‘She believed in us’ - Community fondly remembers elementary teacher killed in automobile accident2/26/2025  A 1969 graduate of Jefferson City Senior High, Celia McIlwain went on to earn her degree in education from Lincoln University. She taught fourth-grade classes for 17 years at Russellville Elementary School but was killed in a car accident in 1989. Courtesy of Cole-R-1 Schools Celia (Seidel) McIlwain was for years a beloved fourth-grade teacher at the elementary school in Russellville who helped inspire generations of students. When she died unexpectedly from an automobile accident, an entire school district mourned, flooding to her funeral service to pay their final respects. Decades later, her memory is still celebrated by friends, family and former students. Born in 1951, Celia Seidel was the second of three children raised on a small farm on Meadows Ford Road north of Lohman. In her youth, she attended Centertown School through the eighth grade before transferring to high school in Jefferson City. “On our parents’ farm, we raised some cattle and put up a lot of hay,” said McIlwain’s older brother, Mervin Seidel. “We also grew some truck patches so Celia spent a lot of time helping mom around the house and doing some canning of the vegetables we grew.” Church was also an important aspect of their family circle. The Seidels were members of the Central United Church of Christ in Jefferson City, where Celia underwent her Confirmation as a young woman. Mervin, who was five years older, recalled that he and his sister had their moments of sibling rivalry and mirthful retaliation while growing up. On one occasion, when he was 15 years old and Celia just 10, they played a game of croquet in the yard and had a disagreement on the rules. “I kept knocking her ball across the yard and we argued about it for a little bit and then finally quit playing,” he said. “We were walking back to the house and she came up behind me and hit me in my upper back with the croquet mallet.” Chuckling, he added, “That hurt for a while.” When graduating from Jefferson City Senior High in 1969, Celia enrolled at Lincoln University to pursue a degree in education. During college, she met Ralph McIlwain and they were married at Central United Church of Christ on June 2, 1973. A few weeks later, she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and was hired to teach the fourth-grade at Russellville Elementary School. “Although she loved to teach, I think she also wanted a career with the summers off because she loved outdoor activities like gardening” said Cheryl Morris, McIlwain’s younger sister. Morris added, “She was a Christian and her family was very important to her. The summer months were also a time for her to volunteer with her church at events like Vacation Bible School.” McIlwain and her husband became parents to a son and daughter—Matthew and Jill. Sadly, in 1987, they lost a son, Addison, in infancy. This proved to be an emotionally trying period for the McIlwain family, but through the support of relatives and friends, she continued to focus on her career and providing a quality education for her students. Jim Kilson, a student of McIlwain’s in the late 1980s, said, “She was always willing to go the extra mile to help those who were struggling by coming in early or staying late. She had a way of making learning fun to the point that even when it came to the difficult things, we were all on board to do it.” He continued, “For me personally, I really struggled as a student when I was younger and those things made all the difference in the world.” On many occasions, McIlwain carpooled with other teachers who lived in the Jefferson City area. On November 27, 1989, the first Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday, she and three other teachers finished the school day at Russellville and were returning to Jefferson City when the unexpected occurred. McIlwain was riding in a vehicle driven by one of her co-workers that was traveling eastbound on Route C. A car failed to stop at the intersection of Routes C and D north of Lohman and the vehicle in which McIlwain rode was struck on the left side, knocking it off the road. “One Russellville teacher was killed and three were injured in an accident that occurred at 4:30 p.m….” reported the Eldon Advertiser on November 30 1989. “Celia McIlwain … of Jefferson City was pronounced dead at Charles E. Still Hospital.” Of the three teachers injured in the accident, only two were able to return to their careers in education. “The superintendent got a call that some of our teachers were involved in an accident,” said Jay Acock, who was at the time elementary principal at Russellville. “He came and got me, and we drove to the intersection, but it was all over by then. We knew that Peggy (Heinrich) and Celia were hurt bad, but I didn’t hear that Celia had died until visiting the hospital a little while later.” Acock noted that counselors were brought in from Jefferson City to be available for students