993 dollars is $4.10, meaning the casinos are keeping more than they are paying the state in contemporary dollars.

Fifty cents of the new admission fee will go to the casinos own host cities that have lost half of their admission fee funding as casino patronage has fallen to a decade. Fifty cents would go to the state gaming commission with the largest share of those proceeds going to alleviate some of the funding crunch at veterans nursing homes—which last year received about one-third as much as they did a decade ago.  The third fifty cents will provide funding to keep the Steamboat Arabia Museum from being bought by  Pennsylvania museum and moved to Pittsburgh.

The casinos can keep the remaining fifty cents.

The gaming commission will adjust the admission fees for inflation each year so that we don’t see the casinos getting richer and richer off of admission fees while host cities and counties and state programs grow poorer and poorer.

More times than I want to think of, members of the legislature have told me after discussing some of these ideas, “The casinos will never buy that.”

Indeed, they haven’t and we expect tooth-and-toenails opposition to the Griffith bill this year.

I wonder, however, if those lawmakers who have told me, “The casinos will never buy that” have ever considered how demeaning to the General Assembly that comment is, almost to the point of a self-indictment.

Who’s in charge here?   The legislature or the casinos?   The answer appears quite clear based on what legislation has been moved—although, thankfully, not finally passed.

What does that statement say about the integrity of the individual legislator or of the General Assembly as a whole?

And for those thinking of seeking higher office, what will sell better with the voters: letting them bet on tonight’s game, or standing with the state’s veterans, educators, and even the casinos’ host cities?

We think we know what the general public’s answers would be to these questions—and that answer does not bespeak confidence in those that public presumes will watch out for its interests. Why, then, are lawmakers who have said that willing to accept the premise?  What is it that they are lacking in making that statement?  And how are they fueling a political climate in which their constituents consider themselves victims of government instead of partners in it?

The casino industry has an incredible amount of influence in the capitol.  One representative told me in the first year of efforts to update casino laws and to protect the museum that the industry would be interested in what was being proposed. “I’ve already gotten two checks from them this year,” he told me.

But this year’s different.  The Griffith bill gives lawmakers a choice. Who’s more important: the people lawmakers know back home or the people who want something from them in the capitol hallways?

Is there a place for courage? Integrity?  Service in the name of the people?  Or will it be business as usual?

We’ll find out this year, maybe.   And maybe voters will remember the answer in the campaign year that comes next.

 

The Center

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Jefferson City likes to think of itself as the center of the state and it is certainly the POLITICAL center of the state.

But, really, it IS the center of the state according to the census bureau and the post office.

If we could cut Missouri out of the United States (and 161 years ago that was tried unsuccessfully) and balance it on the point of a large pin with all of our people living where they live now and weighing the same, the state would balance on a point just south of Jefferson City.

After the folks at the Census Bureau get done counting national noses they start having fun with the numbers.  Missouri wins twice when they do.

A few weeks ago, the census geeks figured that the national population center is near Hartville, population 594, in southwest Missouri’s Wright County.  Now they’ve figured the population center of each state and Missouri’s balance point is near a bend in the Osage River east of Brazito, an unincorporated community about 12 or 13 miles from Jefferson City.

Brazito is served by the post office in Jefferson City and its street addresses have the Jefferson City zip code of 65109.

So Jefferson City IS the center of the state!  Wink, wink.

The designation as the state’s population center is one of two historical events connected with Brazito. The first is that it was named for a Christmas Day, 1846 battle in the Mexican War by members of the First Regiment Missouri Mounted Volunteers under Alexander Doniphan.

The map is from the book J. T. Hughes wrote about the exploits of the unit, Doniphan’s Expedition, published in 1847, shortly after the group returned from opening central Mexico to American military occupation after the later Battle of Chihuahua. It’s an epic story if you want to learn more about the march from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, the Mexican capital taken without a shot being fired, and then south through the arid country side to the battle site near El Paso and then on to Chihuahua.

