"I’m especially glad to see something published about KBOA. It truly was a big influence on Kennett people in my days there. Listening to short-wave and other types of radio has been a hobby of mine ever since those days. I was actually on the air there twice, when I won Dunklin County spelling bees in 1954 and 1955. Paul Jones was a friend of my grandfather. I knew a few of the people whose pictures now greet me at the site.

I remember as a child when a contest was held to decide what the letters KBOA "stood" for. I remember my grandmother’s telling me that the winning slogan was "Kennett’s Best, Others Attest." It took me years to understand what "attest" meant and thus what the slogan meant. I thought she was saying "others at test," as if they were still trying to prove themselves while Kennett had succeeded.

My grandparents listened to Home Town News religiously, particularly on trips to their Current River cabin in Arkansas where they weren’t in immediate touch with Kennett happenings. My surviving relatives in and near Kennett still listen to Home Town News. My grandparents and father were avid Cardinals fans, and I remember always hearing the games on KBOA. I remember Platter Party as a youngster growing up on the farm; I think it was a request show, and it was fun to hear familiar names read out. I think a syndicated show called Ports of Call was also aired in those days; I can’t remember much about it except that it was fascinatingly exotic. I never knew Johnny Mack and your father, but I certainly remember their voices.

And I remember all the country and gospel music, which got on my nerves but appealed to early everyone else, including my grandmother. She especially liked some basso profundo gospel singer who could be heard on Sunday mornings during his singing group’s program. I enjoyed reading Chester Scallorns’ recollection of singers on KBOA; two of them, Roy Day and J. A. Cooper, were my barbers when I was a boy. For that matter, I remember being in school with Chester’s son Joe.

Your inclusion of the Gobler Mercantile Company material is gratifying, too. The farm on which I grew up was about midway between Kennett and Gobler, and my first four elementary grades were spent at Little River School, on the county line road NN at Tinkerville just a mile or two north of Gobler. We shopped mostly in Kennett, but occasionally my father or grandfather would make a trip to Gobler, and they took me a few times. I recall the big crowds that Virginia Branch’s affectionate history of the store mentions. The crowds had a reputation of being a little rough at times, as Ms. Branch also mentions. And I recall hearing of the fire, and going to look at the ruins afterward. It was a unique place and time. Thanks for going to so much trouble to preserve a significant piece of history for us."

Bill Kelley
Chicago, IL
October, 1997