Old Time Buddies of McGill

By Keith Gibson

The other day while searching my overloaded computer for some pictures, I ran across a short video of a guy that I grew up with in the old days of McGill.  He was playing guitar and singing one of his favorite songs, Crystal Chandeliers”, and it instantly brought back a flood of great memories.  He was, of course, the one with the perpetual  smile, Kendal Horton.

At one time he lived at the Kennecott Dam in Duck Creek and I was living a few miles away.  One day I saw him walking down the nearby highway.  Thinking that he had car trouble, I stopped to help.  He told me that he was just getting in shape for his 50 year WPHS  class reunion.  He also had recently purchased a Bowflex exercise unit and was always working out on it.

Knowing that he was always checking out the gals, I suspected that was the reason.  Oh, no!  He said that there were some bullies that always picked on him in high school and he was going to clobber them.  Weeks later I asked him if he did.  He replied, “naw, the photographer for the class picture asked us guys to kneel down on the floor in front of the girls in order to get everybody in the photo., and I was one of the few that could get up without any help”.

One early spring morning I called Kendal and asked him what I should do.  I told him several head of elk ran thru the yard and one young bull tripped over something and it looks like it broke a front leg.  With visions of tasty steaks, he told me to hurry up and shoot it and he would be right there to help hang it up and skin and cut it up before anybody knew about it.  I kept telling him that I couldn’t shoot it that particular day.  He demanded to know why.  I told him it was April first.  It took several times before he caught on and then, the telephone line melted from his answer.

Kendal and Tommy Mallas were deer hunting in the Gravel Mountain area one fall day and Kendal had shot a nice big buck and they headed for town.  A game warden came out of nowhere and stopped them.  He asked who shot the huge buck.  Kendal admitted that he had.  The warden asked him why he didn’t put his deer tag on it.  Kendal said that he wanted to get a bigger one.  The astounded warden snapped back, “they don’t make them any bigger”.  He wrote a large ticket and confiscated the buck.  It was rumored that the F & G Dept. had it mounted and put on the wall in their Carson City office.  Kendal of course did get a bigger one a few years later.

He was the type of guy that loved life and had a wonderful time living it.  He had grown up in McGill’s “townsite” at the bottom of E row, and later, on third street, near the ballpark.  He had two brothers, Gordon and Philip.

I have several videos of Kendal and hope to put them all together.  Kendal, also was the one that filmed the great Western movie that we made at the Berry Creek cabin in the “old” days.  Such great times to remember.