A long-distance runner, a business leader, a barrier-breaking educator, a community leader, a golfer and a political powerhouse.
These are some of the seven people who were enshrined on the walls of the Carthage Fair Acres Family Y on Saturday as the 2018 class of the Hall of Carthage Heroes.
Two of those inducted, business leader Harry Mack Cornell Jr. and Carthage High School distance runner Dr. Allison Medlin, were on hand to accept their plaques personally.
The five other inductees had all passed away and family members accepted in their honor.
They were Civic Leader Ben Edwin Johnson, Golfer Thomas James Loyd, Business Pioneer Roy E. Mayes Sr., Educator and Civic Leader Kathryn E. Redmond and State Legislator Richard Melton Webster.
“This year’s heroes include civic leaders, business leaders and educators that I grew up hearing about from my family, my dad, from as long I can remember,” said Carthage Mayor Dan Rife. “Their names so connected to Carthage that you can’t think of one without the other. The Hall of Heroes class has helped make Carthage what it is today, and they’ve set an example for the rest of us to follow from now on.”
Jonathan Roberts, director of the Fair Acres Family Y, said more than 1,000 people pass through the Y each week, and some pause to read the plaques on the wall, learning a little more about Carthage’s history each time they pause.
“Members of the community are frequently reminded of the outstanding individuals that have made Carthage into a wonderful town of rich history and tradition,” Roberts said. “Those portrayed on the walls are not just heroes but they’re legacies of our community.”
Bill Putnam, a member of the Hall of Carthage Heroes Committee, said an anonymous committee of civic leaders in Carthage pours through the nominations received and decides on the six or seven people that are chosen each year.
The Hall of Carthage Heroes Committee relinquished the duties of choosing the inductees about three years after the Hall was formed and many of an initial list of 20 or 30 Carthage Pioneers were in place.
“In 2012 we started with 24 inductees who were largely from that late 1890s and early 1900s timeframe,” Putnam said. “And that influenced our choice of inductees for the first two or three years. Then we decided the committee was not going to just select people, that we wanted to involve the community in the project. So, we started encouraging folks to make nominations. We recognized that we did not know all of the heroes from Carthage and that we needed help from families, so the last two or three years especially we have really taken our nominees from folks that have been nominated from the population as a whole.”
• Inductee Harry Mack Cornell Jr., nominated for his work to build Carthage’s Leggett & Platt from a small regional company to a world manufacturing leader, thanked the committee for his induction.
“I’m certainly flattered to be here with you all and to be among those to be inducted in the Carthage Hall of Heroes,” Cornell said. “We’re all very proud of our heritage and being Carthaginians or Jasper Countians or whatever we call ourselves.”
Cornell graduated from Carthage High School and joined the company created by his grandfather in 1950. He was elevated to CEO in 1960 and retired as Chairman Emeritus of the Board in 2008. Cornell has also supported educational and other philanthropic endeavors that bear his name in Southwest Missouri and at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
• Inductee Allison Medlin was nominated for her performance and prowess as a long-distance runner for Carthage High School in the mid-1990s, finishing third at state in Cross Country in 1994 and 1996 and winning the state title in 1995.
She has since gone on to get her medical degree and is now Dr. Allison Medlin, a board-certified family physician living in Kansas City. She said hi to her kindergarten teacher, Laurel Rosenthal, a 2014 inductee who was present on Saturday.
“It’s ironic that we’re here in the Y and I’m getting this award here because I spent hundreds of miles on the treadmill at the Y,” Medlin said. “I was a summer camp counselor here too. It’s pretty cool to be back here. Coach (Andy) Youngworth, I don’t think I said thank you enough. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Mom and Dad, so much dedication and hours spent letting me train and taking me to meets across the country. I probably never said thank you enough to you too. As a new parent, I think it hits me more now how much dedication that you all had towards me.”
• Civic Leader Ben Edwin Johnson was for his achievements as an engineer with Eagle Picher Technologies and for his service to the Carthage Community on the Jasper County Commissioners, the Carthage City Council, Carthage Water and Electric Plant Board, Powers Museum Board and as a CASA volunteer advocating for abused and neglected children in the foster care system.
“My father was indeed worthy of this honor, but he never would have admitted he was anything other than Ben Johnson, husband, father, grandfather, productive member of the community,” said his daughter, Melissa Daugherty. “I want to thank you for acknowledging his legacy left for future generations and I’m very proud I got to call him dad.”
• Golfer Thomas James Loyd was nominated for his achievements as a golfer with Carthage High School, at the University of Missouri and throughout his life.
He served as the Mizzou Men’s and Women’s Assistant Coach from 1977-1997, as well as the Mizzou Women’s Golf Head Coach from 1998-2001. He was inducted into the Columbia, Missouri Golf Foundation Hall of Fame in 2016.
“Tom was a humble and unassuming man who would never seek out this honor,” said Josh Taylor, Thomas Loyd’s nephew. “If he were here today, he would very graciously accept it and thank you seriously for it. He’d be more interested in reading about the former Carthaginians who became astronauts, hall of fame baseball players, things like that. He would find that very interesting.”
• Business Pioneer Roy Mayes Sr. was inducted for his work helping to grow Carthage Marble into an internationally recognized quarry and his work in the community during and after World War II.
He was named to the Missouri State Highway Commission in 1961 and worked with Sen. Richard Webster to make sure the new interstate, now known as I-49, came through Carthage.
Roy Mayes Jr. talked about one of the conversations his dad told him about regarding that interstate.
“I was glad to see Sen. Webster is on there because dad always loved a little bit of a skirmish,” Mayes Jr. said. “When they brought up the interstate highway, the Senator said, we’ve got to get you on there man. Dad said, how are you going to do this? The senator said well, you’re going to be appointed. Dad said How does it work after that. The senator said, well, I’ve got a budget and this trash can, and they’ll either accept it or the budget will go in the trash can.”
• Educator and Civic Leader Kathryn E. Redmond was inducted for her work as an educator in Carthage for almost 40 years and her work to help peacefully desegregate Carthage schools in the 1960s.
She was the last principal of the all-black Lincoln School until it was closed in 1955 for desegregation and taught at Eugene Field School until she retired in 1965. She also served on the Eastern Jasper County Mental Health Association and was the first woman and first black person to speak at the annual Carthage Laymen’s Pre-Christmas Services.
“From my siblings, we just want to say thank you,” said Redmond’s nephew, Claude Burns. “Our aunt was very, very special and she was one of a kind. And we do miss her. If she was here, she would say thank you.”
• State Legislator Richard Melton Webster was honored for his work as State Representative and later State Senator in the Missouri General Assembly from 1948-1990. He was elected Speaker of the House in 1954 and was elected to the State Senate in 1962.
From there he was instrumental in creating Missouri Southern College in Joplin, now known as Missouri Southern State University.
“My father loved Carthage very much. His mother was a beloved English teacher in Carthage High School, and they had a conversation once about wouldn’t it be wonderful if the people from Southwest Missouri could have a place to go to school, so people that couldn’t afford to go off to school could have a school where they could get an education,” said Jasper County Auditor Richard Webster, accepting the award for his father. “Because of that conversation, that was the birth of the movement that created Missouri Southern College, which came to fruition after much hard work, and of which we are proud.”
