Tribute: Frankie Kannard Was Master Showman, Master Musician

By Nathan Gill, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Jul. 24–Who: Frankie Kannard, known as Buster Jenkins, of Ottawa.

Age: 81

When and how he died: June 29 of cancer.

First a sailor: Buster Jenkins was the stage name of Frankie Kannard. Born in 1926 in tiny Rose, Kan., he joined the Merchant Marine in World War II and fought in the Korean War as a Marine. His wife, Betty Shubert Kannard, said one of his dreams was to see the world. He sailed with the military, dropping anchor from Japan to the Caribbean and Europe. He returned to Kansas at age 27 to start a career as a musician.

“When you get a great musician like he was, it’s God-given,” Shubert Kannard said.

Entertaining the Midwest: Kannard learned to play guitar at 4, banjo at 7 and fiddle at 11. Later, his entertainment career would win him induction into the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame and America’s Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame. He traveled from state to state, playing bluegrass and country music at rodeos, festivals and other venues.

Jack Theobald, a friend and bandmate, said Kannard was master showman and master musician. “He could have the audience on his side before he ever played a note.”

Kannard was host of live music radio shows, played in bands, including Buster Jenkins and the Gravy Soppers, and cut several albums. He won several music championships and entertained notables like Gerald Ford and Rosalynn Carter.

“He always viewed himself as a good ol’ boy,” his wife said. “He never thought he was above anybody else.”

During his days as a traveling musician, he married Shubert Kannard, a fellow musician and bandmate, and eventually settled in Arkansas to raise their only child. His daughter, Kallie Pazdera of Liberty, remembers Kannard as a man who grew up a poor Kansas farm boy and lived life on his own terms.

“He knew exactly what he wanted to do early on,” she said. “He would set goals and do them.”

Settling down: In Arkansas, Kannard continued playing for crowds but made his living by teaching in his music store studio until he and his wife moved to Ottawa in the mid-1990s. At a friend’s encouragement, he wrote his autobiography, Tougher’n a Boot, in 2002. He dedicated it to his grandson, Garrett, so he’d be remembered as more than the old “fuddy-duddy that buys him toys to play with.”

In 2005, before becoming ill with lung cancer, he published Tales from Woodson County, full of “old-timey” stories of life in Kansas.

Survivors include: His wife, daughter and two grandsons.

The last word: “You can come from just nothing, fulfill your dreams and do what you want to do,” his daughter said. “He’s got a really great story to tell.”

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