2018 INDUCTEES
Chatham Duke
Pre-1950 Staff Award
Born in Warren County, North Carolina, on March 17, 1817, Chatham Duke was the son of Brittain Duke and Sarah Dickerson Duke. Chatham came to Greene County, Missouri, about 1833 with his father, stepmother (Jane Robberson Duke), and siblings, and they settled in the Fair Grove/Hickory Barrens area. Chatham Duke married Frances Jane Adams in February of 1843, and they had five children. His first wife died about 1854, and he married again to Martha Courtney Small. He and Martha had two more children. In 1858, Fair Grove organized its first school, and Duke was named the first schoolmaster. He was probably instrumental in organizing it. It’s not known how long he served as schoolmaster but probably only a year or so, because he died on January 3, 1860, from a smallpox outbreak at the relatively young age of 42..
Clyde Yandell
Pre-1950 Community Service Award
A lifelong resident of the Fair Grove area, Cyle Yandell was born near Tin Town on June 24, 1893, to John and Sarah Yandell. Clyde married Nellie Ann Wommack in 1913, and to this union one child, Reba, was born. (A previous child was stillborn.) Folling in his father’s footstepps, Clyde learned the blacksmith trade, but it was in the field of construction that he earned a name for himself in the Fair Grove community. An architect, carpenter, plumber, and electrician rolled into one, he was a builder extraordinaire.
In 1915, when much of the Fair Grove business district was destroyed by fire, Clyde, along with Roy Triplett, was awarded the contract to rebuild the town. That was the beginning of a long history of building in Fair Grove for Clyde.
In 1916, Clyde and his wife moved into Fair Grove, and in 1924 Clyde built the family home on the north side of Highway 125, where it still stands today. In 1928, he built the Fair Grove Material Company at the bottom of the hill on Main Street, where the MFA station later was located. The building included a shop where Clyde worked on his many projects. Clyde could build about anything. He set up the first grain binder in Dallas County, he and another man built the first power rotary weed cutter in the region, and Clyde built the first bed for an MFA milk truck. When the Fair Grove Schools needed school buses, Clyde built the coaches for them; when Highway 65 was constructed, he made the grade stakes for the project; and when Cedar Bluff Church was built, he drew the plans, even though he had no formal training in drafting. It was said that, given the dimensions of a proposed building project, Clyde could calculate in his head how many board feet of lumber the project would require without resorting to pencil and paper.
Other projects Clyde completed, some of them just for fun, included using a crystal set to make the first radio in the community and building a heterodyne radio powered by two batteries with a wire stretched between two towers for an antenna.
Clyde Yandell died on March 15, 1970, but it’s fair to say that his legacy lives on in Fair Grove, Missouri, almost fifty years later.
Admiral Claude V. Ricketts
Pre-1950 Student Award
Admiral Ricketts rose to the very pinnacle of power in this country, but he never forgot where he came from. Growing up on a farm in the 1910s near Fair Grove, he started his education at Windy Hill, a one-room school west of town, and he attended Fair Grove School through eighth grade. (Fair Grove had only a two-year high school at the time.) Throughout his naval career, Vernon, as he was known to family, maintained Fair Grove as his permanent address, and even after he became Vice Chief of Naval Operations (second in command of the entire U.S. Navy), he still thought of Fair Grove as home and often came back to the Ozarks and to his hometown.
Vernon moved with his family in 1920 to McCune, Kansas, where he completed his high school work. After graduation, he joined the Navy as an enlisted man, and in 1925 he was accepted into the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He was on the academy’s boxing team for three years, serving as its captain his senior year, and he also played on the football team one year. He graduated in 1929 in the top 20% of his class. He was commissioned an ensign and served as a signal officer and a communications watch officer aboard two different battleships. He became a naval aviator in 1932 but was grounded because of less than perfect eyesight.
Following post graduate work at the academy, he served as a naval instructor for a few years before joining the USS West Virginia. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor during World War II, the West Virginia was left a flaming wreck, and Lieutenant Ricketts was afterward cited for meritorious devotion to duty for his efforts to save the capsizing ship.m Duke was the son of Brittain Duke and Sarah Dickerson Duke. Chatham came to Greene County, Missouri, about 1833 with his father, stepmother (Jane Robberson Duke), and siblings, and they settled in the Fair Grove/Hickory Barrens area. Chatham Duke married Frances Jane Adams in February of 1843, and they had five children. His first wife died about 1854, and he married again to Martha Courtney Small. He and Martha had two more children. In 1858, Fair Grove organized its first school, and Duke was named the first schoolmaster. He was probably instrumental in organizing it. It’s not known how long he served as schoolmaster but probably only a year or so, because he died on January 3, 1860, from a smallpox outbreak at the relatively young age of 42..
Gene Kinslow
Post-1950 Staff Award
Gene Kinslow taught science at Fair Grove High School from August of 1968 until he retired from public school teaching in the spring of 1996. During his twenty-eight years at Fair Grove, he left his mark both visibly and invisibly, from the many trees that beautify the school grounds today to the hundreds of former students who still carry with them his legacy of knowledge and inspiration.
Mr. Kinslow was active in the Fair Grove Community Teachers’ Association, serving as the organization’s president during the early 1980s.
