Free Republic

Paul Henning was working as a soda jerk in his local Brown's Drugstore when he met Harry Truman. Henning was merely a young man living in Independence, Missouri, while Truman was county judge for Jackson County. The future president advised Henning to go to law school. He did just that.Image: JCHS.org Yet, decades later, the two men would end up in far different places. Truman, of course, sat in the Oval Office. Henning, on the other hand, created the wildly popular sitcoms The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction.Between his legal studies and television career, Henning worked as a writer on...

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) - Paul Henning, who created the iconic 1960s TV show "The Beverly Hillbillies" and wrote its theme song, died Friday at the age of 93. Henning, who lived in Toluca Lake, died in a Burbank hospital of natural causes. He had been sick for some time, his daughter Carol said. Henning was born on a farm in Missouri on Sept. 16, 1911 and grew up in Independence. As a teenager, he worked behind the soda fountain at Brown's Drugstore, where he met Harry Truman, who advised the young boy to become a lawyer, his daughter said. He...