Achieve the Honorable: A Missouri Congressman's Journey from Warm Springs to Washington

Appendixes - Index

Appendixes • Index 157 Appendix A: My Strong Right Arm I am about to invite trouble, because the list of friends I have accumulated in life goes on and on and it’s risky to single out anyone. We may not have the joy of seeing one another in person nearly enough, but they all know of my affection and appreciation. The common denominator is that they stood by me through the roughest seas and the best of times—and they are real, in the sense that they keep me grounded in Missouri. So I’ll go out on a limb and mention a few good friends. Since childhood, one of my closest pals through grade school, high school, my fight with polio, and my own public service has been Don Savio, now retired as a bank president in Lexington. Another very close friend of long standing is Larry McMullen, my law school classmate, fraternity brother in Sigma Chi, and now a nationally known trial attorney practicing in Kansas City. My first-year law school roommate was Bob Devoy of Brookfield, now retired as a circuit judge. My longtime friend, attorney Bob Welling of Warrensburg, assumed the chairmanship of my congressional campaign committee when Jack Anderson of Harrisonville passed away. They are examples of friends who knew me “back when,” and who won’t sit still for any silliness from me. Fellow Democrats Jim Mathewson of Sedalia and Harold Caskey of Butler followed me in their service in the Missouri senate, but their unflinching support and counsel from Jefferson City and in their sprawling districts strengthened me politically and personally during my years in Congress, when our elective territories overlapped. Another pal from my Jefferson City days in the state senate was the skilled legislator Norman Lee Merrell, now deceased, who was nicknamed “Peaches,” with whom I shared an apartment for several sessions. And there’s current State Representative Joe Aull from Marshall, whose father, William Aull III, was an esteemed attorney and good friend, although I frequently found myself at the opposite table in court, and I always had my hands full at those times. Over the years, these Missouri legislators and many others worked with me on some of the best examples of state and federal cooperation. I like to tell my many newspaper friends that I once worked in their field—in the sixth grade, when I delivered the Lexington Intelligencer. The Intelligencer’s owner was a former Army major named A. W. Allen, a nice man who contended with constant breakdowns of the press that kept me waiting and then sent me scurrying to make my deliveries, sometimes as late as 11 p.m. on publication days.          158 Other Lexington newspapermen who were good friends over the years included publisher John Shea and his newsman and successor as publisher, Jim Shannon. Mr. Shannon gave me an early lesson in the role of the newspaperman when I was a green prosecutor—I tried to tell him what to put in his story, and he sharply reminded me that he was the reporter, not me, and it was his role to decide what was news, not mine. My friends in the newspaper world include Betty Spaar of Odessa, a friend from our college days at the University of Missouri and a wonderful confidante who keeps me grounded. Betty is a second-generation newspaper publisher, with papers in Odessa and Oak Grove, and her sons and their families are building on the family publishing heritage. Betty also served as president of the Missouri Press Association, the statewide organization of weekly and daily newspapers. And among Betty’s cub reporters who long ago covered my father and me in Lafayette County was high school student Doug Crews, who rose to become executive director of the Missouri Press Association and a nationally honored leader in publishing circles. Another Missouri newspaper person I counted as a good friend and supporter was the late Mrs. William H. “Betty” Weldon of Jefferson City, publisher of the capital city’s News Tribune. Betty Weldon was also nationally recognized as the owner of Callaway Hills, a sprawling and beautiful ranch north of Jefferson City with a long history of breeding champion horses. Although she was a strong Republican and once presented a champion horse to President Ronald Reagan as a personal gift, Betty Weldon and I saw eye-to-eye on many issues and she...