Kelly Thomas

Kelly Thomas — known as "The Godfather" — is a storyteller from Harrisburg, Arkansas who helped Michael Quessenberry reconstruct his father's history at the Poinsett County Fair. When the details of Jim's earlier years were fuzzy, Kelly filled in the gaps from memory — the kind of living oral history that small-town Arkansas still carries.

Without Kelly Thomas, some of what Michael wrote in Quess: The Arkansas Trav'ler simply wouldn't exist.