Octavius J. Wollybugger

The success of tracking down “The Ballad Of Grover Sow” encourages me to tell the story of Octavius J. Wollybugger.

 

Briefly...here it is.

 

As a boy growing up in the Big Thicket of deep East Texas, I loved listening to the sounds of the birds, wild hogs and other thicket creatures.  I spend a lot of time imitating their sounds.  I finally got good enough so I could call up most of the critters.  Eventually I put a combination of those sounds together into sort of a Rebel Yell.

 

After I ventured into "civilization," every now and then (just to get attention...I suppose) I would let go with the “yell.”  It got attention all right.  Nobody had ever heard anything like it.

 

One day, Doug China was on the air and I was in the newsroom at KONO, when he heard me let out the “yell.”  A surprised Doug asked me to do it again.  That is when he named it Octavius J. Wollybugger.

 

Skinny Don Green thought enough of my “yell” that I recorded it for him.  He immediately changed it to a “cheer” for his Green Lite Club.

 

Every now and then I get an email from someone in the New England area who remembers hearing Octavius.

 

Tom Ellis

 

  Octavius J. Wollybugger

 

Skinny Don Green Note:  The “cheer” was never broadcast before it debuted on KONO and was not heard outside the San Antonio area.  Until…later, while working at WDNG in Anniston, Alabama, I decided to use it again.  The “cheer” got the same huge reaction it did at KONO, even from a considerably older audience.   I learned to imitate Octavius, but I would be afraid to try to reproduce the imitation today.   I might never be able to speak again.

    Tom Ellis in the KONO Newsroom

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