Only in Lamar, Missouri

Lamar advertises itself as the city “where legends begin,” and the city of four thousand lives up to that slogan. It was the place where frontier lawman Wyatt Earp first wore a star and where President Harry S Truman was born. When Truman successfully brought World War II to an end, the submarine fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific were commanded by Lamar High School graduates. Lamar’s legends, however, are not limited to those who found fame after they left the city. Lamar was home to the longest-serving mayor in Missouri history, a legendary newspaperman, a football team that captured seven straight state championships and an infamous killer whose life was ended by a lynch mob. Author Randy Turner details these stories and much more.

Randy Turner is a retired middle school English teacher and worked twenty-two years as a newspaper reporter and editor in southwest Missouri, primarily at the Lamar Democrat and Carthage Press, earning more than fifty awards for investigative reporting, spot news reporting and feature writing. He is the author of thirteen nonfiction books―including 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado and The Buck Starts Here: Harry S. Truman and the City of Lamar―and three novels.