Marching In Step With St. Louis’ Baton Bob
BY COLIN MURPHY

Photos by Mike Wirtz Bob Jamerson celebrated the Easter season by offering candy to those he met along his route.

It’s a tranquil, spring morning in Forest Park. The dew-strewn grass is hugged by a blanket of fog as a group of joggers stretches to begin their run. It’s one of those quiet mornings when you can hear the Metrolink leaving the Central West End station. Suddenly, something strange steals the silence. A singsong of whistles bleats across the dawn, and in the distance a man wearing a tutu, fishnet stockings, and bunny ears and twirling a baton struts down Kingshighway.

"The parade’s starting," winks one jogger to another.

He is known by many names — "Baton Guy," "Baton Bob," or "The Central West End Twirler" — but it’s the "Ambassador of Mirth," that 50-year-old Bob Jamerson feels describes him the best.

"It’s so fitting of what I’m about," says the celebrated street performer, who also runs his own floral design business "I’m about joy and lifting people’s spirits and breaking down boundaries."

Jamerson — well known throughout the Central West End and the GLBT community — is fast becoming a local cult celebrity with a 2004 calendar and line of greeting cards in the works. And his beginning, well — it’s the stuff of legend:

A depressed, furloughed flight attendant from American Airlines seeks therapy in the aftermath of September 11. The therapist tells him to go out and do something that makes him happy. Jamerson immediately remembers his youth as a drum major, goes to his closet, and frees his baton. A year later, in high camp costume, he is taking the Gateway City by storm.

"I live in the West End and would always go to the park to do my walk and exercise," said Jamerson. "So out of the duress of all of that [9/11] I just decided to go back to my closet and pull out my baton which I used to love to twirl as a hobby — just to lift my own spirits. I had no idea how it would change the neighborhood."

This was mid-November 2001 and with the holiday season fast approaching and people still visibly depressed over 9/11, Jamerson thought he’d “kick it up a notch." Hence, with baton in hand, Jamerson donned a red tutu, red vest and red Santa hat and took to the streets. Suddenly, a police car pulled alongside him and stopped.

"I thought ‘oh shit … the first time I’m in a tutu and they’re going to harass me,’” recalled Jamerson. "They were very nice and asked if I would do them a favor and pose for a group photograph for their precinct Christmas post card. I thought — ‘oh Lord, there is hope!’ And that was the first day and the first costume and I knew then that once I got support from the police in the neighborhood that they would be looking out for me."

And the rest, as they say, is history. Jamerson now has a wardrobe of costumes ranging from holiday fare to whorish to Tina Turner and Cher which he "mish-mashed" together from thrift and carnival supply stores. People now cruise the streets of the Central West End in hopes of spotting the ambassador of joy. They’re most likely to see him along Lindell Boulevard and Maryland Plaza, along Euclid, or Forest Park between 6 and 8 a.m.

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