The Iowa PBS story about Greene County High School students in the Iowa history class and their Schoolboy Soldiers of Rippey project is now available for viewing online.
The 7-minute feature first aired June 11. Viewers can watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEevlUQWtAA or on the Iowa PBS website: https://www.iowapbs.org/shows/iowalife/clip/14252/schoolboy-soldiers-rippey-iowa-students-preserve-civil-war-legacy
The story will also be featured in Iowa Life episode 310, our America 250 episode, airing on Iowa PBS Sunday, July 5, at 6 pm.
The Schoolboy Soldiers project began in Dena Boyd’s Iowa history in the spring of 2025 after they learned from Chuck Offenburger of the 32 students of the Brand School in Old Rippey who followed two of their teachers to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War. Nine of the students and one of the teachers died, either in combat or from war-related illnesses.
From that start in Boyd’s classroom, funds have been raised for a pair of matching monuments – one to be placed on the courthouse grounds in Jefferson and the other to be placed in the Old Rippey cemetery – and the commission for a play about the Schoolboy Soldiers that will be presented in November in Jefferson.
Replica Civil War uniforms have been purchased and students have learned to march in formation. They first marched on Memorial Day, and then in the Churdan Fun Day parade (pictured). Rain kept some groups from participating in the Bell Tower Festival parade, but the Schoolboy Soldiers marched, just as their predecessors would have 160 years ago.
