After coming home from World War II, Orvillle W. (Buss) Maddox of Hams Prairie, a small Callaway County community south of Fulton, didn't talk much about his wartime combat experiences.
Instead, he was content working at the Harbison-Walker refractory in Fulton during the day and performing in the evenings as a musician with the Missouri Wildcats band in Callaway County.
He often participated in the fiddle contest in Tebbetts on New Year's Eve. When the entered the U.S. Army on Nov. 22, 1942, he took his guitar with him.
After he returned from the war, Maddox lived later at Millersburg in Callaway County. He retired from Harbison-Walker in 1982 and died on April 15, 1996, at age 76.
On this11-11-11 Veterans Day, his daughter, Debra Maddox Kirchhof of Fulton, thought it would be an appropriate time to share some information about her father with Callaway County residents.
"I've been told that he was one of the most highly decorated soldiers from Callaway County during World War II," Kirchhof said.