and faculty coping with the trauma of McIlwain’s death and the medically-necessitated absence of the other teachers. Funeral services for the 38-year-old McIlwain were held at Central United Church of Christ, where friends, family and scores of students and faculty from Russellville Elementary School packed into the building. She was then laid to rest in Riverview Cemetery, the same location where her infant son had been interred two years earlier. “It was not a good time in a lot of peoples’ lives; it affected more than just family,” said Morris. “But people obviously liked her and I know that she helped make a positive difference in a lot of lives.” “My sister,” she continued, “was a visionary and knew that her students could accomplish certain things academically. Then, through her imagination, she worked to make that vision become a reality.” Reflecting on his former teacher, Jim Kilson added, “She was super encouraging and often I’d hear, ‘I know you can do this—give it another try!’ And I know others heard it as well. She believed in us even if we didn’t believe in ourselves.” Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the upcoming historical compilation "Beyond the Moreau."  McIlwain is pictured in her senior photograph from Jefferson City Senior High in 1969. Courtesy of Mervin Seidel
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Helping the wounded - Dr. Howard A. Rusk found inspiration for rehabilitative medicine in WWII2/25/2025  While attending the University of Missouri—Columbia, Howard A. Rusk served as cadet colonel for the ROTC program in 1922. He would go on to earn his medical degree and become a renowned figure in rehabilitative medicine. Courtesy of Jeremy P. Amick Howard A. Rusk was a person who possessed two interests that were eventually able to intersect—a career as a physician and service in the armed forces of the United States. While serving in uniform during World War II, the military provided him the opportunity to explore his passion for rehabilitative medicine, which later earned him worldwide acclaim and resulted in in the naming of medical facilities in his honor. Born in the small community of Brookfield in north central Missouri, on April 1, 1901, Rusk had an early exposure to human anatomy since his father was an undertaker. Additionally, he was able to assist a local country doctor, accompanying him on house calls and observing as he performed a variety of surgical procedures. Following his graduation from Brookfield High School in 1919, he went on to attend the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he received an introduction to the military structure. In 1922, his junior year at the university, Rusk was not only a student assistant in medical bacteriology within the School of Medicine, but also demonstrated leadership competencies after his appointment as the cadet colonel for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program. “(T)the National Defense Act of 1916 yielded Army ROTC units closely resembling the college-based Cadet Command formations of today,” explained an article on the official website of the Army ROTC. “Many premier academic institutions such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities and Dartmouth College petitioned for military commissioning units.” Upon graduating from MU in 1923, rather than pursuing a military career and commission as an officer, he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and spent the next two years earning his medical degree. Then, in 1925, he returned to Missouri as a medical intern at St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Louis. The following year, he married his fiancée, Gladys Houx. The next several years required an investment of sweat and time to establish his medical practice, but when the United States was drawn into World War II on December 7, 1941, Rusk “knew the war would be long and tough, and that I had a place in it,” he wrote in his biography, “A World to Care For.” He added, “I could have stayed out of it if I wanted to; I was too old to be drafted. But sometimes a person does things because he feels that he has to do them.” Closing out his medical practice in St. Louis, Rusk was appointed to the rank of major in the medical service of the United States Army Air Forces in August 1942. His first assignment became that of Chief of Medical Services at the 1,000-bed hospital on the military base at Jefferson Barracks in South County, St. Louis. His passion to find effective and unique ways to rehabilitate wounded and ill servicemembers quickly earned him newspaper headlines. During a meeting of the Tuberculosis and Health Society of St. Louis, he described ways to maintain good spirits among wounded military members in recovery. “Educational motion pictures and a variegated program of instruction has been set up to relieve the boredom of confinement to a hospital ward pending assignment back to active duty,” Rusk was quoted as saying in an an article