Duff Radio PodcastGrandpa Mike: 50 Years at the Lake of the Ozarks
"It Was My Lake": Grandpa Mike on Shorecrest, the Flood of '86, and Opening a Water & Sewer Company
My grandpa, Mike McDuffey, turns 83 in October. He came to the Lake of the Ozarks in 1976 and ran Shorecrest Resort on Bridal Cave Road for 13 years. In 1990, he started Lake of the Ozarks Water and Sewer after a man with a dissolved oxygen meter took him out in a boat and showed him the lake was dying.
We sat down at his kitchen table on his farm and went through his life: working-class St. Louis in the fifties, the Navy in Newfoundland on the day Kennedy was shot, building artillery shells during Vietnam, the Christmas Eve party where he met my grandma, boating during Octobers on the lake in the 70s, the flood of 1986 where they had to sandbag cottages and worry about Truman Reservoir overflowing as Camden County residents and football players showed up to help, and winters where you could walk across the frozen water. He's also the Democratic candidate for Camden County presiding commissioner this November.
Recorded September 16, 2026, in Camden County, Missouri, with my grandma, Savanna, and Torin in the next room.
Chapters
0:00 "It Was My Lake": Fishing an Empty Lake of the Ozarks in October
0:18 Meet Mike McDuffey, Candidate for Camden County Presiding Commissioner
0:59 Born in 1943 During World War II, and the 115-Acre Family Farm
1:56 Growing Up in 1950s St. Louis: Sacred Heart, Central High, the Pool Hall
3:12 In the Navy in Newfoundland the Day JFK Was Shot (November 1963)
4:01 The Vietnam Years: Making 105mm Artillery Shells in St. Louis
4:45 Watching the 1969 Moon Landing on a Neighbor's Color TV
5:25 Christmas Eve 1964: How He Met Grandma
6:26 His First Job: Sweeping Up a St. Louis Silk-Screen Shop at 12 or 13
6:54 Why They Moved to the Lake of the Ozarks in the 1970s
8:13 Buying Shorecrest Resort in 1976 and the Lake's Tourism Boom
9:33 Running a Lake Resort: "We Can Guarantee Two Things"
10:28 A 1970s Saturday at Shorecrest: Turning Over 11 Cottages
11:11 The Bagnell Dam Strip in the 1970s and Now
11:40 Why He Started a Water and Sewer Company in 1990
12:24 Union Electric (Ameren), Diesel Fuel and the Mosquito Fight
13:31 The Dissolved Oxygen Meter That Showed the Lake Was Dying
14:25 How Grandma Ran Shorecrest Resort for 13 Years
15:32 Landing the First Wastewater Contracts Around the Lake
16:19 The Longtime Employees He'll Never Forget
17:03 The Flood of 1986: Sandbags, Truman Dam and Neighbors Who Showed Up
18:20 The Winter of 1976-77: Walking Across the Frozen Lake
18:52 Roads at the Lake: "Almost Every Road Here Is Older Than I Am"
19:33 What He Wants His Great-Grandkids to Know About Him
20:17 The Smartest Thing He Ever Did: "Marry My Wife"
20:30 A Message for Someone Watching 50 Years From Now
