Our Chicken Man
A young man’s hobby sometimes becomes a grown man’s life. Not always, but many people plant the seeds of their life’s work in childhood. This is especially true in the modern world, where college majors evolve into careers. In some cases, the path is clear, but only in retrospect. A 1913 graduate of Otterbein had a passion for raising and showing prize chickens. One might assume that he would grow up to raise poultry. No, chicken raising needed so much writing for showing, and entering, and publicizing fowl that he became a writer instead.
Roscoe Briant Sando (1890-1970) was a native of Potsdam in Miami County, near Dayton. His father, Louis N. Sando, ran a general store in the village. We don’t know just how Roscoe got involved in poultry, but by 1910, he was competing for and winning regional and national prizes. He entered ten chickens at a Cincinnati show and won ten prizes. At a similar show in Chicago, he won first, second, and fourth prizes. “Last year he took ribbons at Madison Square Garden, New York; Pittsburg, Indianapolis, and Kansas City.” He sold some chickens to a breeder who took them to Seattle, “where they carried off the honors there.”[i]
But Roscoe did not stop there. He served as “poultry editor of three leading agricultural monthlies,” and was vice president of the national club of Plymouth rock chickens. To top it off, Sando wrote two full-length books: American Poultry Culture, (1909) and Practical Poultry Keeping (undated, but after 1910). All this before his freshman year.
Sando continued writing about chickens once ensconced in Otterbein. He published a magazine article in Collier’s Magazine in its February 12, 1910 issue, titled “Fancy Fowls Worth a Fortune.” Several other journals published Sando’s work, including The Agricultural Epitomist and Country Life in America. Once on campus, he continued raising chicks, hatching three dozen peeps in March 1911 with 200 eggs in reserve.[ii]
But Sando was not just a poultry fancier. Certainly he was well connected to fowl, so much so l that his nickname “Sandy,” was sometimes changed by the Public Opinion to “Our Chicken Man.” But he had other interests. While at Otterbein, he was a star player on the college tennis team, and sang with the Glee Club. He also dabbled in acting, playing the role of Feste the clown in Twelfth Night, the Spring 1913 dramatic offering.
I have no notion when Sando liquidated his chicken flock. But as he moved through life, he moved from writing about chickens to writing advertising. He eventually published several business magazines, numbering among his clients Dale Carnegie. “His writings have appeared in leading publications and he has spoken before business groups from coast to coast.”[iii]
Even as an older man, after his relocation to Orange, California, Sando was “well known in publishing, advertising, and selling circles.” He gave a well-received and humorous address to the 1951 Pacific Coast Conference of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association in San Francisco. Titled “Shoot the Works,” Sando told the “macaroni men” to strive for “new visions and high ambitions.”[iv]
Briant Sando, as he was known in later years, died in 1970. Whether he kept up with the poultry business in his last years is unknown. His obituary in Towers magazine mentions only his roles as publisher and public speaker.[v] Chickens had led him to a career, not in poultry, but in writing. While we cannot say if Sando gave chickens any thoughts in his last years, a clucking hen would be a part of his life’s soundtrack.