that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on December 8, 1942. The following year, Rusk’s continued devotion “to the rehabilitation of handicapped men and women” was highlighted in an article appearing in the Sioux City Journal on September 12, 1948, three years after the end of the war. As the newspaper detailed, while working at Jefferson Barracks, Dr. Rusk noticed many military patients were staying in the hospital longer than their civilian counterparts with similar illnesses or injuries This observation inspired two changes to assist with the rehabilitation of military patients. “First he tried to bring to the hospital some simple equipment each patient could use to improve himself in his (military) job,” the article explained. “And second, as soon as the patient was physically able, he was started on a system of exercises, easy and simple at first but gradually getting harder and more complicated.” The results were impressive and most of these military patients returned to their units instead of being caught in a protracted treatment cycle. Impressed with these outcomes, Maj. Gen. David Grant promoted Dr. Rusk to lieutenant colonel, appointed him as Chief of the Convalescent Training Program and challenged him to expand his convalescence program in all 250 of the Army Air Force hospitals. In 1944, Lt. Col. Rusk joined fellow U.S. Army Air Forces surgeon James B. Brown in receiving an annual presentation of the American Design Awards for their work with disabled war veterans. As explained during the awards presentation, the reconditioning program overseen by Rusk was adopted by all service branches. The recipient of a Distinguished Service Medal, Rusk was discharged from the military in late 1945. In the years after the war, he founded the Institute of Physical Medicine at New York University, which was later renamed Rusk Institute. Through his lifetime of work, Dr. Rusk has become widely acclaimed as the founder of rehabilitative medicine and, in 1974, the University of Missouri dedicated a rehabilitation facility in his honor—the Rusk Rehabilitation Center. The World War II veteran was 88 years old when he passed away in 1989, and was laid to rest in his birthplace of Brookfield. Affirming that Dr. Rusk should be considered for a Nobel Prize, the December 31, 1972 edition of the Arizona Republic reported, “No national figure was too big or too imposing for him to tackle if he thought by doing so he could he could further the cause of rehabilitation.” Noting the many servicemembers whose lives he helped reclaim, the newspaper added, “With his help, they have snatched success from defeat, happiness from despondency and, best of all, self-respect from self-denigration.” Jeremy P. Ämick writes on behalf of the Silver Star Families of America.  Commissioned an officer in the Army Air Forces in WWII, Dr. Rusk was inspired to explore his passion for rehabilitation medicine while working with wounded and ill servicemembers.  After graduating from Russellville High School in 1971, Jerry Koestner went on to complete an extensive career as a high school coach and administrator, in addition to retiring from the Army Reserve. In recent years, he has helped mold school administrators as an instructor at William Woods University. Courtesy of Jerry Koestner In the days of his youth growing up on a farm near Lohman, Jerry Koestner came to appreciate playing sports while attending school at nearby Russellville. This interest, coupled with the inspiration of several cousins who were employed as teachers, inspired the young man to achieve the educational footing to help him become a high school coach and led to an experience in school administration that concluded with teaching at the college level. “After I graduated from Russellville High School in 1971, I enrolled in Lincoln University since I knew that I wanted to teach and coach,” he said. “While I was in college, I worked in housekeeping at (the former) Still Hospital and also participated in the ROTC program for all four years,” he added. As Koestner recalled, a whirlwind four days unfolded in May of 1976, beginning with his interview for a position as coach at Concordia High School on a Friday. The following day, he graduated with his bachelor of science degree and received his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. “Then I had to report to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on that Sunday so that I could complete several weeks of initial training to serve as a field artillery officer and, the following Monday, received a call that I had been hired as a coach at Concordia.” He added, “I actually began teaching at Concordia in the fall of 1976 and stayed there for the next three school years,” he recalled. “While I was coaching there, I was the assistant football and baseball coach for high school and the junior varsity coach.” The next step in his career came in the fall of 1980, when he became the coach for baseball and basketball and assistant coach for