As I was contemplating my schedule for the final semester of my “first senior year” at Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State), I was getting the jitters. Would I actually be employable after graduation a year hence? I’d logged hundreds of hours studying Shakespeare, when and when not to dangle participles, and where to put the commas and periods (before the quote marks, not after). So this double major in English and Writing decided to cap the term with a “practical” class: Public Relations.
What I thought would be a breezy course in writing press releases turned out to be mostly a time-sucking, real-life project: design a newsletter for Bass Pro Shops, one of Springfield’s newly burgeoning enterprises.
Exact details … lost in time. I do recall the class was divided into four or five teams of four or five students each. Did we get a group interview or discussion with President Johnny Morris? We must have, because somehow we all started with the same basic business goal: Design a mockup of a fact-filled newsletter that celebrates how relaxing it can be to drift on a peaceful lake, casting for bass. Of course, embedded within this dream would be the hint that Bass Pro-provided gear would make that experience all the more pleasurable and rewarding.
I was in a group of friends from The Standard, the student newspaper, where I’d been employed that year. (It actually paid enough to somewhat offset tuition.) Again, the details fail me. But I’m pretty sure that, like all college students, we talked about it up to the last minute and then finally bulldozed through the work at the thirteenth hour.
The Big Day: The Presentation
The entire class crowded into a conference room (it might have been Johnny’s office) at Bass Pro headquarters on Glenstone, a remodeled bowling alley. Each group had a few minutes to make the case for their version of the newsletter.
No one in my group was eager to present; certainly not me, being then (and still) an extreme introvert. But somehow – I’m guessing because I’d probably wound up doing the bulk of the writing and thus was the only one who could reasonably answer any audience questions – I found myself in front of this group of real, employed adults, spinning the idea that our team had come up with the most appropriate manifestation of the goal.
It went pretty well. At least, it must have. My only memory: There was a particular question, posed by one of the execs to each group, that I knew I’d nailed better than the other teams. But other than that, it’s a complete blank.
No, it’s what came next that still sparks a grin … and changed my life.
Sinking the Hook
We’d finished our presentations and received thanks from the Bass Pro execs. And then the whole class, relieved the ordeal was over, bolted for the door. I had nearly escaped when, faintly from behind, I hear a woman’s voice. “Young man! Young man!” Well, I was being swept forward in a school of 20-some young men swimming frantically to squeeze through the door (alas, not many young women in courses like that in those days). I would have never imagined anyone was summoning me.
I had almost escaped when I felt it: the brush of a manicured nail as a woman’s index finger slid down the back of my collar. Then: a gentle tug.
Bass Pro’s marketing was run by Johnny’s sister Carol. She was a tall and fit woman, and she had reached over a group of other kids to hook me and, quite literally, reel me back into the room. I was face to face with her and, perhaps, even Johnny himself.
The short bottom line from the ensuing conversation: Would I be interested in a summer job writing advertising copy? I thanked them for the offer, but said that, with summer classes and my upcoming stint as editor of The Standard that summer and the coming year, I’d be too busy to give it my best attention. I promised to be in touch after graduation. I’m sure at that moment none of us felt that would actually happen.
But it did. A year later, graduation over and job prospects still only tenuous, I called them up. They remembered me. And so shortly thereafter I peered through the doors at Bass Pro on my first day of adult work.
So Why Do I Tell This Particular Story?
All the detail might have been lost in time had it not been for that extraordinary moment when I felt the tug of that finger luring me back into the conference room.
A gaggle of wide-eyed college students witnessed it. (My chums pumped me for details later.) Did Carol seem embarrassed? Don’t think so. She’d had a mission: find out if that kid needs a job. She did what was necessary to achieve that goal, apparently without much worry about decorum and how it would look to others. It took a bit of pluckiness and bravado to pull off that maneuver.
But nearly 50 years later, I’m still perplexed by a couple of points.
First … had Carol’s aim missed, would she have broken off pursuit and let me escape? Who’s to say. So I realize my first foray into “real” employment was serendipitous in the extreme. In the few months I was at Bass Pro, I learned a lot about writing, particularly advertising writing. And I was introduced to print production tech that gave me credibility as I took future career leaps (more later, time permitting). Indeed, that moment may have changed my work trajectory in many ways.
Second … I still marvel at that moment when I felt a finger snag my collar. (By the way, the illustration is of course AI-generated!) I’d like to say there was a learning there, about accomplishing a goal without care for fleeting awkwardness. I can’t say it’s a lesson I embraced easily and often, especially in my younger years. But it’s definitely a useful one worth passing on now.