An achiever, a leader, a convener, a collaborator and a founder are just a few of the words Rita Simon used to describe this year’s John D. Rudd Award winner: 89-year-old Ruth Reichmann.
Del Newkirk, former CEO of the Brown County Community Foundation, added a few more.
“Ruth Reichmann is a stubborn German, highly intellectual. She’s a pain in the butt,” he said to a room full of laughs.
Reichmann wouldn’t even agree with him that she was a “founder” of the Brown County Community Foundation. But she admitted that she gave Newkirk the push to make it happen.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]The winner of the John D. Rudd Award, the highest award given each year to a volunteer, is a highly guarded secret, revealed at the end of the Brown County Community Foundation’s annual meetings. It’s named for its first recipient, a revered public servant and volunteer whose name now graces the ball diamonds at Deer Run Park.
In 1989, the Brown County League of Women Voters started a work group called Vision 2010 when Reichmann was League president.
The project was co-sponsored by then-County Agent Jon Cain and Kenny Krebbs of the Farm Bureau. It resulted in a to-do list, but as the list of dreams grew, it was apparent there wasn’t funding for them all.
Toward the top of the group’s to do list was creating a community center, and the League formed a committee. One of the members, Stu Huffman, told the group that Lilly Endowment Inc. was helping communities establish community foundations through a matching fund challenge.
“We said, ‘What is that?’ Several weeks later, I received an invitation to meet with a Mr. Sullivan the executive director of the Heritage Fund in Columbus to introduce us to a community foundation,” Reichmann said.
In that meeting, Sullivan explained that the county would have to raise a million dollars as part of the match.
“We brought it up and everybody said, ‘A million dollars? Never. Can’t be done. We are 15,000 people. Where would the money come from?’” Reichmann said.
Then it was suggested that Brown County join the Bartholomew County Community Foundation.
“You know Brown County, we are not going to give our money to Columbus, are we?” Reichmann said to more laughter from the audience. “No, heaven forbid. We were going around and around. We weren’t getting anywhere.”
Then, Reichmann went to see Newkirk. “I walked into Del’s office and I explained it in the best way I could. He said, ‘No way. I am way too busy. I cannot take on anything else. No.’ So, I left. To this day, I really would like to know what happened,” she said to more laughter from the crowd.
But Newkirk did end up meeting with Sullivan, who was the executive director of the Heritage Fund in Bartholomew County.
The Lilly match challenge was eventually accepted, and nearly $900,000 was raised. The Brown County Community Foundation was born. This year, it’s celebrating its 25th anniversary.
“We didn’t quite make our match, but we came close to it,” Newkirk said.
“We went around the county and asked people for money. Guess what? They gave. Now we have all of these people that I hope that have a permanent fund in the community foundation. It’s growing. Thanks to you, it’s growing.”
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Reichmann was born in Bavaria, Germany. She met her husband, Eberhard, at the University of Cincinnati where they were both exchange students. The couple moved to Bloomington in 1959, then bought a small farm on the south side of Nashville eight years later.
As a mother, Reichmann began a long commitment to 4-H, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, according to a story about her which the Democrat published in 2015.
She served as president of the Sassafras Audubon Society and helped to organize educational nature tours in Brown County with Fred Lorenz. She also took up other environmental causes and became involved with the League of Women Voters.
Reichmann has been active member of the Brown County Historical Society and the cultural preservation group, Peaceful Valley Heritage Preservation. She also worked with Sister Cities International.
In her role with Peaceful Valley, Reichmann has helped to get historic markers for the Bill Monroe Music Park and Campground and the T.C. Steele Historic Site.
She is working on a project to establish 25 miles of road through Brown County as a Hoosier Hills Scenic Byway. The purpose is to showcase scenery, history, culture and recreation.
Reichmann had taken a seat toward the back of the room at the Brown County History Center with a plate of food when Simon announced she was the Rudd award winner.
“You shouldn’t do that to a 90-year-old woman. I really about had a heart attack, you know,” she said as she took the microphone from community foundation CEO Larry Pejeau.
“Thanks, everybody. My husband and I came here in 1967. Somehow I got suckered into a lot of things. Some I quite enjoyed and some I didn’t. We had a lot of winners, we won quite a few and we had some real bad losses.”
One of those losses was Vision 2010 comprehensive plan, a project Reichmann co-chaired with then-plan commission director Bonnie Robison.
“We had with us the commissioners then. Another a set of commissioners ran against it, so it was nixed. If we got this master plan, Brown County would be a different place today,” she said.
“It takes a village.”
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At the Brown County Community Foundation’s 2018 Annual Report to the Community, $74,493.15 in grants went to various community groups:
- $3,500 to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Brown County for its back-to-school giveaway program
- $7,190 to the Brown County Solid Waste Management District for a 22-foot closed-top recycling container
- $2,950 to Peaceful Valley Heritage Preservation Inc. for a Frank Hohenberger state historic marker
- $5,000 to Brown County Habitat for Humanity for its Brush with Kindness home repair program
- $5,000 to BETA for the Kids on Wheels skate park
- $797 to the Knobstone Hiking Trail Association for trail marker posts
- $1,800 to Brown Countians for Quality Healthcare for a Brown County Health and Wellness membership assistance program
- $512.50 to the Brown County Purdue Extension/4-H for a youth “mountain biking 101” program
- $793.81 to the Brown County Literacy Coalition for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library free book program and tutoring public relations supplies
- $880 to the Brown County YMCA for an outdoor basketball system, and AED units to use in case of a visitor having a heart attack
- $4,000 to Brown County Playhouse Management Inc. for soundproof drapes
- $1,000 to the Brown County Rotary Club for “I Like Me” books
- $4,000 to Keep Brown County Beautiful for its Picture Perfect Brown County litter cleanup project
- $1,600 to the Nashville Farmers Market for public relations supplies and event materials
- $2,000 to the Indiana Raptor Center Inc. for RaptorMed software
- $2,669.84 to the Nashville Arts and Entertainment Commission for a sound system to use at Pavilion Music Series concerts
- $3,800 to BETA for the after-school arts committee
- $10,000 to Jefferson Street Park Inc. to build a multi-purpose community park
- $3,000 to the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation for the Lotus Blossoms educational outreach program
- $10,000 to the Brown County Humane Society to go toward building a new animal shelter
- $4,000 to the Indiana State Museum Foundation Inc. for expanding STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) learning at T.C. Steele State Historic Site
