BURTON, MI – Dave Kimber worked with musicians such as David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder and Elton John, but it was a simple jingle about a cartoon owl that made his most lasting impression – especially on children growing up in the 1970s.
Kimber, a Los Angelino native and musician who later lived in Burton and taught at Eithercut Elementary School in Flint, died Tuesday, Aug. 27, after battling Parkinson’s disease and dementia, according to his family.
He was 76.
Kimber helped bring the wide-eyed Woodsy Owl character to life by arranging music with a writing partner for “The Ballad of Woodsy Owl,” a song that became the basis for U.S. Forest Service public service announcements beginning in 1971.
The song’s most famous line, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute,” is still remembered by many more than 50 years after the character was introduced.
“It was the biggest thing I ever did in music,” Kimber told the Flint Journal in 1999. “A friend of my mother’s was working on (the song) and she asked me if I wanted to be involved. Finally, I said yes, I would help.”
The song was intended to introduce Woodsy Owl as a friend of another US Forest Service character: Smokey the Bear.
Instead of focusing on forest fires, Woodsy focused on pollution.
Kimber said songwriter Marion Bartoo had an idea for a melody and some good lyrics, but needed help with the music.
According to Flint Journal files, he was part of a band called Maggie at the time and was employed as a songwriter in MGM’s recording department.
“She had written most of it,” he said. “I rewrote it and my partner Bob Pelli and I arranged it. We thought Marion should be credited as the writer and we as the arrangers.”
Kimber said he received fan mail – “written with Crayola” – from children who saw the public service announcements, but the song’s success did not help them gain more or better opportunities in the music business.
Kimber and Pelli performed on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service and even performed for Earl Butz, then-Secretary of Agriculture under President Richard M. Nixon, a few months before Butz resigned from his post after telling a racist joke.
He worked for many years at the Guitar Center in Hollywood, where he met his future wife Pamela when he sold her a piano.
The couple married and spent a decade in Australia before returning to the Flint area where she was from.
In Australia, Kimber worked as a music director for a television station, wrote commercials and sold synthesizers, according to his daughter Annadelle Kimber-Smith.
He returned to school and began a career as a teacher in Eithercut, which he pursued for 25 years.
“He always loved kids,” Kimber-Smith said. “His humor (was always there). He just wanted to have fun with the kids.”
As a teacher, Kimber organized pineapple parties for his students, had pineapples flown in from Hawaii, and was known for handing out Jolly Rancher candy.
He also helped students improve their academic performance by using unconventional teaching methods.
In 2004, 70% of Eithercut’s fifth-graders passed the Michigan Educational Assessment Program social sciences test—one of the best scores in the field and a 17 percentage point improvement over the previous year.
According to Flint Journal files, these impressive results came after Kimber recorded “Under the Red White and Blue,” a CD of songs on social science topics such as the Constitution and democracy that he performed with his students.
“Civics is hard to teach. When I use these songs, it becomes easier,” he said at the time. “They don’t think they’re learning it, they think they’re singing a song.”
In addition to teaching, Kimber spent several years selling pianos at Herter Music on Miller Road in Flint Township, writing children’s songs, and playing with his band Rodeo Drive, the house band at Sherman’s Lounge in Flint.
Kimber-Smith said band members will be among friends gathering for a luncheon in his honor next month.
A celebration of Kimber’s life is also planned, she said.
“As a dad, he was just a really fun guy… a real Californian,” Kimber-Smith said.
“The world is a brighter place because he was a shining light in it,” Kimber-Smith wrote in a Facebook post. “He didn’t just open doors, he pushed his way in, made a scene and became a wonderful memory for all who knew him…”
