Tonka Joe

This morning, I was reading the obituaries in the Peninsula Daily News and came across a listing for Tonka Joe Buck. His daughter Taunya was a schoolmate, so I knew of his unusual name, but had not been reminded of it in a long time. I remember him as a nice man. The obituary says he was born the oldest of eight in Bend, Oregon and that his mother named him after a character in a book she had just read. She apparently called him "Joe."