Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

The big newspapers, who were all against him, always referred to him with derogatory names, such as Hamm "Pests in the Pantry" Sparks, Hillbilly Hamm, or sometimes even Honeymoon Hamm, but not one compared with the names he was being called by Earl Finley's men when his numbers started to rise.

As Election Day grew closer, to counterattack Hamm's constant charges that Peter Wheeler was nothing but a rich man's son, a new slogan was added to his campaign ads. They began billing him as Pete Wheeler, "the little man's friend." But Hamm was smarter than they thought. He went on statewide television and made a statement right into the camera. "Folks, usually I try to remain friendly with my opponents but when Mr. Peter Wheeler says he is for the little man, I just have to take exception to that. Because, ladies and gentlemen, there's no such thing as a little man or a little woman in America. According to the Constitution we are all supposed to be equal. I may not be rich like old Pete, but being called a little man sort of hurt my feelings."

Hamm also announced that if elected he would ban all alcohol from the governor's mansion and not allow it to be served at any state function.

This was a good move. He knew that would set well with the state's large Baptist and Pentecostal population. Hamm also knew they would always vote dry as long as they were able to stagger to the polls. It was smart politics to give the church something to get behind and vote against. The Earl Finley crowd found out the hard way that Hamm was a scrapper.

Everything they threw at him he threw right back. When a hastily staged photograph of Peter Wheeler sitting in a field of corn on a tractor appeared in all the papers, Hamm made the best of it. At his next press conference he said, "Old farmer Pete must have been surprised when he ripped up all his corn with that big number four wheat thresher he was sitting on."

On the morning of May 8 Cecil received a call from Coleman, at the advertising agency, who laughed and said, "Well, Cecil, where do I go and eat a little crow? "

Cecil said, "Oh, honey, I'm just as surprised as you are."

What it all boiled down to in the end was not so much that Hamm Sparks won the primary but that more than a lot of people just did not warm up to Peter Wheeler. However, the next day a lot of people in the state woke up and said, "Who is Hamm Sparks?"

Fortunately for Hamm, his Republican opponent in the election, incumbent Delbert K. Whisenknot, had a terrible voting record and the looks and personality of a hedgehog; but even still, beating him was no easy feat and the election was not a landslide by any means. Hedgehog or not, Delbert was at least a familiar hedgehog. Hamm and Delbert were neck and neck right down to the wire and Hamm won by only a narrow margin. In fact, he just barely squeaked in with a lot of last-minute help. In the rural counties the farmers backed him 100 percent, to the man. And late in the day, when it looked like he might lose, it was truly amazing how many goats, mules, bulls, and heifers showed up at the last minute to vote.

One black-and-white sowbelly hog over in Sullivan County by the name of Buddy T. Bacon even voted twice. But this phenomenon was certainly no more amazing than the large number of deceased people around the state who suddenly rose from the dead and stuffed their names in the ballot boxes, voting for Hamm. And nobody knew more names of the dear departed than Cecil Figgs. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a lot of the polling places were loosely run. But none as loosely as the polling places set up in the Italian and Polish neighborhoods of St. Louis. One or two large fellows sitting outside the voting booth with a baseball bat more or less guaranteed a vote for Hamm.

Back in Elmwood Springs, Dorothy made it a policy never to discuss politics on her show or certainly never to brag about the important people she knew but she was so happy for Betty Raye she just had to say something. In early January 1957, after she announced the winner of the What Is Your Favorite Holiday and Why Contest, she said, "As some of you know, Mother Smith and Doc and I were lucky enough to be invited to the inauguration of our new governor and all I can say is we all can be mighty proud of the new first lady of Missouri. She looked as pretty as a picture in that stylish pink outfit and we all wish her just the very best of good luck!"

Jimmy had received an invitation as well but he decided that he would stay home and watch it on television with his buddies down at the VFW hall. And he was glad he did because it turned out to be the TV event of the year. The entire Oatman gang showed up, including Chester, dressed in formal wear for the occasion, and they all sat on the platform behind Betty Raye. During the ceremony Minnie kept waving her big white handkerchief at everyone in the crowd and the whole time Hamm was being sworn in Chester was in camera range, shooting his eyebrows up and down at people in the front row. It was a live show and somehow the wrong button got pushed and the audience at home heard the director in the booth screaming through the headsets, "Get that #$%&*@! dummy out of there!"

Other than that it went fine.

On the morning of November 5, to her secret horror, Betty Raye had awakened and been told she was now married to the governor of the state of Missouri. She was not alone in her shock. A lot of other people had also been horrified to wake up and realize that some unknown ex-agriculture commissioner was now their new governor. But on the first day of his administration Hamm did an admirable and also a smart thing. His first phone call was to Peter Wheeler, to offer him a position in his administration. Which Wheeler graciously declined, as Hamm knew he would. Next he called Wendell Hewitt, another man he had defeated in the primary, and asked him if he would consider the office of state attorney general. Hewitt said yes. It was a good move. Even though Wendell Hewitt had been caught in a motel with a blonde, he was still a popular man with the people.

The second thing he did was to save the taxpayers a lot of money. As part of his "Get Rid of the Pests in the Pantry" program, he announced he was eliminating all the paid staff at the governor's mansion and replacing all the cooks, maids, gardeners, and so on with inmates, trustees from the state prison, and from now on all the vegetables used at the state dinners would come from the garden he was putting in at the back of the mansion and all the eggs and milk from their own livestock.

And if anything could be said for Hamm, it was that he was loyal. His third order of business was to pay back all of those who had helped him. He brought in about twenty old friends and gave each of them an office. Everybody got something. Le Roy Oatman and the Missouri Plowboys were named "state musicians" and were hired to play for all the functions at the governor's mansion during his administration.

Rodney Tillman was appointed his press secretary and Seymour Gravel, another old army buddy down on his luck, was named public safety director and was to serve as his personal bodyguard. These appointments came as a slight surprise but, more important, everyone wondered just how Cecil Figgs would fit into the new administration.

They were curious. Figgs was not a politician. What could he possibly want from Hamm? A few weeks later they found out. A very unhappy Rodney came into Wendell's office with the bad news.

"He's just appointed Cecil 'chief of protocol of the state."

"What? There's no such thing as chief of protocol for the state of Missouri."

"There is now. He's giving him the office across the hall." Wendell shook his head in disgust. "Jesus Christ… things are bad enough with all these bozos he's brought in that don't know what they're doing. Now we're going to have Cecil Figgs fluttering around here for the next four years."