Sat, Oct 11 2008
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Published May 13, 2008 06:24 pm - I wanted to hear from Stan Musial, so I walked up and asked the kid in the St. Louis Cardinals jersey to tell me his story, but the kid just stared at me. Mike Pound: Famous Missourians take stage in Carthage By Mike Pound
Globe columnist mpound@joplinglobe.com I wanted to hear from Stan Musial, so I walked up and asked the kid in the St. Louis Cardinals jersey to tell me his story, but the kid just stared at me. Finally, he looked at my wife and said, “You gotta push the button.” OK, the kid really wasn’t Stan Musial. His name is Matthew, and he is fourth-grader in my daughter Emma’s class. He was pretending to be Stan Musial as part of a class project called Famous Missourians. Each kid in the class was assigned a famous person from Missouri. The kids researched the people assigned to them, wrote a brief biographical sketch, and gathered photos and appropriate costume materials to portray their famous Missourians. For the kids, it’s a pretty neat deal. They get to learn something while having fun. The highlight of the project was the big class assembly last Thursday evening, when the kids got to perform their biographical sketches, in character, for their parents. The whole Famous Missourians thing had been a topic of much discussion both in Emma’s class and around our house for several weeks. First of all, there was the whole “I hope I get to be ...” thing. Most of the kids in Emma’s class had pretty definite ideas about which famous Missourians they wanted to be. Matthew, being a baseball fan, was pretty much hoping he would get to be Stan Musial. Although, to be honest, since Stan Musial was actually born and raised in Pennsylvania, I was sort of surprised to see him on the list of famous Missourians, but I guess he does live in Missouri now. Anyway, Matthew probably doesn’t care about all that; what Matthew cares about is that he got to be Stan Musial. Not all the children got to be the famous Missourians they had their sights on. Emma, for example, wanted to be Ginger Rogers. Emma likes to dance, so she figured it would be fun to do some research on a famous dancer. Emma didn’t get to be Ginger Rogers; her friend Allie did. But Emma was OK with that because she got to be Molly Brown — as in the Unsinkable Molly Brown of Titanic fame. By the way, did you know Ginger Rogers was married five times? I didn’t. But in Allie’s little speech, she mentioned that little tidbit. Here’s how Allie mentioned Ginger’s marital misadventures in her speech: “Can you believe I was married FIVE TIMES?” Emma had a great time portraying Molly Brown. She did her research and found some photos, and my wife ordered copies of newspaper accounts detailing the sinking of the Titanic and a first-person account written by Molly Brown. I even went out and bought Emma a DVD of the movie “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” staring Debbie Reynolds. Emma never got around to watching the movie, so now I’m stuck with a copy of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” but that’s OK. Before the assembly, Emma was a little worried that she would forget parts of her speech. So were most of the other kids, she said. I reminded Emma that since the parents wouldn’t know what was in her speech, if she made a mistake she would be the only person who would know. That seemed to make her feel better. Last Thursday evening, the kids in Emma’s class lined the hallways of their school. Parents who wanted to hear a particular kid’s speech were asked to walk up and push a tiny sticker on a small map of Missouri. The tiny sticker represented a button that triggered the student’s speech. It was cute, but most kids really didn’t care if you pushed the “button” or not. To be honest, I don’t think Matthew cared either. I think he was just messing with me. It was a fun evening, and I’m pretty sure the parents learned a lot about some famous Missourians. I know I did. 
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