This column serves as a spotlight, highlighting the everyday people who work and live in Callaway County. The Fulton Sun takes a moment with someone who is not usually featured in the news but is just as instrumental in making our community the strong and beautiful place we all know and love.
It's been a while since Dean Burk has lived in Fulton, but it still holds a special place in his heart. Burk, who moved to Guadalajara, Mexico when he retired, comes back to Fulton a couple of times each year.
"I've just spent all my life coming back to Fulton," Burk said.
Burk, originally from Hillsboro, Missouri, graduated from Westminster College in 1965. Back when he lived in Fulton, he worked at the Palace Hotel and at the Callaway County Courthouse.
"I graduated from Westminster and I never gave up Fulton," Burk said.
Q: What was your first job?
When I was a third-grader, I developed my own paper route and delivered the Grit paper - it's a magazine. As a high school student, I worked at Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation. They were ammunition makers.
I was on my grandfather's dairy farm in Hillsboro. I milked 50 Holstein cows every day - every morning and every afternoon. And then I taught in public high schools. I taught history, especially Missouri state history and local history.
Q: Who inspires you most?
Harry S. Truman. My cousin was in his outfit in the First World War and our family has known the Truman family every since - 100 years, you might say. He was president when I was a child and our whole family admired him greatly.
Q: What in your life has been the most fulfilling?
Running my farm - raising my crops and milking my cows.
Q: What is something you are proud of?
I'm proudest of my daughter and my grandson. My daughter is the assistant superintendent of the schools in Des Moines, Iowa.
Q: If you could do any job in the world what would it be?
I'm a Rotarian. The Rotarians have an educational system which promotes peace in the world by educating future diplomats and foreign service officers. I think that's the most important thing in the world today for all of us to strive for world peace.
Q: What is a job you wouldn't want to do?
Goodness gracious. Something I wouldn't want to do or would feel bad about doing I would never want to be an executioner because I am firmly opposed to the death penalty. The reason I am opposed to the death penalty is because I had a great uncle who was a defense lawyer and he knew of so many cases right here in Missouri where someone had been executed, hung in the courthouse lawn, and many years after deathbed confessions were made by the real murderer. Human beings have no business making the decision of life or death.
Q: What is something no one would guess about you?
I was so deeply involved in local history and tradition and heritage that no would ever have guessed that I would become an expat and go to a foreign country to retire.
When I got my very first Social Security check, I cashed it and bought a one-way ticket to Mexico on Amtrak I had a personal connection. My ancestors had a Spanish land grant in Hematite, Missouri, and also another one in Guadalajara, from the king of Spain.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Callaway County?
My favorite thing is the Jefferson Jones story. Missouri was a Confederate state and independently from the government of Missouri, he concluded a peace treaty with the advancing Union Army, which is why they call it the Kingdom of Callaway. That's my favorite thing.