football at Iberia High School. The following year, he was hired at Eugene High School, spending the next six years coaching in the baseball and basketball program. Under his guidance, the Eugene Eagles baseball team took second in State Class 2A Baseball Tournament. Koestner, who was at the time married with children and balancing a full-time coaching and teaching position along with his Army Reserve duties, also chose to build upon his education. While coaching at Eugene, he found time to earn his master of science degree in physical education from Central Missouri State University. “Russellville hired me and I began there in the fall of 1987 as the varsity and junior varsity girls’ basketball coach and the boys’ baseball coach,” Koestner recalled. “I also taught social studies and elementary and high school physical education.” The girls varsity basketball team went on to win four conference titles under Koestner’s leadership. “With four pitchers each pitching a couple innings, Russellville baseball coach Jerry Koestner managed to keep his team undefeated,” reported the Eldon Advertiser on April 5, 1990. His Russellville team defeated the Eugene team for the district championship. In addition to his successful record as a coach, in the mid-1990s, Koestner began to make the transition from coaching and teaching to that of school administration. He explained, “When the middle school moved into a new building, all I was teaching was social studies and they made me a master teacher so that I could help with teacher evaluations and discipline for students. That’s also about the time that I went to CMSU and earned my educational specialist degree in secondary administration in 2003.” Koestner’s military career came to a close with his retirement from the Army Reserve at the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2004. The following year, he retired from his career in high school education after having served ten years as the middle school principal at Russellville. This, however, did not represent the concluding moment of his lengthy career in education. “I started teaching at William Woods in 2003,” he explained. “Some of the courses I instructed focused on curriculum and instruction, athletic administration, and education administration. It has been a great opportunity to use my experience to help guide a future crop of school administrators.” He returned briefly to the Russellville School District following his retirement as one of two in-school suspension teachers. Koestner is married to Laurie, a retired elementary teacher, and they are parents to four children—Eric, Laura Lynn, Devin and Jahanna. In recent years, he has become an active member of American Legion Post 5 and served on various committees. Additionally, he attends St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Lohman, the congregation that has been his church home since childhood. While still a senior in high school, Koestner recalls going to visit his school counselor to inquire whether he had been selected for a college scholarship awarded to those entering health and physical education. “He told me that he thought that it was great that I was going to college, but that I should do that for a semester and then drop out an get a job,” he said. “I entered college with a chip on my shoulder but went on to graduate every degree with honors, including military schools, just to prove that I could succeed.” The recent years he has invested as an instructor for courses at William Woods University, he explained, have become some of the most rewarding of his extensive career. “I really enjoy teaching at the university, and it has become something of a hobby for me,” he said. “What a wonderful feeling that comes from watching some of the students that I have guided in my courses coming back to thank me for helping prepare them for that next step in their own careers.” He added, “Coaching began as my passion, but I think that teaching at the college level has changed my passion. When these former students go on to become outstanding principals and administrators, I’d like to think that I played some small part in that.” Jeremy P. Ämick is the author of the upcoming history compilation “Beyond the Moreau.”   Louise Byers was raised in Jefferson City and graduated from the local high school with honors. She later attended law school in Kansas City, becoming one of the first women lawyers in Missouri. For many years, she fought for equality for women in the legal profession. She was 90 years old when she was found brutally murdered in her Kansas City home in 1980. Courtesy of Jeremy P. Ämick Louise Byers’ mother descended from the Asel family, who had immigrated to Cole County in the 1840s. After her mother met and married Charles Byers, Louise was born in 1889 and went on to spend most of her formative years in the Jefferson City community, where she not only excelled at academics but earned the distinction of being one of the first women attorneys in the state.
