Before the first cowbell rings and the bags are stowed, one Bulldog ritual comes first: Everett Kennard turns the key. Since 1983, the Oktoc dairy farmer–turned–road captain has been the steady hand behind Mississippi State’s biggest journeys shuttling Bulldog teams to two Final Fours, eight College World Series appearances, and every bowl game on the calendar—four decades of maroon-and-white miles and memories.
Kennard’s origin story is pure Mississippi State. When a university bus stranded a team in Knoxville in the early ’80s, folks who knew Everett could handle big equipment asked him to fetch them. One rescue trip turned into a new vocation. He later retired from MSU in 2015, but when the university contracted with Ridgeland-based Cline Tours, its owner called Kennard back to keep the Bulldogs rolling—because nobody knows the routes (or the rhythms) like Everett.
(Nobody knows the back roads of the SEC quite like Everett Kenard (Right) standing next to Dak Prescott in the Left Field Lounge)
His job isn’t just getting from Point A to Point B; it’s caretaking a culture. Players call him “Paw Paw” and “Pops.” Women’s basketball coach Vic Schaefer once pulled him onto the floor to cut down a sliver of net after State clinched the 2017 Dallas Regional—proof that inside the Bulldog caravan, Everett is family, not just the guy with the keys.
One of Kennard’s favorite stories started at the 1996 men’s Final Four. Then–women’s coach Sharon Fanning-Otis joked that when her team finally made a Final Four, she’d help wash the bus. Twenty-one years later in Dallas, she showed up with a brush and a bucket and kept her word, while Everett grinned and made sure every chrome edge gleamed. That’s the kind of relationship he builds—with coaches, players, and fans—trip after trip.
Beyond the windshield, Kennard has been an ambassador for the Dudy Noble experience. As MSU’s longtime director of transportation, he picked up visiting teams and heard their parting verdicts on the Left Field Lounge: arrive skeptical, leave believers. It’s why he calls the Lounge “one of the greatest traditions in all of college sports.”
Recognition has followed the miles. Kennard received Mississippi State’s Donald W. Zacharias Distinguished Staff Award in 2004, one of the university’s top staff honors. And he’s still logging big hauls; before State’s 2022 football trip to Arizona, he pointed the Hail State bus west for 1,486 miles to set up shop for the team’s arrival.
His story threads through MSU history, right up to the 2021 baseball national title—he even appears in media projects chronicling that championship run as one of the voices who’s seen it all from field-level and freeway-level alike.
(Everett Kennard (Right) standing next to the late Mike Leach)
Which brings us to tonight. As the Mud Monsters host Evansville on Hail State Night, fans can snag a $25 special ticket that includes an Everett Kennard bobblehead presented by Cline Tours—and you’ll be entered to win a custom Mud Monsters cowbell crafted by The Bellsmith. It’s a fitting salute to the man who’s spent a lifetime getting Bulldog Country where it needs to go, safely and on time, with a little maroon hospitality along the way. Hail State—and tip your cap to the legend on wheels.
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