[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 38 (Monday, March 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1590-S1591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO MIKE MURPHY

  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, last week Kansas City lost a treasure. 
A very special person to the Kansas City community passed away last 
week. This is a man, Mike Murphy, who was loved by just about everybody 
in the area. While his family and friends are gathered now in Kansas 
City for his memorial service--I am sure there are hundreds who are 
there--I would like to place these words in the Congressional Record in 
his memory. Obviously, my prayers go out to his family.
  Mike Murphy has been part of the fabric of Kansas City for almost 50 
years. For over 40 years, he was the most dominant local radio 
personality in all of the Midwest. He was popular. In fact, he became 
radio lore. At times over his career, over 50 percent of people 
listening to the radio in Kansas City were listening to his program.
  He began his career in radio in 1968. He went on to rise to a class 
by himself in local and regional radio and, in fact, was the winner of 
the prestigious Marconi award in 1998.
  Thousands of truckers and salesmen throughout the Midwest heard him 
on the mighty KCMO and became his fans and his friends. His program was 
an essential part of their day. Why? What was there about this guy? He 
really did not have a political agenda. Unlike today, he was not busy 
trying to get people all upset about the issues of the day. He did not 
take sides on political issues. He rarely had big stars as guests, but 
from time to time they came through wanting to promote something. 
Because his show was such a dominant show in the area, they wanted to 
get on it. He was just a funny, irreverent guy who always made you feel 
as if you knew him when you listened to his program. He talked like a 
real person. He did not try to show off his intellect. He was smart as 
a whip, but he never felt the need to impress anybody--I mean anybody. 
He just wanted to be your pal. He was fun and funny.
  He is most famous in Kansas City for starting the second largest St. 
Patrick's Day parade in the country. How did he start it? In 1973, he 
was having a drink at a bar that a buddy of his owned. He and a very 
prominent PR guy who worked in campaigns around Kansas City, Pat 
O'Neill, Sr., and maybe one or two of their other friends, called Larry 
Moore, a local news reporter, and said: We are going to start a parade. 
They went out of Hogarty's bar, marched a few blocks, and they got a 
little film on TV that night, and the Kansas City St. Patrick's Day 
parade was born.
  Years later, and thousands of floats and hundreds of thousands of 
spectators, every year in the St. Patrick's Day parade, where was Mike 
Murphy? On a garbage truck. He always rode on a garbage truck. It was 
his way of signaling to the people of Kansas City: I am no big deal. I 
don't need a fancy car. I am happy up here on the garbage truck.
  He was getting upset about Kansas City's heritage at one point, so in 
1996 he decided: We need to have a cattle drive again through Kansas 
City--harkening back to the days of a frontier town, and the stockyards 
were an important part of Kansas City's legacy. What did he do? He 
started a cattle drive through downtown Kansas City. He would get some 
amateur cowboys and then invite a lot of his pals to get on horses and 
take these cattle down the main street of Kansas City.
  He loved characters. He thought being called ``a little goofy'' was 
the highest compliment you could pay him.

[[Page S1591]]

He loved to talk about UFOs and aliens. His show was a vacation from 
serious. His humor was never at the expense of someone else.
  I was so fortunate to be one of the many who became part of his large 
group of regulars. It all began with a phone call to his show when I 
was driving back from Jefferson City to Kansas City as a young State 
legislator. This was over 20 years ago. He was saying stuff on the 
radio--of course, I was listening to Mike Murphy as I drove because 
everybody listened to Mike Murphy. He was saying something on the radio 
that was not correct. This is before cell phones. I pulled my car off 
the highway. I remember to this day exactly where it was. I got on a 
pay phone, and I called his show because he was saying something that 
was not correct. I was scared to death. He took my call. I was scared. 
He was funny. And we became friends. Like hundreds of other people just 
like me, we became friends.
  In fact, we became such close friends that he taunted me until I 
agreed to be part of the cattle drive. One year, there I was on the top 
of a horse riding through downtown Kansas City behind a bunch of 
cattle. That might have been the last year of the cattle drive because 
I think that was the year some of them escaped into a parking garage in 
downtown Kansas City, and the Kansas City police were called to see if 
we couldn't get them off the top of a multistory garage in downtown 
Kansas City.
  I was blessed to be in a bleacher seat to watch his heart at work--
from his annual Salvation Army show to small acts of kindness to mere 
acquaintances, to his incredible loyalty to his friends.
  His heart was as enormous as his patience for BS was small. He also 
had no patience for pompous. Some of his famous shows were shows where 
someone came on his show who would be considered a big deal, a star. If 
that person began being arrogant on Mike Murphy's show, if that person 
started talking down to Mike Murphy's friends--his listeners--Mike 
would let him know in no uncertain terms that the interview was over, 
that he was not interested in allowing anyone to talk down to his 
pals--his listening audience.
  I will never, ever forget the twinkle in Mike Murphy's eye. It is 
important that he remain one of Kansas City's brightest legends of all 
time.
  My hope for Mike Murphy's memory--I am not surprised that Mike chose 
the first 17 days of March to meet his Maker because of the fun he had 
around St. Patrick's Day. My hope is that every St. Patrick's Day in 
Kansas City, people will raise a glass to Mike Murphy, and when they 
do, they will tell a funny story. It would be great if that story would 
be about Mike Murphy, but the most important thing is that it is a 
funny story. Let me tell you, Mike will not care if it is not even 
true.
  To Mike Murphy, the kind of man who walks as a giant among us and we 
do not even realize it until he is gone, a man who never lost sight 
that the little salesman out there driving in his car and the mother at 
home doing her family's laundry were the most important people on the 
Earth--here's to you, Mike. Godspeed, my pal.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

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