by Theodore Wiesehan

    Hearing Richard Kimbrough, Crete, effortlessly weave together tales of mid-twentieth century rural life it's hard to believe he failed his first college speech course due to stage fright.
     While describing the characters residing in his fictional Marlow's Gap (population 562) in Goehner Dec. 13, Kimbrough appeared to be recalling the stories of real flesh-and-blood people
     That's because he was - sort of.
     Kimbrough grew up on a farm in western Nebraska six miles from Big Springs and based Marlow's Gap, the focus of his nationally-syndicated column "Country Tales and Truths," on the people he knew there.
     "It was embellished," he admitted. "The thing is, the people around Big Springs that would read the column, even today, they would recognize some of the people. They would know, 'Oh, that's who he's talking about.'"
     There was Bessie Wiggle, the kindhearted, yet nosy do-gooder who bordered on buttinsky, Herman Getz, who never forgave Bessie for intruding on his favorite community activity (musical chairs) with Red Cross rescue breathing classes - that is until the new knowledge saved his 14-year-old granddaughter's life - and even Estie Brakes, who Kimbrough said was "what my grandma would have called a 'windjammer.'"
     Kimbrough appeared at the Goehner United Church of Christ before a crowd of about 50 as part of a Nebraska Humanities Council program by the same name as his column.
     Despite his apparent ease on-stage, as a freshman at Nebraska State Teachers College (NTSC, now University of Nebraska at Kearney) Kimbrough said that he didn't pass a required speech class, "because I was so nervous about speaking in front of groups."
     The Korean conflict interrupted Kimbrough's education the following year and when he reenrolled upon his return he had to retake the dreaded speech class.
     Under the guidance of a new professor, however, Kimbrough thrived at speaking and in his remaining years at the college he represented NTSC at national oratorical conferences in Evanston, Ill., and Redlands, Calif.
     "I've been doing (public speaking) to a greater or lesser degree ever since," he said. "In the last 20 years I've done a lot of speaking."
     Kimbrough has also done a lot of writing.
     His first book, Cross Country Courage, was a juvenile novel published in 1972 based on his experiences coaching cross country. He has published 10 additional books since then, ranging from farm life to education to his latest, The Outsiders, a look at the challenges of adopting a new culture.
     "Country Tales and Truths" began in 1975 as a column for a small newspaper in Williamsfield, Ill. Within months it was picked up by the Peoria Journal-Star, Peoria, Ill.
     Kimbrough continued writing the column for slightly longer than a decade. After reaching syndication through Community Features, San Francisco, Calif., it appeared in approximately 200 papers.
     While the rural archetypes of Marlow's Gap draw knowing nods and chuckles from audiences, another presentation Kimbrough has delivered often meets with angry shouts of audience members and attendees walking out in disgust.
     Posing as a Russian outspokenly critical of the United States, Kimbrough spoke to 157 high schools across the state in the mid-1980s.
     "The program was based on the idea that Americans will generally shrug off criticism of our country if it's delivered by an American," he said. "They won't pay attention to the idea of homelessness or lack of health care if it's an American, but if it's someone from another country they become very defensive."
     Kimbrough's inspiration for the Russian presentation came during a trip to Moscow with a group of Doane College students.
     "We were taken to a discussion by...Soviets that talked about their perceptions of American and one of them was extremely critical of the U.S.," he said. "The problem that I felt when I was there is that our students didn't respond to him very well, and I thought that there are a lot of ways we should be able to respond. (The program) was designed to make students think about problems and what we can do to solve them."
     With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kimbrough said he rarely delivers his Russian presentation anymore and when he does he has had to change the substance of it to adjust for modern geopolitical situations.
     Back in Marlow's Gap it's hard to imagine the good folks stirring up such controversy. Indeed, even the residents of Big Springs whose lives inspired the column read and appreciated Country Tales and Truths.
     "The people of Big Springs have been very receptive to it," Kimbrough said. "Most of them laugh about it and like it. It doesn't put down the folks there, it just says they do funny things. But they've got a good set of values and they're just like people in other rural communities."