1960s Dole campaign quartet members to attend Dole dedication at KU

LAWRENCE -- Three members of a 1960s quartet who helped campaign for Bob Dole when he first ran for Congress will reunite during the dedication events for the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, July 19 through 22.

Three of the Bob-o-Links quartet members met as freshmen at Fort Hays College in 1959, the year Dole announced his plans to run for Congress. The fourth member, Bonnie Naegele Langdon, was a newlywed working in probate court at the Russell County Court House.

The Fort Hays freshmen, Nancy Humes of Russell and twins Delores "Del" and Dorothy "Dee" Voss of Logan, were living in the same dormitory and all were majoring in music. Nancy's mother, Mary Humes, worked in the county records office of the courthouse and knew both her daughter's and Bonnie's talents in music. The quartet met in part through their parents' contacts with Bob Dole, who was not a household name in Kansas at the time.

Today, Langdon and her husband, Larry, live in Fairfield, Calif.; Delores Voss Ary and her husband, Mikel, live in Colby, where he is president of Colby Community College; and Dorothy Voss Beecher and her husband, Lynn, live in Parkville, Mo. They have lost contact with Humes, who moved from Kansas several years ago.

The three plan to meet during the Dole dedication events but will not perform.

More than 40 years ago, they sang parodies to traditional tunes with titles such as "Our Man Dole" to "This Old Man [plays knickknack]" or "We've Been Working on the Campaign" to "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Langdon, who played the ukulele, also wrote most of the lyrics.

The Bob-o-Links toured the north central counties, then in Kansas' 6th Congressional District with women known as Dolls for Dole and other campaigners. In addition to performing, the Bob-o-Links joined the Dolls for Dole in pouring pineapple juice for people coming to meet the candidate at each stop. The pineapple juice was a marketing ploy to help people remember Dole's name and not an opponent named Doyle.

Langdon remembered that Dole's first wife, Phyllis, provided a lot of ideas for lyrics and campaign slogans, as well as ideas for the outfits that the Bob-o-Links and Dolls for Dole wore on the campaign trail.

"We wore red, white and blue circle skirts and blouses," Langdon says.

The skirts had "Watch the Elephant Go in 1960" and elephants appliquŽd above the hemlines. They also wore neckties that had slogans such as "Roll with Dole" and "On the Job for Bob."

Langdon says, "Most of the artistic ideas came from Phyllis. She threw us a lot of encouragement. I can't remember what started us singing, though."

Dole won the campaign and invited Langdon to join his Washington, D.C., staff. Langdon and her husband, who then was a Fort Hays student and who also had campaigned for Dole, went to Washington.

"We arrived there in the middle of a snowstorm the weekend President Kennedy was inaugurated," she says. "We had a good time. Bob helped make that happen."

Langdon worked for Dole during the first of his four two-year terms. She and her husband had started a family by 1963 and remained in Falls Church, Va., for 11 years.

When the Langdons fly into Wichita from California on July 16, they first will drive to Lucas to visit her father, Lewis Naegele, on his farm, before coming to Lawrence.

The four-day Dole Institute dedication program will include the ConocoPhillips military air parade and a fashion show; a re-created USO-style performance; an evening of dancing to the Glenn Miller Orchestra; and an outdoor concert by the 312th Army Band as well as the formal dedication. Among the dignitaries attending the events are former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, author of "The Greatest Generation." The events will start at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 19, with the kickoff of the Memory Tent, which will begin with "Heroes of Lawrence, Part 1."

For more information about the event visit www.doleinstitute.org/dedication or www.dolemedia.ku.edu.