Physician Curtis Walton Long was excited about Festus High School’s latest football season, culminating in a state championship game with Lutheran North, which won.
The season brought back some great memories for Dr. Long, who was a linebacker on the 1949 Tiger team that went undefeated.
He takes issue, though, with the current Festus team being called the best the school has had.
Long said his 1949 Tiger team ended its season with a perfect 10-0 record, outscoring all opponents by a margin of 231-6.
“And those six points came on a trick play,” he said, still indignant 75 years later. “We played Crystal City in the Mineral Area Conference tournament. Crystal came out of its huddle and there was one player standing way over on the sidelines by the coach. The Festus players all thought he was off the field, but his feet were in bounds. When they hiked the ball, they threw it to him and he ran it for a touchdown.”
The Missouri State High School Activities Association didn’t begin sanctioning football championships until 1968, so the 1949 team has no state championship trophy.
“Our quarterback was the leading scorer in Missouri with 131 points, and all the sports writers agreed he was the best,” Long said. “We may not have had the official designation, but we were far and away the best team in the state that year.”
Long, who turned 90 in September, said he went on to play a year at Mizzou before earning a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and biochemistry. He went to the University of Missouri Medical School and began practicing family medicine in Butler (on the west side of the state) in 1964.
Good times in Tiger Town
Long has fond memories of his childhood in Jefferson County.
“Festus was a good town. My dad had a small packing house there,” he said. “I played sports, and I played in the band. Mr. Tynes was the superintendent, and Mr. Brockman was the principal. He had a paddle with a hole in it and he’d spank kids if they got out of line.”
After graduation, Long headed for college.
“I hitchhiked from Festus to Columbia and got a job waiting tables at Stephens College,” he said. “I also worked at a filling station, changing tires. In those days there were no hydraulics; it was all done by hand and it was hard work.”
Photos of Long as a young man and soldier were displayed at his 90th birthday party in September.
After graduation, Long headed to the military, completing basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, then serving as a sniper with the Army 134th Artillery. While in the service, he was married to Ann Hammack, a Festus physical education teacher he had met on a blind date, and with whom he had two sons: Curt Jr. and Kent. They settled in Columbia and he went to medical school on the GI Bill.
“The Mizzou medical school was just getting started,” he recalled. “I was among the first to do the four-year program, and I was able to also do some specialty training at the state cancer hospital.”
Long worked at a hospital in Kansas City for a time and then moved to Butler and began his general family practice.
“I did obstetrics, general surgery, developed a new procedure for tonsillectomies,” he said. “I delivered more than 3,000 babies and performed more than 10,000 surgeries.
“Modern day doctors, the government won’t allow them to diversify the way I did. They have to be licensed as an OB, a surgeon, a pediatrician. I started in the days when very few patients had insurance, and it was a lot easier. You didn’t have to call and get every procedure certified in order to treat them.”
In his spare time
In 1965, Long and his wife established Briarwood Farms, which became a successful Angus cattle breeding and sales facility.
“We have one of the oldest herds of registered Angus cattle in the state,” he said. “Beef has to meet 13 different specifications to be certified. We have been selling about 60 head every year since 1974 or 75.”
Photos of Long as a young man and soldier were displayed at his 90th birthday party in September.
Long’s cousin, Harold Walton of Crystal City, can attest to the product’s quality.
“He has all the relatives to his place on July 4 every year,” Walton said. “He serves us the best steaks I’ve ever tasted.”
Walton said Long has accumulated a lot of trophies over his years of game hunting – elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, bear, cattle and deer.
“He gets permits to harvest animals that are sick or injured or where herds are overpopulated,” Walton said. “He also goes salmon fishing in Alaska.”
Long helps with conservation and environmental preservation in another way.
“After I moved here in 1964, I took care of a patient who owned 335 acres of native prairie,” he said. “Now, this is land that hasn’t been disturbed since Columbus discovered America. I leased it for 40 years. He put in his will that I was the only one it could be sold to, because he knew I wouldn’t just plow it up.”
Early every spring, Long and helpers do a controlled burn to kill weed seeds and stimulate grass growth. Once the wildflowers have completed their spectacular blooming season, the seeds are collected to help with prairie restoration efforts elsewhere.
“The Hamilton Seed Co. comes out several times a year and gets seeds,” he said. “There is less than 1 percent of the original prairie remaining, and it’s important that we preserve this.”
The job is its own reward
Long has been the recipient of numerous awards over the span of his long career.
■ In 2008, a department at the University of Missouri School of Medicine was named the Curtis W. and Ann H. Long Department of Family and Community Medicine.
■ In 2010, the Missouri Society of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians named Long Family Physician of the Year.
■ In 2015, Long was named Angus Heritage Breeder of the Year.
Although he is proud of his accomplishments, he isn’t one to rest on his laurels.
“He’s the hardest-working person I know,” Walton said. “He’s kept himself in fantastic shape. He does 50 push-ups every day, feeds the cattle.
“He’s cocky about some things – like football – but otherwise he’s humble. He lives a very modest life, helps people, enjoys his life, works hard. A really kind man. I just love him.”
Long, whose wife died in 2020, still practices medicine.
“I resigned hospital privileges at 85,” he said. “Now I practice out of my home. I don’t take insurance; no Medicare or Medicaid. I don’t have to call anybody or answer to anybody, I just do what’s right. I treated a guy for bronchitis; I gave him a breathing treatment and a prescription and charged him $60. The same thing would have cost $3,000 at a hospital.”
Long acknowledges that he has “a different approach” to medicine than many doctors practicing today.
“Medicine has been very challenging,” he said. “But I’m proud of what I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished for the community. I just love what I do.”