Lion-Hearted Awards '08

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 24, 2008

Lee Elliff Pound
(417) 625-9355

JOPLIN, MO (SNS) - Jim Frazier, Joplin, former MSSU Men’s Athletic Director and Football Coach, and Ruth Kolpin-Rubison, Carthage, retired broadcasting executive and current entrepreneur and philanthropist, will receive the Lion-Hearted, 2008 Awards from the Missouri Southern Alumni Association according to Lee Elliff Pound, Alumni Association Director.

The Award recognizes individuals who, although not Missouri Southern graduates, are outstanding supporters of MSSU.

The Lion-Hearted Awards will be presented at the Lion Pride Brunch at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 4 in Phinney Hall (adjacent to Taylor Performing Arts Center) on the MSSU campus. Recipients also will be recognized at halftime of the MSSU homecoming football game that afternoon.

Jim Frazier - Lion-Hearted Recipient

Jim Frazier was named head coach at Missouri Southern in 1971. He promptly led the football program to national acclaim. In only his second season at the helm, Frazier guided the Lions to a 12-0-0 record, a No. 1 national ranking and the NAIA Division II National Championship. He was named district, area and national Coach of the Year.

The success continued as Frazier’s 1976 squad won a share of the inaugural Central States Intercollegiate Conference crown and was voted NAIA District 16 champion. He then shared either league or district Coach of the Year laurels three straight seasons after the Lions posted records of 7-2-1, 9-2-0 and 6-3-0 from 1982-84, while his 1985 team had the distinction of notching the school’s 100th all-time win since Southern became a senior college in 1968.

While head coach of the Lions, Frazier saw the construction of Fred G. Hughes Stadium which opened in 1975. He later led Missouri Southern into the National Collegiate Athletics Association and the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. During his tenure, he saw the men’s and women’s athletic programs grow into conference and national contenders.

Frazier assumed the full-time duties as the athletic director at Southern in 1985. Toward the end of this thirty-year career at Southern, he helped fulfill a lifetime dream with the construction of the Leggett and Platt Athletic Center.

Jim Frazier was inducted into the Southern Letterman Alumni Association Hall of Fame in 1986.

Jim and his wife, Della have been married for over 45 years. They are the parents of two sons and six grand children.

Their son Kent and his wife Kelli have daughters, Brittini and Hannah, and twin boys Carson and Cody. Jim and Della’s son Kevin and his wife Janet have two daughters, Katlyn and Carli.

 

Ruth I. Kolpin-Rubison -- Lion-Hearted Recipient

Ruth I. Kolpin moved to Carthage, Missouri in 1962 and filed with the FCC for a 250 watt radio station. Her first year in Carthage she filed to increase the 250 watt radio station to 1,000 watts and later filed to put in an FM station in Carthage. At that time, AM and FM radio stations could not be in a market over 10,000.

Due to the amount of paperwork needed to complete such a task and the inability to hire a Washington attorney, Kolpin-Rubison work with commissioners, a former competitor and FCC Commissioner and got the rules changed for all of the United States. Her former competitor, Bob Wells, stated these rules should have been called “Ruth’s Rules.”

In 1964, Kolpin-Rubison attended a National Association of Broadcasters Convention and saw a sign that said CATV. She walked in and found that CATV was Community Antenna Television. She returned from that meeting and started educating the Carthage City Council on CATV, advertised as ‘Abel Cable.” Although the Joplin competition attended the city council meeting, the franchise was granted to her in September 1965 under the name of Carthage Cablevision Inc.

Kolpin-Rubison expanded her cable systems in 1979 and franchised, built and operated 27 cable TV systems. Her son, Dean Peterson, was a radio, television and cable engineer and was instrumental in the success of the cable enterprise.

In 1990, she turned the FM and AM station over to her youngest son, Ron Peterson, Jr. who now owns and operates the FM station under the call letters of KMXL and the AM station under the original call letters of KDMO. In 1999, Kolpin-Rubison sold her cable system to Cox Communications.

She later established her own foundation. The Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation has benefitted many area charities since 1999, including but not limited to: Missouri Southern Foundation, Missouri Southern Piano Competition, Missouri Southern Media Showcase, McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation, Pro Musica, Joplin Area Catholic Schools, Girl Scouts, Friends of the Library, Joplin Little Theatre, Victoria Carthage, Joplin Museum Complex, Ozark Public Television, Carthage Police Department, Carthage R-9 School Foundation and the Jasper County Youth Fair.

Kolpin-Rubsion operates the Ruth I. Koplin Enterprises, LLC property Management Company. She credits that all she has today came from a 250-watt radio station in Carthage that she saved her money to buy in 1962.

Students majoring in Mass Communications with an emphasis on broadcasting benefit from a generous donation establishing an endowed scholarship at Missouri Southern State University. The Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation Board of Directors established a scholarship, known as the Ruth I. Kolpin Broadcast Journalism Endowed Scholarship.

She was recognized as the recipient of the first Pioneer Broadcaster Award from Missouri Southern in 1997. The award recognizes individuals who made significant contributions to the development of the local broadcast industry.

Most recently, upgrades resulting from a donation by the Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation have allowed Missouri Southern campus television station KGCS-TV to install a new transmitter and antenna, allowing the station to increase the number of households receiving its signal from 20,000 to 167,000. The station will now be ahead of the curve with digital broadcasts reaching viewers on channel 22 as well as local cable channels.

Kolpin-Rubison resides in Carthage with her husband Richard “Dick” Rubison.

 

 

 

 

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