The Greene County supervisors took a field trip from their second floor meeting room in the courthouse down to the south lawn during their Sept. 8 meeting. They were accompanied by a handful of Greene County high school students. Their common goal was to determine the exact location for a monument to the schoolboy soldiers of Rippey.
The 9-foot tall, four-sided monument will be east of the monument to Capt. Darrell Lindsey, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, with the side picturing a Civil War soldier facing Lincoln Way. Using a full-size plywood model built by Justin Towers, the group tried several places before deciding on the final location. The monument will be set on a 42-inch square, 3-inch thick granite base and will weigh 5,600 pounds.
It will be placed in time for a dedication ceremony in October. An identical monument will be placed at the Old Rippey Cemetery (2025 300th St, three miles west of Rippey). The two monuments will be dedicated the same day.
Ryan Nelson, co-owner of Jefferson Monument Works, said this is the largest order in the 80-plus years the company has been in business. Total cost of the two monuments is $81,000. The company will also rehabilitate the foundation of the Lindsey monument.
The county supervisors allocated $5,000 in Louis Dreyfus funds toward the project. Other funding has been raised through donations and grants.
Placing the monuments is just one part of a multi-year project of Iowa history students at Greene County High School and teacher Dena Boyd. Chuck Offenburger has also played a large role in the project, as it was a presentation by him to Boyd’s class that sparked interest in the story of the two teachers and 32 students and former students who left Rippey to fight in the Civil War. Nine of the students and one teacher died in combat or of war-related illness. The high school’s fall play, written on commission by John Busbee of Des Moines, features the schoolboy soldiers of Rippey. Performances are Nov. 13, 14, and 15.
