James Melvin Scott (nicknamed Scotty, but also called Melvin and Jim) (1911–2001), an author, inventor, and Senior Olympian, was born in Wisdom, Missouri, on 28 May 1911, to James Baker Scott and Cordelia Susan Suiter. One of five children (one of whom died in infancy), he grew up in Fairfield, Missouri, seven miles south of Warsaw near Route 83. The town is now covered by water, which occurred in the early 1970s when the Harry S. Truman Dam and Reservoir began filling.