I wrote Tuesday how three of the biggest names in golf — Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and TV commentator David Feherty, managed to get into town last month, play a couple of benefit rounds at the Kansas City Country Club and get out of town without anyone in the media finding out about it for more than a week.
Nicklaus, Trevino and local golfing hero Tom Watson played with a dozen people who teed up $100,000 each for a Watson foundation that supports The First Tee organization, which promotes golf among youths. (I’m told Feherty, who has his own show on the Golf Channel, might not have played and was along for his considerable entertainment value.)
Not only was I mightily irked that the media was caught with its balls in the clubhouse, I wanted to know who the people were that forked over $100,000 each to play.
Well, I’ve found out who three of the big hitters were.
I’m not free to divulge my sources, but let’s just say my barber, who’s been clipping and listening for 60 years, is a font of knowledge.
I can’t claim this as a full, 100 percent scoop, but let’s call it a “one-quarter” scoop. (My first editor told me to never make the reader do the math, so…three over 12 is 25 percent.)
The wealthy swingers…
Don Wagner is a private investor who made millions in the steel tank industry. He has served on various civic and community boards, including having been chairman of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City. He has been a trustee for the University of Missouri-Kansas City and was appointed to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners two years ago by then-Gov. Eric Greitens. (I believe he lives in KCMO.)
Alan Atterbury co-founded Midland Loan Services, a national real estate financial loan services firm based in Overland Park. It is now owned by PNC Financial Services of Pittsburg, PA. Before starting Midland, Atterbury was a partner in the law firm Morrison & Hecker. He has served on many boards, including the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, Midwest Research Institute and the UMKC Board of Trustees. (He may live in Naples, FL, now.)
Tom Devlin co-founded Rent-A-Center, the country’s largest rent-to-own chain, in 1973, when he was 25. The company was sold to a larger company in 1987 for $584 million. As recently as 2014, Devlin headed an investment holding company. (Devlin lives in or near Wichita, where Rent-A-Center was founded. It is now based in Plano, TX.)
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I wanted to note the passing of Jack Campbell, a lawyer, civic activist and personal acquaintance since my early days in Kansas City.
I didn’t know a soul here when I arrived in September 1969, but in short order I caught on with — and moved in with — a group of fairly recent MU graduates. Five of us lived in a rental house at 58th and McGee. Not far away, on 50th Street between Main and Wornall, lived several other friends and MU graduates, including the late R.J. Roper Jr., who was in the beer distributing business, and lawyers Jim Bowers and Jack Campbell.
Jack was a serious-minded but lighthearted fellow, and unlike most of the rest of us he had a girlfriend, Marsha Mulford. As a result, he seldom was out with the rest of us, who often drank late into the night and battled hangovers the next day.
Not only did Jack forge an excellent legal career, he served several years as a state representative from the Brookside area. After he left office, his wife, Marsha Campbell (nee Mulford), was elected to the State House and served several terms. (Do any of you remember her ingenious yard signs, which mimicked the Campbell’s Soup label?)
One of my outstanding memories of Jack was crossing paths with him one day when I was covering the Jackson County Courthouse (1971 to 1978). I was walking to my car in the courthouse parking lot, when Jack looked at my car — a white, 1959 Pontiac I had driven from Louisville — and said, “What’s a man of your station doing driving a beat-up old car like that? You need to get a new car!”
He was smiling, but he was serious. Shortly after that encounter, I went to Art Bunker Volkswagen on Wornall and bought a new, 1971 VW Super Beetle.
Jack died Sunday at Research Medical Center. He was 73 — and a damn good man. Even though I rarely saw him in recent years, I, along with countless others he touched over the decades, will miss him.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Jack Campbell was indeed a very good man. He had cutting sense of humor and was involved in multiple progressive efforts in his lifetime. I worked with Jack on a few, but he was a major help as City Attorney in Parkville when I was a young guy doing a Main Street grant for the city.
A toast to Jack and Marsha. A wonderful couple. They make KC a better place!
Nice tribute, Bob. Thanks.
Jack C was a life long diabetic. That apparently was a factor in his passing.
Those 1959 and 1960 GM models were huge, awesome and mighty machines. They had such distinctive looks to them. As a young boy, I remember how their grills looked like actual faces _ stern ones, too. And those big fin taillights! So what if they got 6 miles to the gallon.
Tom Devlin is also the founder of Flint Hills National Golf Club in Andover,KS. He’s also a big Wichita State booster. The basketball team plays on the Tom Devlin floor at Koch Arena.