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The Hollering Champion My dad, Paul Thomas Kendall, was a historical figure in North Carolina. He was born in 1911 in Stedman. By the time he was only 11 years old he was providing a living for his widowed mother and his sister with his own cows, chickens, garden and bee yard. He ran a newspaper route in the mornings and swept stores in the evenings. In his spare time he climbed church steeples in Fayetteville, catching pigeons to sell. When I was a kid in the 1960s in Whiteville, Dad had a thousand hives of bees, a Perma-Stone construction business, and he was already famous for his backhoe operating skills in the bays and swamps of Bladen and Columbus counties. Yet, he still had time to start a 100-acre blueberry farm for a hobby! Dad’s greatest achievement came in 1983 when he won the World’s Hollering Contest. On Nov. 11, he appeared on the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson. In front of 6 million viewers he performed the best of Carolina hog calling, dove calls, barnyard critter imitations, gospel melody hollering and just plain old hollering, too. The impact he made on North Carolina was to serve as one of the best examples of the kind of rugged individualism that put this great state together. Michael Kendall, Kelly | Four County EMC |
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