Phil Stong

Author of State Fair

(Nominated by Bonita Killion Merrill)

Like some of the others in this section, Phillip Duffield Stong was not born in Neodesha. He was born on January 27, 1899, near Pittsburg, Iowa, a village that does not exist today. Phil was the son of Benjamin and Ada Evesta Duffield Stong. The father ran a general store in Pittsburg, Iowa. They lived in a nice two story brick home in southeast Iowa. Phil graduated from high school in Keosauqua and then from college at Drake University in Des Moines, where he majored in English. Following graduation in 1919 he began teaching in high schools and found himself coaching football and basketball as well as other subjects. He became fascinated with the different ethnic groups he was exposed to. He completed his graduate work at Columbia University in New York City with a degree in English.

Phil Stong then moved, with the ink still wet on his new Masters Degree, to Neodesha, Kansas, where he taught English classes, coached the school debate team, and managed the school publications from 1921 to 1923. (Ok, so he probably had to be in charge of the Neo-D-Kan and the Bluestreak). During this time he took correspondence courses in education from the University of Kansas. In 1924 he returned to Des Moines to teach journalism and college debate at Drake University.

Bolstered by the wide variety of people he had met throughout his travels, Mr. Stong published State Fair in 1932.

One of the characters in the book was Mrs. Metcalf, the same name as a Mrs. Metcalf he had known in Neodesha. She was reputed to be very pretentious and felt she was a step or two ahead of the rest of the town, being the wife of one of the top Standard Refinery employees. So the Mrs. Metcalf in State Fair was the high & mighty lady of the town that always took the prize for her pickles at the state fair. The word is that the Neodesha Mrs. Metcalf was not entirely pleased to be included in the book.

Phil Stong continued to write more than forty books. He wrote a number of children's books, including one of his most famous, Honk the Moose. He enjoyed writing for children, claiming it helped him remember the basic things one should use in narrative writing: direction, simplicity, and suspense.

Phil died in 1957 at his home in Connecticut.