by Curt Kovener
We applaud Councilman Chad Wilson’s push and the Crothersville Town Council’s agreement to honor famous son Scott McKain by proclaiming a portion of US 31 through downtown as Scott McKain Way.
For those without gray hair or wrinkles (or maybe too many) or for those who have immigrated to the community in the past decade or two, McKain is a professional motivational speaker and author of business best selling books who for over 30 years has fired up businesses from Mexico to Morrocco…from Singapore to Sweden…and at the White House with the president in the audience.
Scott gets around. Those of us who grew up with Dallas & Polly’s boy and Shelley Sue’s older brother, know all of that.
His parents ran a mom & pop (literally) grocery store where Tanner’s Market is today at the corner of Main & Armstrong.
Scott had a gift for gab. Well before he graduated from CHS in 1973, he was a DJ at radio station WMPI in Scottsburg. After high school he got a degree from Franklin College and continued to hone his speaking and story telling craft on radio, TV, and in live venues.
But his speaking got its start with the Crothersville FFA and the district and state public speaking contests. McKain was the local president, then was elected and Indiana state officer and was a national FFA officer. Giving speeches all along the way.
His professional speaking engagements have allowed him to meet successful national and international business people, political leaders, and he has been known to rub elbows with some successful music groups. An interest, no doubt, planted from his father’s entertaining Southern Indiana clubs and dances as a part of the regionally known White River Valley Boys.
Throughout his 30 years public speaking career, Scott always mentions that he grew up in Crothersville… a smaller small town than John Mellencamp’s, he’s noted. On his website (scottmckain.com) he writes fondly of the community during his formative years. Even though we may not deserve it, he continues to be a good ambassador for Crothersville.
I got to grow up with Scott McKain, and being three years his senior got to mentor him (as best backward teenagers can) in the ways of the world (as long as the world didn’t involve too far outside of Crothersville.) We were in FFA and played in the high school band. We played a few gigs as a Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass knock off group back in the day.
We went to church camp together. I know a lot about Scott McKain and he knows a lot about me. Which is why we have a pact of silence when it comes to speaking or writing of some things in our collective past.
It is right for his hometown to officially recognize his achievements, his career and his continued kinship with Crothersville.