“Tumbleweed Smith,” born Bob Lewis in Waco in 1935, has made a name for himself in broadcasting throughout the state of Texas. Inspired by a tumbleweed that rolled across his West Texas lawn and his mother’s maiden name, he adopted the persona of “Tumbleweed Smith” as a radio host in 1970. Lewis’s big break came in August 1969, when he started his own radio show, The Sound of Texas. Amassing a collection of over 14,000 interviews during his long career, Lewis became the owner of the largest private collection of oral histories in the United States.
In 1944, the Lewis family moved from Waco to Fort Worth, where he spent the rest of his adolescence. He returned to Waco in 1953 to attend Baylor University, graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. During his time at Baylor, Lewis joined the theater department and performed in a stage play of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which later won an award for cinematography at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958.
After receiving his BA, Lewis joined the United States Army as an Army Security Agent and was stationed in Germany from 1958–1960. While in Germany, Lewis listened to the American Forces Network with his fellow soldiers. Noticing how nostalgic listening to the American radio made him and other soldiers feel inspired Lewis to find a career in broadcasting. Upon returning from Germany, Lewis settled in Waco and started his career in radio and advertising. Early on, he worked as an ad agent for William George “Dub” King, Baylor’s Sports Information Director, and worked on advertising the Heart O’Texas Fair and Rodeo. In the fall of 1960, Lewis picked up and moved to Big Spring and joined the KBST Radio team. Then in 1962 Lewis would start working for KPRC Radio and Television.
Smith married his wife Susan Zack in August of 1963 and had his first son, Robert Kevin Lewis in August of 1964. Later that year, Smith enrolled in graduate school at the University of Missouri, where he earned an MA in Journalism. After graduation, he moved to Iowa and worked for WHO Radio and Television in Des Moines. He also began working as a freelance feature reporter for NBC Radio’s Monitor. The pieces he developed in that position shaped the style of Smith’s future radio show.
Returning to Big Spring in 1967, Smith resumed his role at KBST. His second son, Brian Zack Lewis was born in 1968. Smith taught broadcasting courses at Howard College for two years. Two of his most notable students there were Alan Doelp, writer for Shocktown, one of the first prime-time emergency room television shows, and Jim Ryerson, a reporter for ABC Television’s West Coast division. After Smith was fired from his position at KBST in 1969, he began to write for Texas Parade Magazine. It was then that Smith made the biggest decision of his career and started his self-produced radio show.
The show was originally titled Tumbleweed, but in April of 1970 Lewis would change the name to The Sound of Texas and took up the radio persona of Tumbleweed Smith. By the end of the year, The Sound of Texas could be heard on ten radio stations throughout the state. The Sound of Texas would garner a decent following after being on the air for a year, with hundreds of listers tuning in to hear Tumbleweed’s interviews with eccentric characters. Episode topics ranged from conversations about high school football, women-led businesses, military history, law, politics, technology, and many other matters. Tumbleweed’s show grew in popularity throughout Texas, and in recognition of his success, he was invited to become a professor at the University of Texas-Permian Basin in 1974, where he taught until 2008. During his thirty-four years at UTPB, he taught broadcasting to thousands of students, many of whom became award-winning journalists. His students won 120 awards during his tenure, most notably the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Award in Broadcasting. After leaving UTPB in 2008, he took up a professorship at Western Texas College in Snyder, a position he stayed at until 2010.
Being a radio personality was not all Tumbleweed was known for. He was also a marketing expert, starting his own advertising company, Multimedia Advertising Company, in 1981. The company won two national awards in 1986. Tumbleweed’s production company, Orange House Productions, also garnered national recognition. The production company won six Communicators Awards, the Governor’s Tourism Award State of Texas, the 2018 W3 Award and two Telly Awards for “The Texas Torera” and “The T & P”. In addition to precuring quality interviews for his show, Tumbleweed also travels to cities all over the state, giving speeches at various academic and professional conferences and entertaining local community groups with stories.
A mentor to prominent radio personalities and television hosts and an innovator in his programming, Tumbleweed Smith earned a favorable reputation in Texas broadcasting circles. His passion for radio and interest in preserving Texas's stories pushed Tumbleweed to local stardom. His legacy persists, and his broadcasting style continues influencing radio show hosts across the state. The show highlights unique aspects of Texas culture and the people, providing a platform for underrepresented communities to connect to a wider audience. The Sound of Texas not only displays the versatility of Texans but embodies the essence of Texans. In addition to precuring quality interviews for his show, Tumbleweed travels to cities all over the state, giving speeches at various academic and professional conferences and entertaining local community groups with stories.
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]]>After Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II, production increased dramatically at home to aid the war effort overseas. In short order, munitions factories popped up throughout the nation. The town of McGregor was chosen as the site of one such munitions factory, known as the Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant. One of only four plants in the U.S. to produce bombs for the war, Bluebonnet became the first so called bomb factory to begin production.
In February of 1942, the government contracted the National Gypsum Company to build and manage an ordnance facility with assistance from the Army Ordnance Department. Officials selected 18,000 acres for the project, and construction began immediately. By October, the first bombs were coming off the production lines. The Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant was officially up and running.
Bluebonnet manufactured three different types of bombs: Semi-armor Piercing, General Purpose, and Fragmentation bombs. The largest bombs weighed up to 2,000 pounds, while the smaller Fragmentation bombs, also known as Parachute bombs, weighed only 23 pounds. For a time, the plant produced its own ammonium nitrate explosives for the bombs, as well.
Bomb bodies and casings arrived at Bluebonnet via the railroad. After unloading, the bomb casings came first to the paint station. An automatic spray-paint machine, invented at Bluebonnet, made this process much easier. Next came the Nose-Pour Building. Workers on the bomb lines placed explosives and padding into the nose of each bomb. The Screening Building was next on the line. Personnel used large screens to sift through explosive materials, getting rid of any impurities or lumps. After this came the Melt-Pour Building where TNT, Ammonium Nitrate and filler were melted and poured into the main body of the bomb, before going to a separate building for cooling. Bombs then traveled to the Tail-Pour building where more explosives could be loaded into the tail before attachment to the main body. Finally, finished bombs were carefully packed up, loaded back onto boxcars, and shipped out of McGregor via the railroad.
At its height, the plant employed over 5,000 personnel, and an employment office opened in Waco to assist with hiring. McGregor’s population, at about 2,000 people before the war, skyrocketed with this influx of workers. Bluebonnet became a thriving town within a town, providing living quarters, stores, a running bus system, a hospital, and fire and police protections. The plant even published its own newspaper, and offered several recreational activities for employees.
When the war drew to a close, the ordnance plant shut its doors and the space was converted to peace time pursuits. Part of the Bluebonnet site remained a factory, producing household items such as furniture and stoves. A large portion of the land was given to Texas A&M for the creation of an experimental research farm. In the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force began building and testing rockets in the area.
Today, Texas A&M still runs an experimental farm, known as the McGregor Research Center. The rest of the acreage is shared between private farmers and Space X, a commercial company, which uses McGregor as a rocket testing site. Though the end of the war meant the end of Bluebonnet, the memory of the place and the contributions of the people who gave it life still survive. Bluebonnet’s legacy of research, innovation, and development continues on the site where it once stood.
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