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iTiCAAOCl/LG Cy speaks out... see page 1 June, 1954 7<HH, IfTliAAxyu/iL gAtttoa—4 Syntfol How many of you ever heard of Thomas Joshua Chilton? Did you read in your city papers about his death last April? About one percent of you who are reading this can answer in the affirmative, for Tom Chilton wasn't widely known- he spent virtually all of his life in Shannon county and he didn't have a job that most of you would consider important. Tom died only a few hours away from his post ol duty. A lew hours VOL. 15 No. 6 before he had been up in Coot Mountain firetower, performing his function as a sentinel against the enemy Flame. Then Death came to him in his bed. Published Monthly by the Death came in the guise of coronary thrombosis, probably pushed on by long hours on duty during more than two years of drouth. It is unimportant now MISSOURI CONSERVATION COMMISSION to speculate on whether it's better to die on a mountain top or to have the end JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI come in bed. Death and the dead are not concerned with this. Tom Chilton came of a family that penetrated the Current river valley * more than a century ago, a family that penetrated and populated. The graves of his ancestors lie up and down that river and all along its banks are people bearing his name. His title in the Conservation Commission files is towerman, EDITORIAL STAFF and he bore it proudly. He was born at Eminence, says his personnel form; DAN SAULTS Editor he joined the Commission in 1941, when he was 32 years old and had three BILL NUNN Associate Editor children. He had done manual labor and part-time farming up to that time. DON WOOLDRIDGE Photographer The file shows that he was six feet, 3V2 inches tall and weighed 175 JUDY JONES Circulation pounds in 1941, which is just the way he looked the last time I saw him, WERNER NAGEL, JIM KEEFE ... Staff Writers about two years ago—tall, lean and drawling. CHAS. SCHWARTZ, JIM KELLER Artists Search your memories, you readers, for Tom Chilton. Did you ever visit the Eminence tower, just off Highway 19? He was there for nearly a decade, Entered as second-class matter October and many tourists stopped at that tall structure for a particularly beautiful 23, 1947, at the post office at Jefferson outlook. Did you ever see the joint Commission-Forest Service film called City, Missouri, under the act of August 24, Twenty-Year Look? The long forester in that motion picture is Tom Chilton, 1912. playing the role that he played in real life. Do you remember him? Can Subscription: In Missouri, free on in you call back the fleeting impression of a chance encounter with a man who dividual request; outside Missouri, $1 per served every Missourian by protecting our resources? year. That really isn't important. The point here is that Tom Chilton may have been unhonored but he was never dishonored. He was one of the small group of men in Missouri who work in fish and game and forest, protecting * the public interest and private investment. He was one of the still smaller group of foresters who have been on a constant alert for more than two years COMMISSIONERS as drouth settled across the face of Missouri and left dry forests for the careless smoker, the casual camper and the incendiarist's match. He was one Frank P. Briggs Macon of the few pairs of eyes that watch unceasingly from the tall towers for a R. B. Clark Clayton wisp of smoke against the sky of spring, one of the pairs of hands that wield Dru L. Pippin Waynesville the broom rake before the creeping row of flames, one of the bodies that Joe M. Roberts Gallatin strain and labor up the rocky hillside to head a fire racing up a gully. Tom was just a man doing a job, and doing it well . one of the 80 * towermen who are the infantry privates in the stern struggle to protect the timber ... one of the 140 state foresters that fight flames on six million acres of Missouri land. ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF Of course, he wasn't unknown and unhonored in his home town, he wasn't I. T. Bode Director just a name in a personnel list to the people of Eminence who knew Tom Jay Morrow Ass't Director Chilton as an individual, with all the strengths and weaknesses of a man. M. O. Steen Fish and aGme You others who never knew him, never crossed your far-flung trails with the G. B. Herndon Fisheries little path he wore across his limited native soil, can know him only as a Paul Tulenko Game symbol of the heroic work that has been done by Missouri's forest fire J. Warren Smith Development fighters during the past two years. As such, remember him. Vernon Bennett Field For there are in conservation many such men as Tom Chilton, who do the Kenneth Hicks Field Service James L. Bailey Protection work that must be done. Words set down on a page may or may not inspire the minds of those who read and listen, but nothing is achieved until toil and George 0. White Forestry sweat and time has gone into the battle. William E. Towell Fire Control Milton G. Hoyer Timber Management Tom Chilton, and the men like him who are manning the forest towers today, fought and are fighting on the true ground of battle. Gordon Smith Education-Information Dan Saults Information D.S. F. 0. Capps Education Montie Glover Fiscal COVER Send all communications to Conservation Com FISHING AT ROCKY FALLS mission, Jefferson City, Mo. Permission to reprint PICTURE Photographed by Don Wooldridge will be granted provided proper credit is given. Send marked copy. Von Hoffmann Press, Jefferson City, Mo. Cy Littlebee says "The only time a job looks too big is afore someone tackles it. The minnit that somebody starts doin it, it shrinks down to size. Same in puttin' back cover." Worry Isn't Workin By W. O. Nagel Along about June every year, a startling change takes earth stopped vibrating to the tread of the wild herds and place in the office. The room shrinks and takes on a dingy deer pricked their ears at the gobble of the last wild turkey. look. The chair suddenly houses a colony of active ants. "Why," I said, "even the bears haven't been gone long. People's voices get loud and the warm breeze coming in the My own grandfather claimed he killed the last bear north of window whispers of a shady bank along a stream where lusty the Missouri, only about 60 years ago." fish chase minnows in the shallows and among the root-wads. Cy's eyes were fixed on the campfire in a faraway gaze. When the phone rings, I grab like I was catching grass "I'd hate to think," he said finally, "that about 60 from hoppers: Who knows? It might be . and, last Friday, now my gran'son'd be tellin about killin the last rabbit in this it was. county." "Al jest called and said they had a gully-washin rain, up That abrupt leap from two generations in the past to two Kirksville way last night," Cy Littlebee's voice drawled in my in the future was a jolt. Cy also had me a little uncomfortable ear. about that last-bear killing. So I decided to resurrect grand That's up on the headwaters of the Salt. A good rain up father again, to see what Cy was driving at. there should give us a rise in the stretch down below the forks "I guess you figure he shouldn't have killed that bear," I sometime this evening. said, "it being the last one in the county." "Got plenty of worms?" I asked instantly. Cy's eyes began to twinkle. "No, but I got a spade all shined up for you, down back "Now, don't git your dander up," he reproved. "It ain't of the barn," Cy told me. "Figgered if you got out here in that pertikler bear I was thinkin about, nor who killed him. time to do some diggin before supper, you could mebbe eat Look:" he squared around, pulled out pipe and pouch. "Your two slices of ham stead of your reg'lar one." gran'dad killed the last bear. My own dad claimed to have "I'll buy that," I assured him. "And I'll be out about killed the last turkey hereabouts. Somebody now livin had a 5:30." grandad that killed the last antelope, or mebbe even the last buffalo. Don't that mebbe bring somethin to your mind?" As I hung up, the world seemed like a pretty nice place. Everybody along the Salt knows that a rise brings the channel I reached out a hand to my rod, lying beside me, to see cats out of hiding in drifts, holes or root-wads to start feeding. if something might be monkeying with the bait. Not a quiver, If you can hit the start of the rise with some good live bait, or so I leaned back against the log again. some rich-smelling mixtures, you're likely to do all right. "Well," I said, "I guess you're telling me we're a young We hit the river about sundown and by what Cy calls country yet.