Bad Boy From Rosebud Read Online Free PDF

sound of his own voice." 19
And so, Kenneth Allen McDuff, a big, mean, loud bully, continued to torment the students of Rosebud High School. Every once in a while

 

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residents out in the Blackland Prairie could hear a loud motorcycle and gunshots. The next day someone would find holes in a mailbox.
His size intimidated nearly all of the students and even some of the adults. Moreover, Kenneth took joy in harassing smaller boys and watching their fear. Presumptions of his invincibility and daring, however, would soon be shattered by a smaller, truly courageous Rosebud freshman named Tommy Sammons.
"Tommy Sammons was one of the sweetest boys I ever knew," said Martha Royal. He was a good, quiet kid with an inner strength Kenneth could not see. On the day Kenneth called Tommy "chickenshit" in front of his friends, he finally encountered a young man who would not back down. "He just got tired of Kenneth's foolishness and he did something about it," Ms. Royal recalled. One of the most popular boys in his class, Tommy was athletic, reserved, and unpretentious. Kenneth challenged him to a fight in a ravine traversed by a bridge near the school. Soon, every student knew of the scheduled event, and nearly everyone showed up to watch. Some fully expected Tommy to get slaughtered; he was not a fighterhe was a good kid.
At the appointed hour the boys showed up and the fight began. Tommy might have been smaller, but it was readily apparent that his athletic ability and strength would carry the day. Kenneth was big and loud, but he was neither strong nor fast. Tommy got Kenneth in a headlock; Kenneth bit Tommy's arm. That was about all Kenneth could do. Students lined up along the ravine and leaned over the bridge to cheer for Tommy.
For the kids it was a shallow display of suppressed resentment, but it felt so good. They whooped and hollered and clapped louder and louder with every punch. One of the boys at the site, Bud Malcik, was so elated that he ran home to his mother to tell her, "Old Tommy just whipped the snot out of him." 20 Soon, the word spread throughout Rosebud that, at last, there was "justice for McDuff." The unknown, however, was what would Addie or Lonnie do. Many in the community worried about what could happen to Tommy, but nothing did.
The bubble had burst. Kenneth McDuff was no longer invincible. After walking out of the ditch where he had the "snot whipped out of him," he no longer bothered Tommy Sammons or anyone else at Rosebud High School. Shortly thereafter, he quit school and began working full time pouring concrete with his father. 21

 

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Image not available.
D. L. Mayo, principal of Rosebud High School. "The Iron Man"
ran an effective, disciplined school and was not afraid to confront
and punish Lonnie and Kenneth McDuff.
Courtesy Rosebud Public Library.
III
Kenneth hated farm work and pouring concrete. With his father he worked hard and behaved himself. Unlike most other boys, very little of his adolescence was spent in school engaging in activities with other kids his age. Instead, he labored at construction sites. But after work he had access to cars and motorcycles with which to roam the countryside and hamlets of the Blackland Prairie. During this period his energy, by his own admission, seemed to be directed at fast driving and the destruction of cars. Years later he loved telling torturously long stories about how well he drove. The stories, though, included vivid accounts of his many accidents. When asked to reconcile how someone who drove so well could

 

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manage to wreck so many cars, he smiled, and with the self-assurance of someone whose words were the "truth," replied, "Yea, but I had a touch." 22
The Rosebud area had no real drug problem at the time because young people did not have access to drugs. As Merle Haggard would soon sing, "White lightning was the biggest thrill of all." Like many teenagers, Kenneth started drinking at the age of