Artist Information
He was born on a farm (not in a hospital) in rural Pettis County, Missouri, without the amenities of running water and electricity. Elementary schooling was in one-room country schools, then to high school at Sedalia, where he ranked third in a class of 180 graduates.
Leroy is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a dual major: Animal Husbandry and Journalism, with a minor in Speech. He received a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, did one semester of graduate work, and was a member of both the junior and senior University of Missouri intercollegiate livestock judging teams.
After serving as a special agent, U. S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps, in Korea, Leroy was catapulted into show business while working as a journalist, when his self-penned "Auctioneer" recording went a million-plus just weeks after its release. He then joined Red Foley's ABC-TV Network Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri, as a regular member, and continued in that position for three years until the show left the air.
He again had a multi-million seller with "Walk On By," a record that stayed in the charts an incredible 42 weeks, nineteen in the number one position, and was later named by Billboard Magazine as the biggest country music record in history! Leroy then moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and became a regular member of the world-famous Grand Ole Opry.
Music industry experts named Leroy Van Dyke as the Country Music Entertainer of the Decade for the 1960s. He had the starring role in the 1967 movie What Am I Bid?.
Leroy was a founding co-host of "Country Crossroads," the most widely syndicated show in radio history; he hosted his own syndicated television series, The Leroy Van Dyke Show; he hosted the 1965 Country Music Association Awards Show at which Ernest Tubb was inducted into the Hall of Fame; he was the first entertainer to receive the prestigious Country Music Association Founding President's Award for contributing to the advancement and improved image of country music; he served on the board of directors of the Country Music Association, and also served on the board of the International Entertainment Buyers Association.
He was selected by the Country Music Association to represent it in showcase situations at the Waldorf in New York, The Monteleone in New Orleans, The Edgewater Beach and the Conrad Hilton in Chicago, The Ambassador in Los Angeles, and numerous Country Music Association functions in Nashville.
Van Dyke is considered by industry moguls and by his peers to be the entertainer who put professionalism in country music. He was the first to blaze a trail and take a staged, produced, choreographed, self-contained country music show to the "Strip" in Las Vegas. He was the first to take country music to Bourbon Street in New Orleans' famed French Quarter. He was the only country music performer ever to open a show for Marilyn Monroe.
Leroy is a 2001 inductee into the North American Country Music Association, International, Hall of Fame.
After more than four decades as an entertainer, Leroy still travels in excess of a hundred thousand performing miles yearly around the world . . . he performs in all facets of show business including fairs, festivals, concerts, rodeos, supper clubs, conventions, radio, television, recordings, the Nevada circuit, livestock events, agricultural shows, and private functions.
He has not missed a performance in over five decades as an entertainer.
On a personal note, should you ask, Leroy will tell you that there are only four things he ever wanted to do: sing, sell, write, and raise livestock. He is living his dream. His name is a household word in country music circles around the world. He is an auctioneering Hall of Fame member. He was a successful journalist, and is the author of Auctioneering, Motivation, Success, a work that is rapidly becoming the textbook of the auction profession. His Arabian mules are developing a reputation from New England to California and from Canada to the Deep South.
