New Britain herald., 1929-05-10
EARNS WIDE FAME
 FOR TACIlESSNESS
Gsas Howe, "kanl Tack" :" Becomes National Celebrity

DlS6efI0llOu8 Ou I90pp0ac' @4A0"~ music, biz city snobbery, and other choice bits of what-not as written by Kernel Erasmus Tack. the Tact less Texan, may soon head eastern reading lists.
 Within a. year. the pen-name '"rack" and the real name. Gene Howe. have been carried from the Bleak Texas plains 10 all parts Of the country. Right now, Howe IS considering offers of eastern editors to bring ''the world as seen from Amarillo' to eastern magazine and newspaper readers.
 Some of the offers have made him dizzy, he told his Panhandle ellen tele.
 The son of Ed Howe, famed Sage of Potato Hill" Gene stepped from his fathers home in Atchison. kan.. among the oldest of Missouri River towns. into metropolitan newspaper areas. After gaining the 'experi- ence." he headed for the Texas Pan- handle.
 Finder Of Lost Dogs
 There he acquired the Amarillo News-Globe. The Kernels first reputation came as the finder of lost dogs. He is credited with having returned more vagrant puppies to their boy-owners than any person in Texas.
 Whether it was cook stove want ed for hungry family, job for the stricken cattlemen. or customers for church bazaar-if the thing was worthy, Tack was out to get it. He became the friend of the common man:
 1indbergh came and went. and with the Colonel went the name of the "Kernel" through the United States. In the midst of idolization by nation. the Tactless Texan had dared to criticize the aviator.
 It started when the city fathers tclegraphed Lindbergh to stop over on a flight to the west coast Speeches of welcome and a parade to be headed by the high school band were prepared. The wire was not answered.
 In Clovis. N. M., neighboring town across the prairie. twenty thousand people left their business and ranches to see the prince of aviators on announcement he would stop there The holiday became joke I.indbergh explanied later he didn't know Clovis was on his route.
 Idol Smashing Soon after, Lindbergh landed al the Amarillo airport without an- nouncing his arrival. A few little boys flocked out to greet him. They said he twas not bit nice" One or two of them cried. Tack heard about 1t. Unwilling to see a child's vision dissipate unnoticed, he told !, the public what he thought of the idol.
 When Tack said Lindbergh acted "uppity and had the swell head townsman-a few of them-told the editor to go back finding dogs.
 Then came the visit of Mar, Garden and the Chicago opera te Amarillo. Tack told the city it was skinned. that Miss Gardens voice was failing. and that she was so old she was "tottery." He claimed Inc knew more about music than anl six persons in the Panhandle. Wo- men club members took him up and were looking for an expert to test the "Kernel' when he suddenly was called from town on business. He went out of the frying par into the fire with the ladies. This time with the women from Mule shoe. nearby town, whose histor, started with a ranch. Asked by tho women to assist in putting over q name more euphonus and "effete.' Tact considered the color and west rn romance in the first name. He learned Vassar girl from Muleshot had written her mother the nam' was not proper. Tack issued his Ill tmatum: let it be Muleshoe.
 Loses Some, Gains More
 Not so many persons read about the Muleshoe incident in the "Tact less Texan column. Tact had los 700 subscribers after the Mar, Garden incident. More threatened to cancel their subscriptions.
 Instead. more ordered the paper Tact now claims the largest circula ton of any paper in any city O Amarillc's size. He has 3o.000 sub scribers and Amarillo has 40,00t citizens.