Seems as though Matt was pretty popular with the women and what better place to bring them. He did bring a few of the male gender like Bob Brown. Can't remember all the names but there were others. Among the women I remember were Georgie, Shirley, and Anna. There had to be many others but three of the above became an integral part of the happenings at Table Rock Lake. Matt married Anna, Bob married Shirley, Georgie married, bought a house next to Ray and Bea, sold it, had a kid and pretty much left us and I hear divorced Joe. Lots of history in Joplin with the above and I'm not an expert because you know I don't ask questions. All three were beauticians and at one time or another worked together. Since much has changed we will cover the short of it.
Somewhere in the late 60s or the early 70s the ski world was evolving. Darryl Goade's wake breakers were no longer in style, although those curled toes were real attractive. Darryl made them himself. Steele's homemade tricks weren't really in style either. They still had the intertube bindings but had been cut short to make a pair of shoe skis. A classmate at Pittsburg State, during summer school, used his shop at Sarcoxie High School to build Steele's first trick skis. We split a 1 x 6 ash board, glued it back together in a form. The did pretty good too. The slalom ski went from one Steele found on Ft. Scott lake, it had a convex bottom, to the Taperflex brand. Red, White and Blue with a concave bottom. Got the first one stolen so went to a double concave but that didn't work. Another concave bottom, like the one April hung on the wall, and then Steele got with Larry Lewis. He knew what he was doing. He skied on an O'Brian but showed Steele a Jobe. Steele became a Jobe dealer. If you buy seconds, sell them at cost and have a few friends you can be the top dealer in the midwest. We had a set of red, white and blue tricks also but went to Stinger's when western woods sold out.