ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In 1952, a youngster, Bobby Jim McGill, moved with his parents from a small town in Oklahoma to a hardscrabble farm in Missouri. Not long after the move, Bobby Jim’s uncle visited the family for a few days stay. At one point during the visit the uncle, put his arm around the young lad and rather forlornly told him he would never be the president of the United States. “Harry Truman is from Missouri,” the uncle stated, “and the people will never again elect a Missourian to be president.”

The uncle was correct, of course. The young lad never became president. Nor did he ever, in the intervening years, run for any public office. But he did, for some instinctive reason, maintain an active interest in politics, occasionally writing letters to elected officials: the town mayor, a representative to congress, a U.S Senator and once, even to the President of the United States. President Eisenhower did not respond.

Now after working at many levels in the field of education, Dr. McGill is retired and resides with his wife in the foothills of the beautiful Ozark Mountains of Missouri.