The other historical moment happened on August 9, 1974, about 39,000 feet over Brazito when Air Force One pilot, Col. Ralph Albertazzie, radioed Kansas City ground control from his blue and white Boeing 707, “This was Air Force One. Will you change our call sign to Sierra Alpha Mike 27-thousand?”  (That’s military language to make sure the receiving person knows it refers to the letters SAM.)

“Roger, Sierra Alpha Mike 27-thousand. Good luck to the President.”

“Roger.  27-thousand.”

It was three minutes, 25 seconds past noon.  Someone reached down and locked the box containing the secret military codes.

And the Boeing 707 was no longer Air Force One, the designation given to any Air Force plane carrying the President of the United States. It became another Air Force plane, tail number 27000.

The Airline Owners and Pilots Association says SAM27000 has the distinction of making 1,440 takeoffs as Air Force One, but it landed with that designation only 1,439 times.  This was that odd flight—on which Richard Nixon, heading back to California after his resignation in disgrace, officially left the office of President—

—over Brazito, Missouri when word came that Gerald Ford had been inaugurated as Nixon’s successor.

SAM27000 carried more presidents to more countries for more meetings and on more missions than any Air Force One.  Seven presidents beginning with John F. Kennedy, 445 missions. And, says the AOPA, “no luggage was ever lost.”

The airplane remains the property of the Air Force but it is on permanent loan to the Reagan Presidential Library. Should you find yourself there, you can go through the airplane where history was made over Missouri’s new population center 48 years ago.

(photo credit: AOPA)

 

 

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Fly Missouri

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Our son flies for Southwest Airlines.  Living the Dream.

Always wanted to be a pilot.  Went through the program at Warrensburg before it was the University of Central Missouri.  Went through the Ramen Noodle days as a flight instructor to pile up the hours that let him fly cargo planes (I told him he should always fly cargo because a box never hijacked a plane) until he racked up the hours to fly people.  Flew regionally then became a First Officer for Southwest five years ago or so.

Great company to work for.  Loves it.

Pretty handsome forehead, don’t you think? A few months ago Rob got to fly a special plane.   Missouri One.

Back in 2015, Southwest decided to honor thirty years of service in Missouri with a special 737-700.

It’s been six years since Southwest unveiled Missouri One.  Don’t know why we haven’t heard about it until recently but it sure is a beauty.  It was decorated at Aviation Technology Services in Kansas City, the first city in Missouri that Southwest started serving.

Southwest went into business in June of 1971. Flights involving Kansas City began on February 18, 1982 and St. Louis about three years later. Southwest has done so well at St. Louis that everything comes out of the East Terminal and Lambert Airport has become the line’s international gateway.

At the time Missouri One took to the air, Southwest had nine other state-themed planes. And now Rob, who lives about a half-hour from Denver International Airport, has gotten to fly his home state’s plane. It wasn’t intentional.  Crews go to the airport and get aboard whatever plane is headed to the city to which the crew is scheduled to fly.  Missouri One just happened to be THE plane that day.

We can’t write perceptive and always-correct political observations, you know.  Every now and then we have to bust a button about something.

How did Southwest get the state seal and all that other stuff on that plane?

Take a look at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLKFVIbVEfk

Missouri hasn’t declared an official Missouri Bicentennial Airplane but if it did, this one would have to merit serious consideration.

Someday, Southwest will have to retire Missouri One.  Maybe the company would donate it to be with TWA Constellation, DC-3, Lockheed 1011, and other planes at the Airline History Museum at the Charles B. Wheeler Airport in Kansas City.  Might not be too soon to suggest it.

(photo credits: Rob Priddy, Southwest Airlines, worldairlinenews.com, Airline History Museum, Kansas City)

 

Michael Collins

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He was the first person who could see where every human in the universe was.