The grounds of the Fair Grove Schools had very few trees until 1993, when Mr. Kinslow spearheaded a tree-planting effort and, in conjunction with the school district’s building and grounds staff, developed a maintenance plan for the trees.
Mr. Kinslow’s “eye opener” quizzes at the beginning of each class period were one of the hallmarks of his teaching style. Students knew to expect Mr. Kinslow’s trademark quizzes, and they knew much of their success in his class depended on these daily exams. So, they soon learned to prepare for the quizzes and strived to do well on them.
Another trademark of Mr. Kinslow’s teaching career was the biology field trips that he organized and led. Students loved the field trips, which included activities like identification of trees, mosses, lichens, wild flowers, and aquatic life. One class, upon returning to school after their last biology field trip, remained sitting quietly on the bus. Finally a student spoke up and said, “Mr. Kinslow, we don’t want this to be our last field trip.”
Yet another highlight of Mr. Kinslow’s career was the annual biology float trip he sponsored, usually on the North Fork of the White River. One year KY3 photographer Ed Filmer recorded the float trip and presented in on his Ozark Life Series.
During the last seven years of Mr. Kinslow’s career at Fair Grove, he sponsored the senior honor ski trip to Winter Park, Colorado. In order to qualify for the trip, senior students had to have excellent attendance and good behavior throughout their high school years. The ski trip was an exciting three days that the seniors looked forward to each year. On one of the trips, Mr. Kinslow drove the bus through a snowstorm over the 11,306 ft. Berthoud Pass. “Thankfully,” Mr. Kinslow recalls, “through all the required night driving, snowstorms, slick roads, and mechanical breakdowns, the students always arrived safely back to Fair Grove High School.”
Zetta Miller Ricketts
Post-1950 Community Service Award
The daughter of Linzy and Gladys Miller, Zetta Miller was born in 1916 in Webster County, Missouri, and grew up mainly in the Fair Grove area. She graduated from Fair Grove High School and then attended Gertrude’s Beauty School in Springfield. After graduation she briefly owned and operated a beauty shop on Main Street in Fair Grove.
Zetta married Raymond Ricketts in 1938, and to this union three sons; Rex, Van, and Kim; were born. After living a few years in Bolivar and Branson, the family returned to Fair Grove and purchased a farm three miles west of town. Zetta ran a beauty shop out of her home for many years.
Raymond and Zetta joined the Fair Grove Methodist Church, and Zetta became very active in the church. She taught Sunday School for over 35 years and also sang in the choir for many years. She joined the United Methodist Women at the group’s inception and later held several offices, including president. Zetta did a lot of volunteer work at the church, both in conjunction with the UMW and on her own. These projects included wallpapering, making choir robes, making cushions for the pews, making draperies for the windows, refinishing the wood floor of the church’s League Room, and laying linoleum on the kitchen floor. Zetta and the other women of the church also helped raise money for various projects, and they cooked many meals for church events.
Zetta helped out on the family dairy farm, cleaning the milk room and doing other chores. Her sons were active in 4H and FFA, and she always attended the fairs and livestock shows the boys were involved in.
Zetta’s husband, Raymond, began working for the Southwest Electric Cooperative about 1948, and in early 1952 Zetta gave a speech in St. Louis on rural electrification in the state of Missouri. The speech covered the history of rural electrification, its benefits to farmers, and how they used it for their pumps and electric milking machines. Zetta received a lot of publicity for the speech, and later the same year, she was invited to Washington, D. C. to give the same speech at the annual meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The whole idea was to encourage the government to continue building hydro power plants and invest in electric infrastructure for rural areas. Zetta, her family, and the entire community considered her speech in the nation’s capital an honor and a highlight of her public service career.
Zetta was very active with the Fair Grove PTA while her sons were in school. She served as president of both the Fair Grove PTA and the county-wide organization, the Greene County PTA Council.
In speaking of his mother, Kim Ricketts says, “What I remember most is her boundless energy. Because of that energy, she was asked to lead many tasks around the community and always agreed to do so.” Zetta and Raymond had been married for sixty-two years when she died of Parkinson’s disease in 2000.
Caleb Schaffitzel
Post-1950 Student Award
A 2010 graduate of Fair Grove High School, Caleb Schaffitzel was the most decorated football player to ever play for Fair Grove. He was a four-year starter as both a running back and a defensive back and was named first-team all-conference all four years. He led Fair Grove to the state semifinals his junior year. Caleb earned first team all-state honors his junior and senior years and was named Missouri Offensive Player of the Year his senior year. He set records for the most career rushing touchdowns and the most career all-purpose yards in Missouri high school football history. He also played baseball at Fair Grove and finished near the top of his class academically.
After high school graduation, he went to Missouri State University, where he starred as a defensive back, earning first team All-American honors two straight years and All-American mention three straight years. He was the first Bears football player to ever do that. He was named team MVP three straight years, and he was team captain his senior year. In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Caleb was an academic All-American three straight years and graduated from MSU with a 3.93 grade point average. In 2014, he received the National Football Federation’s Scholar-Athlete Award.
After college graduation, Caleb had a tryout with the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He currently works for the Springfield Police Department. In 2016, he earned the Springfield Police Academy Leadership Award, and in 2017 he was awarded the Springfield Police Department’s Silver Medal of Valor for courageous performance of his duty in the face of a life-threatening situation.