Yet many years later, after she was long retired from her chosen profession, Louise Byers became a statistic representing a spate of crime in Kansas City after being found murdered in her home. Graduating with honors from Jefferson City High School in 1907, Byers later moved with her family to Kansas City, where many of the Asel family had settled. Her father worked for many years as a cable car conductor in the city and later as a cashier for Metropolitan Street Railways. Louise, however, soon embarked on the pursuit of higher education. “Miss Louise Byers, formerly of (Jefferson City), but lately of Kansas City, is now a full-fledged lawyer with full rights and authority to practice law in Missouri,” the Jefferson City Post-Tribune printed on July 1, 1918. “The entire class of ninety-seven students passed the examinations. There were ten women in the number,” the newspaper added. The following year, in June 1919, Byers graduated from the Kansas City School of Law, inviting some of her Asel relatives from Jefferson City to attend her commencement ceremony. Within a short time, she was offering her services as a notary public and practiced civil law from her office in the Commerce Building in Kansas City. “Mrs. Masie Jones Ragen and Miss Louise Byers, lawyers, will leave Saturday for Minneapolis to attend the first annual meeting of the Women Lawyers’ Association…,” the Kansas City Star reported on August 23, 1923. “They will attend the meeting of the American Bar Association, which convenes August 29 in Minneapolis.” Throughout her career, Byers used the education she had earned to promote causes on behalf of women who might not otherwise be given a voice in professional circles. In December 1926, she was invited to speak about equality before the Kansas City branch of the National Woman’s Party—a political organization established to champion the cause of women’s suffrage. The Kansas City Bar Association voted to reject from membership in its organization both Byers and a fellow woman attorney in 1925. This earned chastisement from the public, many of whom eloquently disputed such activities through letters to the local newspaper. Remarking on the exclusion of Byers and fellow woman attorney Tiera Farrow from the association, Mrs. E.E. Thomas wrote to the Kansas City Star on February 18, 1925, “These women would grace any institution.” Thomas continued, “Knowing these two women lawyers as I do, I am competent to say I would be glad to know that all our grown boys were in such company. To hear Mrs. Farrow’s eloquence and the immaculate enunciation of little Miss Byers would, by contrast, put to shame most men who are public speakers.” William C. Scarritt, the new president of the Kansas City Bar Association, announced in 1927 during an address that he advocated for the membership of women attorneys in the organization. But after waiting several years and seeing no change, Byers and several of her contemporaries took matters into their own hands. “Nine years ago, two young women lawyers applied for membership in the Kansas City Bar Association—and were denied,” the Daily American Republic shared on August 9, 1934. “Now, along with 25 other attorneys of their sex, they have incorporated the Women’s Bar Association of Kansas City.” Later granted membership in the Missouri Bar Association, Byers remained a popular speaker for women’s groups and organizations in the Kansas City area throughout the next several years. She was also committed to her faith and was a member of the Unity Church on the Plaza. After investing more than two decades in her work as an attorney, Byers accepted a position in the prayer ministry with the Unity School of Christianity in 1941. She remained with the school until 1966, responding to correspondence received and performing a variety of administrative tasks. Never marrying nor having any children, the retired attorney slipped quietly into retirement. She found great pleasure in doing yard work until suffering a concussion from a fall sometime around the mid-1970s. From that point on, she occupied much of her free time by reading. “The beating death of a pioneer woman lawyer here, who would have celebrated her 91st birthday today, has sent ripples of fear through the neighborhood where she lived,” the Kansas City Star alarmingly reported on February 12, 1980. “The body of Miss Louise Byers, a second cousin to former city councilman, Arthur E. Asel Jr., was found Sunday on a second-floor landing of her home at 1315 E. 75th. The autopsy Monday by … Jackson County Medical Examiner, revealed Miss Byers … had been beaten to death.” It was the 11th homicide of the year in Kansas City but after a five-day investigation, 29-year-old Glenn B. Mansfield was charged with capital murder. Mansfield was later convicted of second-degree murder and received a life sentence. Byers was laid to rest in Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City. Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, remarked, “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.” Likewise, Byers never apologized for her drive to succeed in a profession dominated by men, simply wanting to be judged by the merit of her work and accomplishments. The legacy she left was that of inspiration, helping generations of aspiring women attorneys to experience their own professional successes. Jeremy P. Ämick is the author of the historical compilation “Moments on the Moreau.”  