Marching Down South Odell

First  published in the Marshall Writers Guild 2015 fall anthology, "On the Street Where You Live".

One Friday afternoon in the fall of 1947, the marching band of Central

Methodist College dominated traffic on South Odell as they marched to the Missouri Valley College Gregg-Mitchell Field.  The two schools were to meet on the gridiron. The brassy music of Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite (Karl King) could be heard up and down the street. 

As a member of the band, Bedford Knipschild, who played in the woodwind section (a clarinet) recalled that day…

Keith Anderson, the proud and ambitious music professor at Central Methodist College (now Central Methodist University), decided to show off his talented group  He had the bus stop on the south side of the Saline County Courthouse square, in front of Red Cross Pharmacy. The 1.4 mile parade to Valley’s football field included a significant portion of Highway 65 on South Odell Street. No bypass of Marshall existed at that time, and Odell was not just Business 65 as it is today. Truckers and motorists on their north and south cross-country routes were forced to wait while the music played on and the musicians tramped on.

Girl musicians had their own band, but the two groups assembled together to march. At half-time of the game, the girls entered from one endand the boys from the other, combining to perform their signature numberonce again, Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite.

In addition to Knipschild, Bill Mitchell Lovell, from Moberly, was another member of the band. Bill, who was a music major, later founded the Vox Box, Marshall’s music store. Also playing in the band was the late Wayne Rucker, who went on to own and operate The Marshall Messenger and Rucker Sign Shop. Several other Marshall notables attended the Fayette college in the era of the 40s; among those were:  Alvin Lowe, who became principal of Marshall High School and later served as superintendent of schools and Hugh Dubois who, as an optometrist, served Marshall residents for many years. Clarinetist Knipschild went on to become a medical doctor who practiced medicine at Odell Avenue Medical Clinic in Marshall.

When Knipschild graduated from high school in the spring of 1945, he joined the Navy. The military was training recruits for the invasion of Japan in America’s final push to end World War Two. But then in August of 1945, America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan surrendered. So after 15 months in the Navy, Knipschild was discharged. That was when he enrolled at Central Methodist College, taking advantage of his GI bill benefits.

Chemistry was his college major because as he put it, “I didn’t have Chemistry at Norborne High School, and I thought it sounded good.”After two years, he transferred to Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Upon receiving his bachelor degree, Knipschild was advised that -- jobs for chemistry majors were mostly in the oil industry. That information caused him to rethink a career in chemistry, and, “There was no air conditioning at the time, and it was too hot to live in Texas.”

Someone told him he should go to medical school.

Acting upon that suggestion, he returned to Missouri where he attended the two year medical school at the University of Missouri in Columbia, followed by graduation from Northwestern University in Chicago. 

Eventually Knipschild, as a medical doctor returned to Missouri and began a general practice. He devoted 44 years to medicine, much of those years were on South Odell at the Odell Avenue Medical Clinic. He and his wife, the late Kathryn Detring Knipschild, raised three daughters, Ann, Kay, and Susan, in their home on North Brunswick.  Thinking back to that fall day of 1947, Knipschild laughed. . .the Central Methodist Eagles went down in defeat to the Missouri Valley Vikings by 27 - 14.   But when the CMC band marched down Highway 65, stopping traffic from both directions, they ruled the day.