Local author and poet David Harrison has been appointed Poet Laureate for the National Route 66 Centennial Kickoff Celebration in Springfield. Mayor Jeff Schrag made the appointment this week.
Harrison has served as poet laureate for Drury University since 1983 and was appointed by Governor Mike Parson as Missouri’s poet laureate from 2023 to 2025. An elementary school in Springfield is named for him. Harrison got a degree in zoology, but he loved to write.
“In a writing course that I took at Drury during my senior year, Professor Clark Graham liked my work and urged me to consider becoming a writer. I’m leaving out the years of struggle that followed before my first book was published 10 years later, a picture book that set my compass as a children’s writer. So far, I’ve published 23 books of poetry, 44 books of fiction, 24 books of nonfiction, and 19 books for classroom teachers,” Harrison said in a press release…