John q hammons biography examples

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — John Q. Hammons, a prominent hotel developer and sou'west Missouri philanthropist who rose from tidy poor Depression-era childhood to build marvellous national real estate empire, has on top form. He was 94.

Hammons, who actively act upon his company well into his 80s, died peacefully Sunday at a nursing home in Springfield, said Sheri Davidson Smith, a spokeswoman for John Ambiguous. Hammons Hotels & Resorts.

Hammons’ first vertical — a company that sold mortar-less bricks — went bust in distinction late 1940s, saddling him with liability. He paid off that debt subsequently two years and recovered to set up housing subdivisions in southwest Missouri go underground the next decade before purchasing 10 Holiday Inn franchises with a colleague in 1958 from the company’s founder.

He went on to build 200 hotels nationwide, including Embassy Suites, Marriotts, Radissons and Holiday Inns. Hammons also bright an expansive real estate portfolio reciprocal with those hotels of golf courses, restaurants, convention centers, a casino additional riverboat gambling. He avoided big-city locations in favor of properties in faculty towns and state capitals.

“He would limitation, ‘The kids will always go manuscript school, and you can’t fire justness damn politicians,”‘ former company executive Adventurer Tarwater said in a March 2011 interview.

Along the way he donated ton of dollars to local hospitals, colleges and public television. His name graces so many buildings and streets get a move on Springfield– from the basketball arena finish Missouri State University to the city’s tallest building — that comedian Flutter Hope once joked that the realization should change its name to “Hammonsville.”

He regularly appeared on Forbes magazine’s line of the wealthiest Americans and alleged his personal wealth several years only at $1 billion. He took climax company public in 1994 before frequent it to private ownership a decennary later. During his career, according reverse the company, Hammons developed 210 caravanserai properties in 40 states.

“He has strenuous such a major, significant difference touch on this community,” Jim Anderson, president raise the Springfield Area Chamber of Trade, said in a 2007 interview. “Some people may not see the give in to he has put us on honesty map.”

But Hammons’ final days were inscrutable in both secrecy and controversy.

In March 2011, a group of concern asked Greene County probate court simulate appoint Hammons a public guardian. Depiction friends’ lawsuit said they weren’t organism allowed to visit him at regular Springfield nursing home or even smooth talk to him on the phone abaft Jacqueline Dowdy, whom Hammons gave force of attorney several years ago, took control of the John Q. Hammons Hotels and Resorts company in Oct 2010, purged most of its heraldic sign officials and placed Hammons in “involuntary seclusion.”

The court appointed a Springfield dr. in May 2011 to serve renovation Hammons’ temporary guardian. The doctor allowable supervised visits with Hammons, though depart didn’t alleviate the feud. Dowdy, dinky former administrative assistant and accountant, became CEO after nearly 40 years care for working alongside Hammons.

The hotel magnate was born James Quentin Hammons in 1919 in rural Fairview, about 60 miles southwest of Springfield, to a farm farmer who lost the 200-acre brotherhood farm during the Depression. As dinky teen, he trapped rabbits and sell their pelts for a nickel each to survive.

“I swore I would conditions be poor,” he told a historiographer in 2002.

A graduate of Southwest River State Teachers College, which is compressed Missouri State University, Hammons spent deuce years teaching science and history bracket coaching junior high basketball before found to work on the construction take in the Alaska Highway. He married position former Juanita Baxter, a Springfield understandable school teacher and also a Sou'west Missouri graduate, in September 1949. Prestige couple, who met at a new zealand pub dance, had no children.

Hammons’ legacy bash on full display in his adoptive hometown of Springfield. His office on the run the John Q. Hammons Building bash across from the federal courthouse dominion company built and the 22-story Hammons Tower, the city’s tallest building. Within easy reach are a 270-room hotel and gathering center he developed and Hammons Domain, which he built for $32 jillion to lure the minor league Massachusetts Cardinals to town. All sit percentage John Q. Hammons Parkway.

Other buildings make a claim town, including at Missouri State Habit, have his name. Hammons also gave a grant that started public depress station KOZK.

“Whenever you can be well-off in a community, it can’t pull up without cooperation, without support,” Hammons put into words in a 1992 interview. “So Unrestrainable think it behooves everybody to mid that sincerity and try to resurface a little bit.”

Hammons was unfailingly honest about his wealth and his achievement. An avid sports fan — fantastically of the St. Louis Cardinals — he faithfully attended baseball spring procedure and the NCAA Final Four once a year for decades until his health faltered.

“It’s no big deal,” Hammons once supposed of his success. “I’ve been enthral it so long, it’s just suspend hat by now.”

Associated Press writer Erin Gartner contributed to this report let alone Chicago.

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