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By Root 1916 0

and certainly did not need the measly little pittance the office of chief of protocol paid, had accepted the post. But Cecil had a very good reason. After reaching the top of his profession, he had become increasingly restless and bored as the years went by. He no longer planned the smaller funerals, only the large and important ones, but they were few and far between. Cecil had a burning need to stage the big event. He loved those with music, special lighting, spectacular sets, and fancy costumes. He had been so bored that last year he had thrown a big funeral for Miss Lily Mae Caldwell, who had been dead for over ten years. She had founded the Miss Missouri Pageant, so he invited all the ex–Miss Missouris to come back for the huge memorial service to be held on the stage of the theater where all the Miss Missouris had been crowned. Most of the girls had not liked her very much, but they came anyway. They more or less had to. Cecil had arranged for the entire evening to be filmed and not to show up would have made you look bad. The memorial pageant was a grand affair. He’d hired Bert Parks to emcee and had filled the stage with an orchestra and twenty-four different church choirs from all over Kansas City, wearing specially designed blue velvet robes with a jeweled Miss Missouri crown embedded on the front. Ten of the ex–Miss Missouris performed their old talent numbers and all of the others dressed in evening gowns were called onstage one by one. After they had all arrived there, when Cecil gave the cue, twenty-five white doves were released as a huge portrait of Lily Mae Caldwell, lit up at the top of a long pair of glittering silver stairs, was revealed, and Karen Bo Bo, an ex–Miss Missouri, sang “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise.” That extravaganza had kept him busy for a while but after it was over he felt empty and hollow again. What Cecil wanted was a bigger venue and now, thanks to his investment in Hamm’s campaign, he had the entire state to work with.

The first thing Cecil did as the new chief of protocol was to insist on changing the state troopers’ uniforms. He came flying into the governor’s mansion with his costume designer from the Little Theater and hundreds of sketches of the costumes the designer had done for The Student Prince. He explained to a room full of flabbergasted state senators, invited for a gala breakfast, who would have to pass the bill to get the funding, that he wanted to eliminate all the old gray-and-brown uniforms and create a new look, bright blue with red stripes and lots of gold buttons. Cecil got nowhere fast. At the end of the day he’d managed to get funding to create a special governor’s Honor Guard uniform to trot out on state occasions. However, there were three stipulations in the bill: 1) No swords; 2) No plumes; 3) No white boots. Cecil was in a fit over that but at least he got his Honor Guard. The next week he had a slew of decorators descend on the mansion, laden with swatches and paint samples. Thanks to Hamm cutting the budget, the entire staff working in the governor’s mansion were trustees brought in from the state penitentiary. The cooks down to a woman were all murderers, as well as the maids and yard workers, with a few thieves and one five-time bigamist thrown in for good measure. But no matter their checkered past, Cecil set out to make sure they were all in starched white uniforms, neat and clean at all times. One ice-pick murderess named Alberta Peets, who did not like to wear shoes when she cooked, was told by Cecil that she was no longer allowed to go barefoot around the mansion. This upset her very much and some said Cecil was living on borrowed time.

He did not seem to notice. He was too busy making sure that when out-of-town dignitaries came to visit they would not think they were in Dogpatch, USA. He was determined to see that Governor Sparks’s administration was one that would move the state forward and he had a lot of moving to do. Most of the men who surrounded Governor Sparks still wore white socks and brown shoes. After about a month of Cecil Figgs