Collection Has Gone to Missouri Man’s Head

Louis (Shimmy) Boyet Jr. of Poplar Bluff, Mo., has a few more caps than the average person--more than 1,500 in fact, including caps given to him by President Bush and Sam Walton--but he still cannot pick a favorite.

“I can’t tell you what they mean to me, because they were given to me by my relatives and my friends,” Boyet said in a recent telephone interview. “One of them is just as important as the other one.

“They’re all favorites. I couldn’t put one against the other one.”

All of the caps in his collection are different, and all were given to him, he said. He keeps an alphabetical list of all 411 people who have given him caps.

“I haven’t bought one of them,” he said. “I have caps that were given to me from 18 foreign countries. I’ve even got one from Red China, and that’s not easy to get hold of.”

Boyet got a cap from Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, when the businessman was in Poplar Bluff recently to attend the grand opening of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Poplar Bluff is in southeastern Missouri, about 125 miles south of St. Louis.

The cap, emblazoned with the logo of “Wal-Mart Ol’ Roy Dog Food,” was one of a limited edition series, Boyet said. He said the cap presented to him by Walton, which was No. 140 out of 500 in the limited edition, brought his total number of caps to 1,521.

“I talked to him a few minutes and had my picture made with him,” said Boyet, 71, who works as a real estate salesman in Poplar Bluff.

Although he did not get to meet Bush personally, Boyet said he was thrilled to receive a cap in the mail from the President. The cap is red, white and blue with a large “T” for Bush’s home state of Texas.

Boyet said he saw an article in the newspaper that said Bush had given a cap to a man in Florida. “I cut out the article and mailed it to him, then talked to a secretary to his secretary.”

Because of his interest, Boyet said, he now notices any cap worn by someone he meets. He said he would like to correspond with other cap collectors.

Boyet said he didn’t know he was going to become a collector when he started saving caps in 1981.

“My sister in Alabama sent me a few caps, then my son gave me a few,” he said. “The first thing I knew, people started sending them to me.

“I took them out of the closet and put them on the wall. Once it got on the wall, it grew.”

Although most of his collection consists of baseball-style caps with bills, he also has a few unusual ones, including the familiar “bobby” hat of a London policeman.

Many of his caps are one of a kind, and the entire collection is displayed in the basement of his home, which he shares with his 74-year-old wife, Lois, Boyet said.

“I wear some, and I’ve got them all over the walls,” he said. “My wife says I’m getting too many.”