About Me
I was born in Darrington, Washington and spent most of my youth on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. My mother, Matilda ("Tillie") Valandra, was a schoolteacher; my father, Byron John Barker, was an electrical power foreman, who died in a fall from a utility pole in 1929. I have a half-brother, Kent Valandra, from Matilda's subsequent remarriage. In the 1940s our family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where I graduated from Central High School. I was also in a three-piece jazz band called The Scatters in the mid-1940s.I attended Drury College (now Drury University) in Springfield, on a basketball scholarship. I was a member of the Epsilon Beta Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity at Drury. My education was interrupted by World War II because I served in the Navy as a fighter pilot. However, the war ended before I was assigned to a seagoing squadron. After the war, I returned to Drury to finish my education, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in economics. While attending Drury, I worked his first "media job", at KTTS-FM Radio, in Springfield.I left Springfield and worked at a radio station in Florida before landing another radio job in California. I was hosting an audience-participation radio show on KNX (AM) in Los Angeles when game show producer Ralph Edwards happened to be listening and liked my voice and style. On December 31, 1956, I took over hosting of the game show Truth or Consequences. The show made me a star; I was clearly a natural whose charisma and charm connected with contestants and viewers. I would host it for 18 years.Me and my wife, the former Dorothy Jo Gideon, were high-school sweethearts. On our first date on November 17, 1939, I took D.J. to an Ella Fitzgerald concert. We married in 1945. Years later, it would be Dorothy Jo who inspired me to become an advocate of animals. D.J. died of lung cancer on October 19, 1981. We had no children and I never remarried after her death, I never had any desire to do so. Dorothy Jo was the love of my life and that was that. I have gone to visit her grave stone at Hollywood Hills Cemetery every weekend since her death. I eventually started dating again, having an on-off relationship with fellow animal rights advocate and good friend Nancy Burnet since the mid 80s. My mother Matilda (Tillie) Valandra lived with me until her death in 1993, after her second husband (my stepfather) died.In October 2006, it was announced that I had accepted Drury University's invitation to receive an honorary degree recognizing my life achievements and to speak at its commencement exercises on May 12, 2007. It was the first honorary degree I had received in my lifetime.
