Paul Bass kicks off Author Fair

Visitors to the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library on Friday night received the chance to learn about Missouri history along with some insight into the process of writing a book.

Author Paul William Bass presented at the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library on Friday night as a kick off to the weekend’s Author Fair about the process of writing his latest book “Missouri Innovators.” The Author Fair will take place throughout the library from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. today.

The non-fiction book focuses on famous and infamous Missourians throughout history. The cover features figures such as Walt Disney, Ginger Rogers and Harry Truman.

Several of Bass’ 12 published books focus around the history of Missouri or surrounding states. The rest come from his background as a pastor.

“Missouri Innovators” came out of his previous book “The History of Fort Leonard Wood” military training installation in the Missouri Ozarks. A reader of that book, who worked as an inventor, contacted Bass with the idea of writing a book about Missouri inventors.

“A book on Missouri inventors isn’t real exciting to the general public,” he said. “Why not broaden that out into some other areas of important Missourians? Some famous. Some not recognized at all.”

Bass went into politics, entertainment and military among other areas. He started with a list of 300 Missourians and cut it in half. Bass said he wanted to recognize at least 150 Missourians in the book. However, due to the limitations of making a book digestible and easy to carry, they couldn’t all be featured in detail. As a result, he focused on 75 and put a list of another 75 at the end of it.

During the research process, he created a box of files divided by chapter and each person in the chapter. His research involved books, websites and site visits to places such as the Harry Truman library.

“I keep that (box) because I found at some point that you keep your collection of stuff and you may have an idea later that you can go back in that tub, pull a folder and you’ve got a lot of already researched material you can use,” Bass said.

Some of the surprises Bass found during his research included discovering entertainer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason is from Poplar Bluff, actor Dick Van Dike came from West Plains and Ginger Rogers grew up in his hometown of Independence.

One of the most interesting people Bass researched proved to be one that wasn’t widely known, Leonard Goodall from Warrensburg. He lost a leg when he was growing up. When he grew up and struggled to mow his lawn with a push mower, he used pieces of a washing machine to build the first rotary powered mower.

“The timing was right; it was just after World War II; people were coming home; they had homes and yards; they wanted one too,” Bass said. “After being badgered by people, he finally sold the rights to Maytag and made a boot poo of money on the condition they first be manufactured out of Warrensburg, Missouri. They were for a long time.”

Bass said he had two main goals with this book, one strongly related to the story of Goodall.

“I wanted to encourage the state government to put more emphasis and more finances into creating innovators who could stay in the state just like the guy in Warrensburg,” he said. “Get the manufacturing done in the state instead of having to leave ... We need to be promoting innovation, but also the application of manufacturing right here in the state.”

The other, he said, was to educate Missourians and especially Missouri students about the history of the state. This became especially true as the book’s publication, in April 2019, drew closer to Missouri’s Bicentennial in 2021. Bass said some libraries in the state are planning to use his book as part of their celebrations.

“I had not recognized that,” he said, “but what better book to have for the bicentennial than recognizing some of (these people). In spring, a lot of schools have programs, I think in junior high especially, they ask students to select a Missourian and then they have a program where they dress up and have a five minute presentation about each Missourian.

“A great nephew of mine said ‘do you have any suggestions?’ I gave him the book.”

Going forward, Bass said he recently finished an “Oklahoma Innovators” that is going through editing now and is planning to work on books about the innovators from neighboring states such as Arkansas, Tennessee and Illinois. He said he’s also looking at historical books on topics such as the federal prisoner medical center in Springfield.