A star is not often born among the wool and weave of a carpet aisle. In 1958, though, 19-year-old Nancy Tucker was working as a clerk at Sedgwick’s Furniture in Springfield when a scout from the Ozark Jubilee spotted her at a small desk and told her she should be a model.
Si Siman was a big deal back then. He was a music producer and talent agent for the national television show which was broadcast each week from Springfield. The Ozark Jubilee showcased the biggest names in country music. Si was looking for another female to model products during the broadcast. And, just like that, he happened to find his next hire as he strolled past the carpet rolls at Sedgwick’s.
“The next thing I knew, I was strutting my stuff on national television pushing chewing gum as the Dyntene and Beeman girl,” says Nancy, who is now 88 years young. “I got paid $25 each show and thought that was just pretty neat.”
Nancy’s bright smile and on-camera charisma then caught the eye of folks south of Springfield. Don Richardson, who was a writer and publicist for the Ozark Jubilee, teamed up with Mary Herschend in 1959 and suggested the name Silver Dollar City as an advertising gimmick to draw visitors to Marvel Cave. Don hired Nancy to pose for promotional photos, not realizing how Silver Dollar City would take off just a year later.
“That was really forward-thinking back then,” she smiles. “They put that money in advertising, hoping the new promotions would help the cave business boom.” Standing barefoot on her tiptoes, Nancy posed on the front of the cave’s cable train and by the sign. She still gets a kick out of seeing herself in those old photos.
“It was such a fun time. I never took anything too seriously. Some of those pictures ended up in souvenir books so my kids got a kick out of seeing their mom in her glory days.”
Nancy doesn’t remember much about the pay she got for taking the photos. She does remember a soggy situation with another perk she got for posing.
“They gave me a lifetime pass to the park, but I sent it through the wash and ruined it,” she laughs. “I never asked for another one but continued to visit the park and marvel how much it grew over the next six decades.”
Young Nancy Tucker didn’t pursue modeling much long after the cave photos. She became Nancy Rule when she married the love of her life at age 21.
“I wasn’t bright but I was smart enough to get a bright husband,” she laughs. “He got his Master’s and we traveled for his work a lot. One day, we realized life was too short and we moved back to Springfield.”
That’s where the Rules raised their three kids.
“We had two boys with a girl in between to keep our sanity. They were all good, good kids. We’d come to Silver Dollar City a lot over the years. It always blew my mind to watch how much it changed from the day I stood on the front of that cable train for pictures.”
Nancy may not have pursued fame but her brief moment in the spotlight has become woven—like the carpet rolls at the store where she worked—into the fabric of Silver Dollar City’s history.
As Public Relations Manager for the Silver Dollar City Company, she is eager to tap into her journalism background to hunt down “heart tugs” to write about—those stories that celebrate…
