It is nearly impossible to use labels when trying to define Ken White.

The myriad trophies and plaques lining the wall of White's study describe him as a champion fisherman.

The serenity of Little Cedar – the log A-frame home where he and wife Donna live on 40 wooded acres in Stockton, MO – paints him as an outdoorsman and avid hunter.

The people who look for his columns about the outdoors in more than a dozen newspapers would agree, adding that White is an accomplished writer.

And the photographs he's taken over the past 50 years seem to illustrate White as a student of history and politics and a trusted friend of former President Harry S. Truman and wife Bess, Missouri's only first couple.

All of these labels might be fitting, but none define White.

His lifelong love affair with the outdoors and photography have given White opportunities he couldn't have dreamed of when he left his hometown to join the Navy in 1947.

White was born and raised in Carrollton, MO a town of about 4,000 that lies an hour east of Kansas City, MO. He grew up in a family of outdoorsmen and often fished and hunted with his father and older brothers as well as his buddies.

It was a conservation agent in Carroll County who persuaded White to join the Navy after high school. He was an old Navy man himself and talked up the service while the two were on hunting or fishing trips.

"So the next thing I knew I was signed up and on my way to San Diego (for basic training)," White says. "When I got back I wanted to kill him because it wasn't all fun and games like he'd said – marching every day and boot camp and all that."

But the Navy life turned out to be a little more fun than White had anticipated after an aptitude test showed he would be well suited for photography.

He was shipped to Pensacola, Fl to attend the Navy's photography school and then spent three years in Key West shooting aerial photographs for the Navy's newspaper and public relations campaigns.

It was in Florida that White was paired with his most interesting photographic subject and eventual lifelong friend, President Harry S. Truman.

"When he first landed there he mentioned that he'd like to have a photographer from Missouri," White recalls. "There was about 26 of us in the photo lab, but I was the only Missourian, so they sent me out and that's how I hit it off with him."

White documented Truman's frequent visits to Key West during the winter months as part of his official duty.

Then he returned to Carrollton after four years of service and started fishing.

While working as writer and photographer for the newspapers in Carrollton and Independence, White gained some notoriety as a master angler. In 1960, he was invited to a first-of-it's-kind fishing tournament.

"Hy Peskin, who was a photographer for Sports Illustrated, decided it would be a good idea to have a world fishing tournament," White says. "Now this was back before there were any tournaments at all then, and so he invited me and some other people for the first one."

Local rival Harold Insley, who hosted the outdoors television show in the Kansas City area, won the Fishing World Series, which fueled White's competitive fire. He kept trying and took the title in 1964 when the event was held on Bull Shoals Lake in Missouri.

"After that, well things just started happening," White says. "They had a Missouri State Tournament and I won that the first two years, then the U.S. Open, which I won two years."

As a two-time champ, White had to lay out of the U.S. Open for a year, but came back to win the title again in 1970, In all, he's won 17 major fishing tournaments.

He made an appearance on "To Tell The Truth" in 1964 in which he was himself (the Fishing World Series champ). Two other men appeared with White trying to fool contestants into thinking they were the real Ken White. He went on to host his own prime-time outdoors television show in Kansas City.

White hasn't entered a fishing tournament in years. He says the entry fees are too high and the competitive focus of the events takes much out of the sport of angling.

But he still fishes whenever he can. He lives up the road from Stockton Lake, which he says is of his favorites in all of Missouri.

"I haven't been fishing since yesterday," he'll say, acting as if it's been months since he's cast a lure.

Today, White writes an outdoor column and shoots for several Missouri newspapers. He's won more than 40 Missouri Press Awards over the decades, mostly for his photos.

It is the photographs of the Truman's, however, that White cherishes most, along with his memories of the couple. He's currently working on a book title "The Trumans: An Uncommon Common Couple" about his experiences with them, although no publication date has been set.

Harry and Bess Truman returned to their hometown of Independence, Mo in 1952, shortly after White had returned to Carrollton. On the former president's recommendation, White was hired as the chief photographer and outdoor editor at the Independence Examiner.

The Trumans were a constant news story in Independence and much of White's time was spent photographing the couple. he was around them almost daily and quickly got to know them on a more real and personal level than during their first encounters in Key West.

"You could see how they were pretty fast," he recalls. "They really showed their colors."

White says he liked Harry Truman for his straightforward manner of dealing with people and situations.

"(He had an) ability to tell it like it is and not put a hedge on anything," White says. "That's the kind of guy he was, if it was this way and that's the way he saw it, that's the way it was."

White photographed the Trumans at the Truman Library, at home and at play. He shot the celebrities who dropped by to see them. he took Bess Truman fishing (Harry wasn't much for the sport), and brought the couple fresh crappie when they were older.

He photographed President Lyndon B. Johnson issuing the couple the first Medicare cards, numbers one and two. He shot Harry Truman's 80th birthday and captured the melancholy of the day former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill died.

"That was a sad day when Churchill died," he says. "I was at the library and I got a picture of Harry holding a picture of Churchill. He really looked sad. He was a really good friend of Truman's."

He was at the Truman home a few days before the former president's death on December 26, 1972, and got one such shot by chance.

"I have a picture of his coat and hat hanging on the rack for the last time," he says. "For some reason, I took a picture of that, and the next thing you know he was gone."

In 1973 White became the director of the Missouri Bicentennial Office, coordinating local bicentennial celebrations across the state. White met so many people that he says the Democratic Party asked him to run for lieutenant governor. He declined.

There's little doubt that White would have enjoyed state politics because of his love for the state, it's history, its people and its natural beauty. The outdoorsman says he has never even considered leaving home for the landscapes of the west.

"I'm a solid Missourian from day one" White says.

(Unusual life of a "solid Missourian" Friend of a president, champion angler, photographer: Ken White seems to excel at everything he touches. – by Michael A. Brothers - News-Leader)

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