Ken Hechler's 100th Birthday
#127 / Flood Time Capsule: 2014
Eight years ago today, The Flood appeared at Marshall University as the house band for a very special occasion: beloved West Virginia statesman Ken Hechler’s 100th birthday.
The former U.S. congressman and West Virginia secretary of state was more than an hour late to his party, but “his friends didn't seem to mind,” reporter David Malloy later wrote in The Herald-Dispatch.
“Dozens of photo flashes went off in the darkened Don Morris Room at the Marshall Student Center when Hechler entered as The 1937 Flood, the band he requested, played ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’,” Malloy wrote.
Hechler took a seat near the bandstand and greeted an extensive line of friends and well wishers one by one.
It was a long Saturday afternoon of songs, stories and tearful reunions with a man who touched so many lives. (To read Malloy’s story in the H-D, click here.)
The Chuck Connection
The Flood had several special connections to Hechler. For instance, joining us for that show with his rollicking tenor banjo was Floodster Emeritus Chuck Romine, who had his own story of Ken. Back in 1957 when he was a young college student, Chuck had been one of Professor Hechler’s earliest political science students.
"I was in the first class he taught at Marshall,” Chuck told Malloy. “He came in 15 minutes late, put his feet up on the desk and then took roll without looking at a book. I learned a lot in his class. He was always innovative. He even asked us for ways to improve his class.”
Of course, Romine ultimately entered a political life himself, becoming a Republican member in the West Virginia House of Delegates, and despite his ties to the other party — Hechler was a life-long Democrat, as a U.S. congressman and as West Virginia secretary of state — “we were always good friends over the years,” Chuck said.
Meanwhile, A Year Earlier…
Ken’s 100th in September 2014 was not the first birthday that The Flood played for him. The previous year found us in Romney, WV, where we were invited to be part of a wonderful surprise party.
More than 100 friends, relatives and representatives of dignitaries brought verbal gifts of appreciation.
“Thank you,” is all a surprised Hechler could say when he realized the gathering was actually for him.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen him speechless,” commented friend Carter Taylor Seaton, the Huntington author who was writing a biography of the congressman, The Rebel in the Red Jeep.
Carter was instrumental in arranging the Romney surprise party along with Hechler's long-time companion, Carol Kitzmiller, whom Ken had married the previous year in Winchester, Virginia.
The Flood was brought into the planning by Carter, Carol and long-time Hecher buddy Bob Nelson. The night before the Sept. 22, 2013, event, The Flood crossed the state and quietly slipped into Romney.
Nelson had arranged for Ken's closest friends to come together from all around the East Coast at a Romney hotel for the party. (Marla Pisciotta of the Cumberland Times-News covered the event; you can read her story with this link.)
A Video Memory
The Flood was booked to provide background music for the do, starting with Ken's favorite song. So as Ken and Carol strolled into the room to cheering well-wishers, the band struck up "Don't Fence Me In." It was a memorable, happy Sunday afternoon, a taste of which you can get in this video that band manager Pamela Bowen shot:
Postscript: Which Reminds Us…
Ken and company weren’t the only Washington elite to drop into the Floodisphere. The two Hechler birthday bashes reminded the elders in the Family Flood of the time when we rubbed shoulders with another D.C. powerhouse, a certain up and coming fiddler named Bob Byrd. But of course, we already told that tale in an earlier installment of Flood Watch. If you missed it, you can read it right here:
