Just Another Square Dance Caller

Marshall Flippo is the most recognized caller's name in the square dance world internationally. Marshall Doyle Flippo was born September 2, 1927 in Tuscola, Texas to Roy and Gus Flippo. He had two sisters; Helen and Onita. Flip (or Flippo is what we called him) enjoyed close ties with his family and his school. He joined the Navy at age seventeen and saw two years of active duty at the end of World War II. Then he played baseball for the DesPac league the reminder of his enlisted time. He returned to his family home in Abilene, Texas and married Neeca, and she encouraged him to take square dance lessons, and he was hooked. He started his calling career near Abilene, Texas in a chicken coop. Flip and Neeca joined three other couples to build a square dance hall in Abilene, the Wagon Wheel, which is still in operation today. He got his big break in the calling world by recording the popular tune in 1957, “The Auctioneer” with Blue Star Records, owned by Norman and Nadine Merrbach, and the rest is history. After several visits to Kirkwood Lodge in Osage Beach, Missouri, a square dance vacation resort, Bill Hagadorn, the owner, hired Flip to be the resident caller there. In doing this, Flippo and Neeca decided to give up their jobs in Abilene but not their home. He worked Kirkwood Lodge for six months out of the year and needed employment for the rest of the year. From the clientele at Kirkwood, his industrious wife, Neeca, put together an amazing six-month tour of interested dancers all across the United States, and he did this schedule for 42 years. During those six months of touring, he expanded internationally, visiting Germany, England, Spain and Japan. He had been stationed in Japan after the war, so he was familiar with the people, and his love affair with this country and its people continued until he died. Neeca and Flippo divorced in 1991 after 42 years of marriage, and he remarried but they divorced, so Flip lived out his life single. Neeca and he became close friends in their later years. He spent the last eighteen years of his career in Tucson, Arizona as the resident caller at Rincon West RV park during the winter and continued his tours in the summer. He died at the age of 91 on November 4, 2018 and has been missed across the world in the square dance community. Flippo never realized his place in the lineage of square dance history. He was a bridge between Lloyd “Pappy” Shaw, the caller who energized the activity in the 50's, and the transition to modern western square dancing. He was truly a humble legend. Flippo was consummate story tell, so a unique part of this book is his stories about other callers, cuers and dancers. Also included are stories by friends about him. It truly is a celebration of the man.