Hometown: Bennett Spring, Mo.
Family: Husband, Delbert; three children; and 10 grandchildren
In Town: Paula Love has worked at the Bennett Spring Park Store for the last 17 years. She and her approximately 15 co-workers are all employees of Jim and Carmen Rogers, the Bennett Spring State Park concessionaires since 1980.
“I do cabins reservations, check people in and out of their accommodations, rent canoes, answer phones and anything else that needs doing,” she explained. “The best part of the job is the people, of course. I enjoy them all and have watched a lot of kids grow up as they come back, year after year. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years but in recent years, I really think the fishing is better.”
Thinking back over her history of working at the park, Paula said there are many good things about it, including, she added with a wink, “having four months off during the winter. It’s a good time to catch up because, of course, once the trout fishing season starts, we are busy, spring, summer and fall!”
In the Country: The Loves live in Dallas County, 11 miles from Lebanon, Mo., 14 miles from Conway, Mo., and 16 miles from Buffalo, Mo., but only three miles from Bennett Spring State Park.
“I call Bennett Spring my hometown,” Paula said. “We have 15 acres and keep black Angus, three 4-year old cows and their heifer calves, and two Holsteins ready to butcher. We buy Freemartin heifers at the sale barn and just raise them up to butcher and that’s the beef we eat.
“We also raise our own pigs, any breed. We have three at the moment and get them from the neighbors so it’s whatever they have. We get our hay from another neighbor, all guys who work here for the Bennett Spring Hatchery. We pretty much work on a barter system around here, keeping it all in the family. We’ve been doing this since 2002. We used to have chickens but these days we concentrate on a big garden.”
“I grew up on my parents’, Doris and Gladys Starnes’ dairy farm at Orla, Mo. I did that growing up but I knew I did not want to do that once I was grown. We fish a lot, for crappie, trout, pond fish and of course, we eat them all. Our grandchildren are ages 6 months to 15 years old and all of the older grandchildren, boys and girls are into it. We really pretty much raise and catch all of our own food.”
