Bob Day – a great Yuba story

The "Great American Story" started with an $18 microphone from Wal-Mart, an old computer borrowed from a friend, soundproofing foam bought for $20 off eBay — and mountain man John Colter's naked run.

Yuba County resident Bob Day went to his camper in November 2005 — his six sons made it too noisy to record at home — and produced his first "Great American Story" for radio broadcast.

Day, 44, told of Colter, captured in Missouri by Blackfoot warriors in 1808, stripped of his clothes and ordered to run for his life.

Colter survived — and so have the four-minute-long broadcast stories that air locally on KMYC (1410 AM).

But Day worries that word of the nation's heroes is being lost to a generation. He remembers mentioning Paul Revere to his son Joey, an honor roll student. The youth did not know who Revere was.

"I was shocked," said Day, who believes that U.S. history classes tell students about the nation's troubles but not its triumphs.

"The people who design our curriculum have an agenda," Day said. "It's like they're all working off the same sheet."

His own days at Marysville High School were marked by differences with history teachers and what they taught. It was an argument with an instructor over dogs, however, that got Day kicked out of class, he recalled.

The teacher contended canines couldn't think — which Day disputed. Not only do the animals think and remember things, he said, they have a soul.

"You can see it in their eyes," Day said of dogs. "I believe God made them for human companionship."

Day doesn't claim to having been much of a student but always loved to read American history and would spend hours in the library doing so.

Yuba City resident Teri DeSantis, 44, who went to Marysville High School with Day, said she loves his stories of America's past, even though the subject wasn't a favorite in school.

"I don't know anybody who hated history more than me," DeSantis said.

Michael Desmond, 43, has heard many of the Day's broadcasts and said a favorite is the account of how dogs assisted the U.S. military during World War II.

"I learn from them," Desmond said of the stories.

Day credits the late Paul Harvey and his "The Rest of the Story" broadcasts with helping to inspire the "Great American Story."

"Everybody loved Paul Harvey," Day said. "He made everybody feel they were at home with the fireplace going."

But when the Yuba County resident talks about men he admires the conversation starts with his father, Robert R. Day, who was sheriff from 1979 to 1991. His father, who died in 2006 at 73, was a man of great integrity, said Day.

Day remembered when he was an eighth-grader at McKenney Intermediate School in Marysville and got into a fight with another student. The confrontation escalated, Day was accused of inciting a riot — and he was arrested by Sheriff Day.

"Bob, get in the car," he remembers his father telling him. "And I'm not talking about the front seat either."

"I never held it against him," Day said of the matter.

His father was able to hear the "Great American Story." The younger Day made discs of the program for the former sheriff to hear.

"He loved them," Day said.

Jim Flurry, a former teacher and school bus driver in the Marysville Joint Unified School District who now serves as a trustee, said he dealt with more than 9,000 students but remembers Day, who was good at setting goals and achieving them.

Steve White, who teaches U.S. history at Marysville High, said he understands Day's concerns about what students are taught in California schools and elsewhere. But, White said, while instruction includes the problems in America's past, that is not the sole subject of history classes at the Marysville school.

"We are a great nation," White said. "We definitely emphasize that."

Day once had wider syndication for "Great American Story" and hopes his accounts of heroes in American history will have a bigger audience again. Getting radio stations to play the program is a lot like trying to get a book published, he said.

If you're not a known name, Day said, "you can end up in the trash can."

But he believes in the "Great American Story" and that syndication success will follow.

"Like anything else," he added, "if you keep at it long enough it will happen."

Day said the interest in a well-told story is universal.

"It's the oldest art form," he said. "People were telling stories before they were painting on rocks."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or mccarthy@appealdemocrat.com.