Sam Kaiser became involved in radio in the early 1970s after graduation from a high school in St. Louis. He later worked for KSHE before being hired by Atlantic Records. In 1986, he became the head of music programming of MTV and after briefly working for the Enigma record label, formed his own artist management company, MVP Entertainment. Courtesy of Sam Kaiser Sam Kaiser was bitten by the music bug while growing up in St. Louis in the late 1960s, listening to album-oriented rock (AOR) on local stations and developing an interest in the radio industry. Inspired to become a rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey, this marked the beginning of a fascinating career that included working for Atlantic Records, MTV and eventually establishing his own artist management company on the West Coast. Graduating from high school in North County, St. Louis, in 1971, Kaiser briefly enrolled at St. Louis Community College, which afforded him the opportunity to study for and earn his radio license through the FCC. He then joined a group of young visionaries putting together a new school FM station. “We got the station on the air in 1972 and that began my 5-year career in radio,” Kaiser recalled. “I helped with programming at the college station and then ended up going to work at KADI and KSHE-95 and really loved the medium. But,” he added, “it’s not what I envisioned doing for a career since you often had to move between stations every couple of years.” Kaiser was hired by Atlantic Records in 1976 and worked for several months doing local-level promotions and was then “put on the road” for a couple of years to help support and promote bands on the Atlantic roster. The duties of this position were exciting and eye-opening as the 23-year-old was working with artists such as the Rolling Stones, Foreigner, Genesis and Led Zeppelin.” “It was really a great opportunity because I can recall taking AC/DC out to play 300-to-500-seat clubs about the time they were really getting started in their careers,” Kaiser remarked. “Then, I was brought to the home office of Atlantic in New York in 1979 as the director of field operations, managing the activities of local and regional staff who were doing what I had been doing.” Less than two years later, Kaiser was promoted to director of Pop Promotion, later becoming vice president of this division. By 1986, MTV, which had come on the air in 1981, was preparing to recruit a new team of leaders and managers. He explained, “I joined in MTV in late 1986 as head of music programming. For about two years, my team and I worked with record labels and artists, not only thinking up big promotions, but conducting research to determine what music videos would be played and on what type of frequency or rotation.” It was during this time that music videos by emerging bands like Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, and the Cult were growing in popularity. MTV’s business model maintained a tenuous balance since many of the music videos were somewhat risque, thus attracting younger audiences. However, the company relied upon a small number of regional cable television operators and networks, all who were very sensitive to local community feedback. MTV was already considered a target due to the edginess of some of the music videos. It was a very delicate balance to maintain that edge and credibility with audiences but not stepping over the line with content that might result in MTV being removed from a system channel lineup. The next stepping stone of his career onto which he leaped occurred in 1988, when Kaiser was hired by a startup company under the umbrella of MCA called UNI Records. The company was shut down after only nine months although he and his staff were beginning to experience success with such albums as “Copperhead Road” by Steve Earle. Kaiser recalled, “I went to California in 1989 because Capital and EMI had purchased interest in the Enigma label. They hired me as senior VP to focus on promotion, marketing and to help evelop their artist roster. We had a great deal of latitude and during this time I worked with Shooting Star (Kansas City area) to release a best-of album and recorded the song and video for ‘Touch Me Tonight,’ which got quite a bit of radio play.” By 1990, Kaiser had gained enough music industry experience that he felt it a good time to strike out on his own, forming MVP Entertainment. As the founder and president, he continues to do marketing, promotion, consulting and artist management, having worked with a diverse client base to include Richard Marx, Rod Stewart and the Doobie Brothers. For a young visionary coming out of St. Louis in the 1970s, Kaiser realized he wanted to have a career that was in some fashion aligned with the music industry, but never dreamed where that winding path would take him. He currently lives in Santa Barbara, California, and still has family in the St. Louis area. “There was a certain point where I became cognizant that something great was happening … because here I was, a 23-year-old on the road with the Rolling Stones!” he excitedly remarked. “A lot of it was a matter of timing and I was fortunate to have learned from a lot of the old school managers from the 1950s who had helped build the industry.” He added, “And one thing that MTV did was give me access to all major artists, managers, and a huge cross-section of accomplished music and label executives. TV might not have been where I wanted to have a career but it was certainly part of the adventure.” Jeremy P. Ämick is the author of “Movin’ On,” biography of the rock band Missouri.  Kaiser, front row, wearing a brown jacket, is pictured in 1980 with members of the Kansas City area rock band Shooting Star and on-air talent from St. Louis’ KSHE-95 radio station. Courtesy of Sam Kaiser |
AuthorJeremy P. Ämick is an award-winning author and historian dedicated to preserving music, military and local histories. Archives
July 2026
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