Vernon, Texas

Roy Orbison, rock-and-roll singer and songwriter, was born in Vernon, Texas, on April, 23, 1936. He was the son of Orbie Lee and Nadine Orbison. He grew up in Wink, a small West Texas oil town, where his father taught him to play the guitar at age six. Orbison dedicated himself to music as a young man, performing at school and on the radio . While attending Wink High School he formed a country music group called the Wink Westerners, which featured Orbison as lead singer and guitar player. Only later, while attending North Texas State College—where he met fellow student and musician Pat Boone—did Orbison transform the Wink Westerners into his first rock-and-roll band, the Teen Kings. After two years of college he dropped out. The group played throughout West Texas and on a number of television shows and recorded "Ooby Dooby," which brought him to the attention of Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records in Memphis. Reportedly, Midland/Odessa record shop owner Cecil “Pop” Holifield played “Ooby Dooby” to Sam Phillips over the phone. Orbison rerecorded the song for Sun, and in 1956 it became his first chart hit. It was made in the pioneering rock-and-roll style known as rockabilly—a frantic mixture of country music and rhythm and blues developed by Elvis Presley and Phillips. Unlike Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis, up-and-coming music stars who were also recording rockabilly on the Sun label, Orbison had little chart success. The Teen Kings dissolved, and Orbison left Sun. Most of his early success was as a songwriter. "Claudette," a song written by Orbison and named after his first wife, Claudette Frady, was a hit in 1958 for the country and rockabilly duo the Everly Brothers. In 1959 Orbison joined the small Monument label in Nashville, which resulted in a string of international hit records from 1960 to 1966, including such classic rock-and-roll melodramas as "Only the Lonely" (1960), "Blue Angel" (1960), "Running Scared" (1961), "Blue Bayou" (1963), "It's Over" (1964), and "Oh, Pretty Woman" (1964). Elvis Presley once referred to Orbison as "the greatest singer in the world." Roy's hits in this period featured his trademark three-octave voice with its soaring, emotional splendor; his lush songwriting with its beautiful melodies; sophisticated studio production; and dark, brooding themes of love, loss, and longing. Wearing his trademark black clothes, slicked back hair, and dark glasses, the short, pale, shy performer with the overpowering voice played his hits around the world. In England in 1963 he headlined a tour that included the Beatles, then on the verge of international popularity. Orbison's time at the top was brief. Claudette Orbison was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966, and in 1968 two of his three sons were killed in a fire at his Nashville home. He married his second wife, Barbara Ann Marie Wellonen Jakobs, in 1969, and they had two more sons. Orbison underwent open-heart surgery in 1979. Although he continued to tour, this period of personal difficulty also saw his hit recordings dwindle. He experienced a revival of popularity in the late 1970s and 1980s, when such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Don McLean, and Van Halen recorded some of his songs and he released new recordings of his classic hits. His 1980 recording of "That Loving You Feeling Again" with Emmylou Harris won a Grammy Award, and in 1987 his recording "In Dreams" was featured in the soundtrack of Blue Velvet , a popular movie. That same year Orbison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a poignant introduction from Bruce Springsteen, whose monumental hit album of 1975, Born To Run , paid lyrical and stylistic homage to Orbison. In 1988, the year of his death, Orbison's renewed popularity was confirmed in a critically-acclaimed television special featuring his music performed by him and his musical heirs. He also released an album in 1988, The Traveling Wilburys, Volume One , featuring Orbison and his friends Bob Dylan, G

Organized 1858 and named in honor of Matthias and Josiah P. Wilbarger, early Texas settlers. Josiah, a surveyor, had become famous as the man who lived 12 years after being scalped by Comanches, 1833, near Austin. He had saved his life by putting a wool sock on his head; he was rescued next day by neighbors. An adobe house built 1878 by Jonathan and C. F. Doan, the first Wilbarger County settlers, marks the Red River crossing of the famous Western Cattle Trail. Vernon (formerly Eagle Flat) became county seat in 1881. The first railroad reached town, 1886. (1968)

