David C. Blossman contributed many things to the Covington area: his time, his business talents and his funding of worthwhile community projects. I interviewed him in August of 1972 (some 51 years ago) about his life, accomplishments, and his dogs. My stepfather Tex Charrier was his gardener, so I tagged along one day, took a lot of pictures, and became acquainted with Mr. Blossman and his many enterprises.
Dave Blossman
Here is the article that I wrote about Dave Blossman in 1972.
Blossman An Advocate of Covington Youth & Ecology
By Ron Barthet
COVINGTON — David C. Blossman lives in Covington, he was born in Covington, and he's one of the town's chief supporters. His support ranges from operating the local radio station to teaching in a local Sunday school.
When asked what he thought was going to happen to Covington, he said, I think it's going to grow, just grow right up and get too big for the old timers..."
He knows that progress and prosperity can sometimes present a dilemma, for the quality of life here is good, he believes, and he hopes it can be maintained without deteriorating.
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Also an advocate of ecology, long before it was popular," he likes to keep his eye open for anything that can help out the environment. This includes everything from keeping his yard in good shape to being concerned about pollution in the river.
Now living at "Biways," a pine tree shaded home in South Covington, Blossman recalls when his family first came into the area from New Orleans around the turn of the century.
"My father was tax assessor here for a great number of years," he explained. "He worked in the tax assessor's office for many years and when the tax assessor died in office, he was appointed to fill in for the rest of the unexpired term. Then he ran in his own right and was elected to the post, and kept being elected over and over until he was tax assessor for over forty years." His father also died while in office.
"Back in those days, you wrote everything by hand," Blossman added. "Wasn't much to it, then, all the tax rolls were kept by hand. Originally my father did them all himself, then he and a girl did them all on a big typewriter."
Radio Station Owner
Blossman is now associated with quite a number of radio stations, keeping tabs on five of them across the South. "It was kind of a strange thing how I got into this radio station interest," he said. "The company I was working for in 1953, the Hydratane gas company, was using small town radio very effectively in promoting their product.
One day the president said, Well, here we are spending a lot of money on radio, and we don't even have one in our home town.' So the company hired a consultant and he searched out a frequency, found one and built this station in 1953. After one year of operation it had lost $25,000, so the company decided to sell it."
Blossman and his nephew then got together and bought the radio station on July 1, 1955. They got it going pretty good and when another station in Hammond came up for sale in 1967, he thought he'd give it a try.
"And one in Oak Grove, Miss., became available and I bought it," Blossman continued, "and this one in Brandon became available a couple years ago." He recently acquired one in Lakeland, Fla., also. "It's just a little business, requires a little work, that's all," Blossman said, explaining his success. "It's kind of an ideal business. I kind of like promotions. I was a promotional man when I was with the company."
He keeps two German Shepherds on his place as pets, because he feels they're the most intelligent and he's always liked big dogs. He travels quite a bit and has a special truck to carry his dogs around with him. "They're good yard dogs and good watch dogs," he says of his two shepherds, "and they're just good pets."
Teaching Youth Sunday School
He says that the biggest contribution he makes to the community in his opinion is the Sunday school class he teaches almost every Sunday.
It's a very important thing to him, and he thinks he has some very fine youngsters in his class. He teaches them at the Covington Presbyterian Church on Jefferson Ave. "I really enjoy that, working with those fine young people and I was real pleased to help promote 20 of them to Montreat in North Carolina this summer. They had a youth conference up there and really got a great deal out of it. They came back inspired, charged up and all fired up, and it was really a great event for them."
He doesn't really believe in a generation gap, but that youngsters are as wonderful as they always have been. "Young people are very idealistic today, and I'm mighty happy they are. They're searching for something and that's great, in my opinion."
There's no generation gap unless it's generated intentionally, he believes. "All the young people I've come into contact with want to communicate, they're searching, they're idealistic; they're just great."
He told of how the young people of his church handled services last Sunday saying that they did an excellent job and he was proud of them. They did everything, from singing in the chorus to preaching the sermon. He praised the young man who delivered the sermon saying that it was one of the most effective talks he had heard.
"The youth of today are balancing on the brink of comittment," he paraphrased the sermon. "They now have to choose between materialism and idealism."
"Life in the city is getting more and more unbearable," he said, "so many more people out of New Orleans will be coming over this way. They are going to do it, so I think this area has a tremendous growth period ahead of it."
"I just hope they don't cut down too many trees and replace it with asphalt and pavement," he added.
COVINGTON DAILY NEWS August 3, 1972
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He died in an automobile accident seven years after my interview with him.
Exhibits at the Covington Trailhead Visitors Center were made possible by a grant from the Dave and Dorothy Blossman Fund.
See also:
Covington Presbyterian Church Celebrates Centennial
At one point Dave Blossman was interested in hiring me as a news reporter for his two radio stations, but since I already had a newspaper job in Covington, that didn't happen. I did do a daily recorded interview program on WARB ten years later.
