Dallas McKennon

McKennon was an avid Oregon Trail historian. He visited schools around the Northwest lecturing children about Oregon history and worked at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center giving instructional speeches, and put together plays, skits, songs, stories, and informational documents leading up to the Oregon Trail's sesquicentennial (150th anniversary).

McKennon died from natural causes on July 14, 2009, at the Willapa Harbor Care Center in Raymond, Washington, five days before his 90th birthday.

Born near La Grande, Oregon, McKennon's best-known voice roles were Gumby for Art Clokey, Archie Andrews in several different Archie series for Filmation, and the primary voice of Buzz Buzzard in the Woody Woodpecker cartoons. In the early 1950s, McKennon created and hosted his own daily kids TV wraparound show, Space Funnies/Capt. Jet, which was aired weekday mornings on KNXT (KCBS-TV) TV Ch. 2 in Los Angeles. It was the first Los Angeles-based kids show to air reruns of The Little Rascals and Laurel & Hardy shorts. He was also the primary voice actor for the 1960 cartoon series Q.T. Hush. McKennon was also the voice of the Hardy Boys' sidekick, Chet Morton, in the 1969 animated mystery series.

In 1942, McKennon married his childhood love interest, Betty Warner, in Portland, Oregon. The couple had six daughters and two sons. They lived in California until 1968, when they moved to Cannon Beach, Oregon, from where McKennon commuted for voice acting and voiceover roles.

Dallas Raymond McKennon (July 19, 1919 – July 14, 2009), sometimes credited as Dal McKennon, was an American film, television and voice actor, who had a career lasting over 50 years. During World War II he served in the Army Signal Corps and was stationed in Alaska.