Harry (the Bear) Babasin, pioneering jazz cellist, was born in Dallas on March 19, 1921. His father, Yervant Harry Babasinian, was a dentist who had immigrated to Texas from Armenia, and his mother, Minnette Turner, was a Texas native who taught music at the public school in Vernon, Texas. Babasin grew up in Vernon, where, under the tutelage of his mother, he became intrigued with music at a young age and became proficient on numerous instruments. In high school he played bassoon, bass, cello, and clarinet. He had a short stint at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) before enrolling at North Texas State Teachers College (now the University of North Texas) in Denton, where he was introduced to jazz. He and his friend Herb Ellis, later a legendary jazz guitarist, often attended concerts and showcases. At one such show in 1942 they saw the Charlie Fisk Orchestra, and, confident in their musicianship, told Fisk afterward that they could outplay any member of his orchestra. When Fisk asked them to prove it, Ellis and Babasin embarked on a staggering bit of showmanship. Impressed, Fisk hired them. A few months later, Babasin joined the Jimmy Joy Orchestra and was based in Chicago while that outfit toured the Midwest. Babasin was eventually featured on more than 1,500 recordings. In 1943 he joined the Bob Strong Orchestra and headed to New York City. He also worked with various other groups on the scene, including those of Gene Krupa and Boyd Raeburn, with whom he recorded Boyd Meets Stravinsky . He joined up with Charlie Barnet, with whom he moved to California by 1946. In Los Angeles Babasin worked with Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, and Chet Baker. In 1947 he appeared in the movie A Song Is Born , which starred Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. During the filming Babasin began experimenting with playing the cello in the role of the bass. This led to his development of the pizzicato jazz cello, possibly his most significant contribution to jazz. He recorded the first-ever jazz cello tracks with the Dodo Marmarosa Trio in December 3, 1947; they can be heard on the compact disc Up in Dodo's Room . Babasin performed with Woody Herman's Second Herd in 1948 and took part in a live recording session at the Hotel Commodore in New York. While on the movie set of A Song Is Born , he met a Brazilian musician, Laurindo Almeida, and this association led to another pioneering effort, the first "bossa nova" jazz recordings, in 1954. This fusion of modern jazz with traditional Brazilian rhythms was released on two LPs that were later remastered into a compilation entitled Brazilliance, Volume 1 . Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Babasin freelanced for radio and television and served as a session player. He and drummer Roy Harte formed their own record company, Nocturne Records, in 1954 and went on to produce ten albums. Babasin also formed his own ensemble, the Jazz Pickers. In 1974 he helped to establish the Los Angeles Theaseum, an archive specializing in the preservation of jazz and other music recordings as well as instruments and other artifacts donated by musicians. Babasin died of emphysema in California on May 21, 1988. He was survived by his wife Barbara and his sons Von and Perry. Von Babasin, also a jazz musician, released a three-CD boxed set, The Complete Nocturne Records , from his father's record label in 1998. The city of Los Angeles honored Babasin's musical contributions in 2002 during Los Angeles Music Week.

John Cary Morgan, Medal of Honor recipient, was born in Vernon, Texas, on August 24, 1914. He attended New Mexico Military Institute and began flying lessons at the University of Texas. He received his pilot's license at age twenty. He also attended Amarillo College, Schreiner Institute, and West Texas State Teachers College. About 1934 he went to the Fiji Islands, where he worked on a pineapple plantation and in a gold mine. After three years he returned to the United States and worked in various Texas oilfields. He was refused entry into the army air corps because of a poor academic record and a neck injury he had sustained years earlier, but went to Canada and enlisted in the Royal Air Force. There he received pilot training in the RCAF and was posted to England in 1942. In March 1943 he transferred to the United States Army Air Corps with the grade of flight officer and a rating as pilot. In July 1943, Second Lieutenant Morgan was copilot on a B-17 as part of a large formation when his aircraft was attacked by a large force of enemy fighters. The windshield was shattered by a cannon shell. The pilot, who had received a severe head wound that left him crazed, fell over the controls with the wheel in his arms. Morgan took the controls on his side and, despite the frantic struggles of the pilot, brought the aircraft under control and back into the formation. Because the interphone had been destroyed it was impossible to call for assistance. The waist and tail gunners were unconscious because of damage to the oxygen system in the rear compartment. Hearing no fire from their guns, Lieutenant Morgan concluded that they had bailed out. He faced the prospect of flying the plane to the target and back to England unassisted. For two hours he flew in formation, with one hand holding off the pilot and the other on the controls, until the navigator entered the pilot's compartment and relieved the situation. Morgan's heroic performance resulted in the successful completion of a vital bombing mission and the safe return of the aircraft and crew. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for "gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty." His mission inspired the novel Twelve O'Clock High! by Sy Bartlett (1948). After the mission on which he earned the Medal of Honor he continued to fly combat missions. On March 6, 1944, his aircraft was shot down over Berlin. He spent the remaining fourteen months of the war as a German prisoner. He left the military in 1945 and was married to Chris Ziegler in 1947. They had one son. Morgan was recalled during the Korean War and finally retired in 1954. He had begun work with Texaco in 1938 as a truck operator in Oklahoma City. He returned to Texaco after each period of military service and retired from the company as division manager of the International Aviation Sales Department after thirty-nine years of service. He died of a heart attack at Midlands Hospital in Papillion, Nebraska, on January 17, 1991, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In addition to his Medal of Honor he also received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with One Oak Leaf Cluster.

Oldest drugstore in county. Founded 1882 in a dugout. First building (1884) housed office of Dr. H. H. Rhoads, co-owner and 40 years county health officer. First newspaper in county, the "Vernon Hornet", had its shop in the store building. Passing by were horse-drawn streetcars. Present building erected 1901. Store filled its 1,000,000th prescription in 1958. Customers include first Anglo-American born in Wilbarger County. (Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966.)

Spottswood Lomax, a founder of the noted Matador and Espuela (Spur) ranches of Texas, built a Queen Anne house here in 1890. It was remodeled in the Colonial Revival style around the turn of the century by the prominent cattleman W. T. "Tom" Waggoner, who deeded it to his son, local banker Guy Leslie Waggoner, in 1904. Three years later, Vernon farmer and oil investor E. P. Hicks purchased the property and it remained in his family until 1967. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988