Boonville buys campus of closed military school

BOONVILLE, Mo. -- A surprise winning bid by the city of Boonville kept Kemper Military School's campus from being sliced up at auction Friday.

But thousands of school items -- some historic, some mundane -- were sold to the highest bidders. Those bidders included clusters of alumni determined to preserve items ranging from class photographs to ethics codes signed by generations of cadets at what was the oldest military school west of the Mississippi River.

The school's name was sold online to an unidentified buyer, auction officials said.

The city's winning $480,000 bid for the 48-acre property and buildings kept alive hopes for an eventual revival of the school, which was closed last year because of financial problems, said Sarah Gallagher, Boonville's economic development director.

A booster group, Friends of Kemper Foundation, will have first refusal on buying the campus from the city, Gallagher said in an interview.

"The city's purchase removes this tension and sense of urgency about keeping the campus intact," Gallagher said. "Even if the school doesn't reopen, the city can develop that property. It's a matter of creativity."

The Boonville City Council had voted Wednesday in a closed session to bid up to $600,000 for the entire property, plans that weren't disclosed until Friday's auction, Gallagher said.

'Worth much more'

Larry McCoig, regional president of Citizens Bank & Trust, which bought Kemper at auction last September for $2 million, said the city got a solid deal.

"I think the property is worth much more," he said.

McCoig didn't immediately know whether the bank recouped its money from the Kemper auction, a process that generated emotional criticism by marking for sale items of sentimental and historical value.

Asked how much the bank expected to make from the auction, McCoig replied, "All that we can."

"It's just business," he added.

Gallagher said the city purchase means it now owns the campus building in which the local YMCA is located, along with sprawling open spaces -- including former parade grounds and a football field. Other parts of the campus not needed by the city or a reopened educational institution could be sold or developed, she said.

The school was founded by F.T. Kemper with five students in 1844. Famous alumni include cowboy philosopher Will Rogers, Western actor Hugh O'Brian and George Lindsay, who played Goober on "The Andy Griffith Show."

Several hundred people attended the auction -- some to buy, some to see old friends.

Scott Dobbins, 27, of Baltimore, said he came back "just to see for myself that Kemper landed in the right hands, because this is where I really grew up."

Roger Bell, 74, of Wichita, made the winning bid for a 2-foot-tall silver loving cup on a wood pedestal. The bid was personal because "it's the only trophy I ever won."

There was his inscribed name -- "Lt. R.N. Bell" -- honored for leading the best-drilling platoon in 1948. Bell said he has a photo of his then-girlfriend, now wife, sitting in the window of his room, admiring the trophy.

"Now I will take another picture of her with it, 55 years later," Bell said. "But I don't plan to keep the trophy if the school reopens. I think I will put it in my will that I would like to donate it as one little bit of tradition to be preserved."