Michael Collins was the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo XI mission that put the first two men on the moon.  For twenty-one hours he was alone in the CMP, Columbia, while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Armstrong “were doing their small stepping and giant leaping” on the Moon, as he put it a year later in Jefferson City.  He had watched them leave in the Eagle landing module headed for the surface.  He could look out a window and see the Earth, the only other place with humans.

No man had ever been in such a lonely position as he was in July, 1969. For part of those 21 hours, he was behind the Moon, completely alone with no communications either with earth or with the two men on the surface.

Michael Collins died yesterday. He was 90.  Only one man remains alive who shared that experience: Ken Mattingly, now 85, who was the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 16.

Only four of the moonwalkers are still with us: Buzz Aldrin, 91; Dave Scott, 88; and Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmidt, both 85.  Six men who flew to the Moon but did not land are still among us—Mattingly, Tom Stafford, 90; Fred Haise, 87; and all three members of the Apollo 8 crew—Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, both 93, and Bill Anders, who is 87.

We remember Michael Collins for the day we sat about twenty feet from him (and the other two astronauts) at the Capitol on the first anniversary of the Moon landing.  NASA had put the Columbia capsule on a big truck and sent it on a tour of state capitols.  It happened to be in Jefferson City that day.  And the radio station I as working for decided to broadcast the events at the capitol.

One of my most cherished possessions is a photograph showing me at the station table with the three astronauts in the foreground. As I recall it, Governor Hearnes’ press secretary, Jerry Bryan, sent the picture to NASA and the three guys signed it.

All three had remarks that day but I thought Collins’ comments were the most meaningful—and prophetic.

“I was born in 1930 and with luck I expect to see out the end of this century.  And when I am thinking about it in 1999, I expect to remember the 1970s as a time when oddly enough, man was hesitant about pushing his frontiers back. And in 1999 we just simply won’t be able to understand that fact because by then it will have become clearly apparent that man does in fact have the capability to step out and explore his solar system and that is something we definitely should do.”

When Collins made those remarks, Apollo XII already had successfully landed on the moon the previous November. But Apollo XIII had become the program’s most famous failure in April.  The Apollo program was in suspension while the investigation of that flight went on and there would not be another Moon landing until January of ’71, with Apollo XIV.

More ominous, however, had been the announcement in January of 1970 that the twentieth mission had been cancelled. There already had been a decline in public interest in the program, despite the drama of XIII, by the time Michael Collins spoke in Jefferson City.  “Been there, done that,” in the short attention span public mind.

About two months after the astronauts were in Jefferson City, NASA cancelled flights 15-19 and then restructured the crews for what would become the last three flights to the Moon—numbers 15-17.

Those events give a special context to what Collins said on that hot July day at the capitol.

None of the Apollo XI crew ever flew in space again.  NASA wanted Collins to stay in the program but he had decided Apollo XI would be his second, and last, trip to space (he and John Young had flown Gemini 10, practicing maneuvers necessary for a Moon landing). But he left a few months later, with no regrets. He wrote in his first book, Carrying the Fire, “I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two.”

He was the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs for a while but found “long hours…flying a great mahogany desk” was not a fit.  About a year later he became the third director of the National Air and Space Museum. He set a goal of having a building on the National Mall by the time of the national bicentennial, 1976.  The ribbon was cut by President Ford for the building on July 1, 1976.  A museum statement issued upon his death said, “That building and the museum it houses stand as a lasting legacy” to “an astronaut and statesman.”

His support for pushing the frontiers back, as he put it in Jefferson City in 1970 never waivered.  On the tenth anniversary of the first landing, he said, “It’s human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice really—it’s an imperative.”

In these times when we our vision is so often by terrestrial concerns and often-petty bickering about them, we need not forget his belief that within us is the need “to stretch, to go, to see, to understand.”

Perhaps if we look less at one another with suspicion and instead see one another as having those innate desires to achieve, we might find light.

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