It was 1963, the conflict in Vietnam was shifting into high gear, and a star that was mounted on the Jasper County Courthouse on the Carthage Square needed updating.
Ruth I. Kolpin-Rubison, who had only moved to Carthage two years before with her family and purchased KDMO AM-1490, a local radio station, had an idea.
“I learned late in life, my mother would come to me and say she was going to do certain things, and if I bucked the idea, she would do it to show me,” said Ron Petersen Sr., Kolpin-Rubison’s son. “So, I learned just to say, mom, that’s a great idea.”
Petersen said his mother’s idea was to take the Courthouse star, that was normally only lit during the Christmas holiday season and turn it into a beacon of peace and hope that would be lit 365 days a year.
“She felt that there needed to be peace on earth, like at Christmas time, all the time, and she wanted to keep that star illuminated all year around,” Petersen said. “Before then, they only illuminated it at Christmas. It was there, but it was really in poor shape and she told the county she would pay for the upkeep.”
She donated money to the county to have the star refurbished and mounted permanently on the top of Carthage’s iconic centerpiece.
Then she decided to throw a big party to dedicate what was renamed the Peace Star, and she wanted it seen as a beacon of hope at the crossroads of the nation.
At that time, U.S. Highway 66, a major east-west national artery, and U.S. Highway 71, the successor to the Jefferson Highway and a link between Canada and New Orleans, crossed at the intersection of Central and Garrison, just four blocks from the Square.
The star could be seen by travelers on both highways for miles.
So, she invited the governors of Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma to Carthage to sign proclamations about the star.
Governors John Dalton of Missouri, Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Henry Bellman of Oklahoma and John Anderson Jr. of Kansas, gathered in Carthage on Jan. 10, 1964 for a dedication of the star atop the Jasper County Courthouse as “a guiding star — a star of peace,” according to a brochure that was printed commemorating the ceremony.
“When they had the dedication of the Peace Star here in Carthage in 1964, she gathered together four governors from the four surrounding states to come and sign a proclamation declaring that this Peace Star was a beacon and a guiding light to the surrounding area,” said Jasper County Eastern District Commissioner Tom Flanigan. “That’s a big deal. She convinced those governors to come to Carthage for this event.”
Petersen said he was skeptical she could get the governors to come here, but he had also learned not to doubt his mother.
“When she told me all four governors were coming to town, I thought, well, I don’t know about that, can it be true?” Petersen said. “I never doubted it, but you wondered if it was really going to happen, and she did it.
“She was very persuasive, she knew how to develop a story that would enhance what she was doing, then she sold it. She was just very good at sales. She was good at enthusing people about what she was doing, and sometimes she would come up with some really, really neat ideas, and she’d move forward with them.”
More recently, as the neon star aged, Kolpin-Rubison spearheaded and provided most of the funding to modernize the star and install more-reliable LED lights to replace the neon.
Then-Eastern District Commissioner Jim Honey worked with Kolpin-Rubison to make the project happen, and in 2010, the star was rededicated.
Petersen said in 2017, when a hail storm tore through the north part of Carthage, his mother was concerned.
“When the hailstorm came and destroyed the roofs all around the Square and the courthouse too, she was petrified that it destroyed her star,” Petersen said. “But her star continued to be illuminated, it didn’t impact it at all. She said I think it was protected by divine protection, and I said, well, the divine protection has taken care of you too girl.”
