MISSOURI WATCH: ONCE IN A WHILE, JOE GOT IT RIGHT

Chances are pretty good that most Missourians alive today don't know the name of the governor of Missouri from 1977 to 1981. His name, for those who are now soccer dads and moms and for those of my generation with increasingly lousy memories, was Joe Teasdale. You'll be glad to know he is alive and living in Kansas City, engaged in the practice of law and considered something of a character by hometown TV viewers.

Joe Teasdale, or as he liked to call himself, "Walking Joe," was one of the state's more interesting political figures. A tall, robust and handsome product of Roman Catholic institutions, he gained his first bit of notoriety in the early 1970s by walking across the state, from Kansas City to St. Louis, along the then newly completed Interstate 70.

For those who have just joined us on the political circuit, there was a brief period in American history in which candidates for all manner of public offices took to the highways to gain public notice. For some strange reason that may have seemed perfectly logical at the time, politicians walking from one point to another seemed to be engaged in a qualifying ritual for public service. Don't ask me why, for I never understood it either. But to get back to Joe.

Without so much as a run for student body president at his Catholic alma mater, Joe Teasdale, a young and struggling and virtually unknown lawyer in Kansas City, decided to enter state politics. A product of the strange and bewildering 1960s, Joe decided he would walk across the state, thereby attracting the kind of media attention needed for his first and only run for public office, the highest position in the state.

Joe was unsuccessful on the first try for his political dream, but when the 1976 election came around, he was ready to go again. He won the Democratic primary and faced Kit Bond, who was running for re-election after upsetting the Democratic apple cart in 1968, the year of the Chicago convention, the Yuppie riots and Vietnam.

Bond's problem was that he was considered little more than a GOP Yuppie by Democrats who had long controlled the General Assembly and were at the point of taking over the deed to the entire state bureaucracy. Between running gun battles with the Democrats on the floor above him and a few unfortunate skirmishes with his fellow Republicans who had been elected to hang around the Capitol as a kind of peace offering to the majority party, Bond faced a tough re-election fight. And he faced Joe, who had spent the last four years, well, walkin'.

To most everyone's surprise, Joe won. Democrats danced in the street at regaining an office they thought had been legally left to them, despite the fact they knew virtually nothing about the man who was to assume control of Jefferson City for the next four years.

One thing about Joe, you didn't have to worry about his taking over your political territory. He knew so little about the office to which he had been elected that to undertake a crash course upon election seemed like a terrible waste of time and effort. Besides, he had a good group around him, who could cover for him whenever he wanted to slip back to Kansas City, take a nap, go fishing or attend noon mass at St. Peter's across the street from his executive office. I recall meeting with him over some budget matters for the Department of Mental Health when the noon chimes at St. Peter's caused him to bolt from the room to attend mass. He explained that he wouldn't be available for the rest of the day since after church services he was headed for a fishing trip. "Settle it the best way you can," he told me as he rushed down the stairs.

What I remember about the Teasdale administration, however, is one exceptional service it performed. Perhaps without realizing it, Teasdale brought state government to Main Street, Missouri. Although it was a re-election campaign tactic, Teasdale's staff arranged for town meetings all across the state. Citizens turned out in droves, asking questions, most of which Teasdale didn't have the foggiest idea about. But he always brought with him the directors of various state agencies, who sat dutifully on stage ready to field the public's questions.

Truth is, Teasdale's town meetings were a dog and pony show, but they gave Missourians a sense they were worthy of a governor's attention and they provided them with answers they had never gotten anywhere else. Remembering those public meetings sometimes gives a Missourian a real hankering for Walkin' Joe. His town meetings are worth trying once again.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.