Mitch Jayne

Mitch Jayne lived in the south central Missouri Ozarks near Salem, Mo. It was there that he taught in a couple of one-room schools (before consolidation), and then worked as a disk jockey at KSMO Radio. In his later years he traveled throughout Missouri giving humorous talks about the Ozark language and its connection with Middle English. Jayne played bass with The Dillards, which included brothers Rodney and Doug Dillard,(whom he met while at KSMO), and Dean Webb. The band left its native Missouri hills and moved to California in the early 1960s, where almost immediately the group landed a spot, along with Denver Pyle and Maggie Peterson Mancuso, as as the Darling family on the Andy Griffith television show. During his lifetime Jayne was a writer and published author: "Forest in the Wind", "Old Fish Hawk", "Home Grown Stories & Home Fried Lies", and his final work, "Fiddler's Ghost" won Missouri's Humanitarian Award. For nearly 30 years he wrote humor columns for various publications throughout Missouri. The Dillards were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association's "Hall of Fame" in September 2009.