2020 INDUCTEES
Tim Leeper
A 1975 graduate of Everton High School, Tim Leeper attended John Brown University, where he played baseball all four years.
Tim began his teaching career at Fair Grove High in 1979. He coached baseball at Fair Grove for the next thirty-one years and was an eight-time conference coach of the year. He served as head basketball coach for three years, and was an assistant football coach for thirty years. He also coached junior high football and basketball for many years. In addition, he served as athletic director for a number of years during the latter half of his career. Upon his retirement in 2010, the Fair Grove School system named its baseball field “Tim Leeper Field” in his honor.
Tim still serves as the groundskeeper at Fair Grove. This year marks 42 years he has worked for the Fair Grove Schools.
Dorthy Patterson
Dorothy Patterson was born at Red Top, Missouri, in 1911. She earned a bachelor of science degree in education from Southwest Missouri State and later earned a master’s degree from Drury. She taught second grade for her entire career, including the last thirty years, approximately, at Fair Grove Elementary School. She retired in 1976.
After retirement, Dorothy devoted her life to caring for her two-story white frame home near Buffalo and to faithful attendance at Red Top Missionary Baptist Church. When she died in 2002, her obituary said that, during her retirement, her fondest memories were of the kids she had taught at Fair Grove. Even after her former students reached adulthood, many of them stayed in contact with her through Christmas cards and other communications, reminding her of the loving impact she had made upon their lives.
Charity (Shira) Elliott
A 1987 graduate of Fair Grove High School, Charity Shira Elliott was arguably the best girls basketball player to ever play for the Eagles. A four-year starter, she earned all-district, all-Ozarks, and all-state honors both her junior and senior years. Her junior year she averaged 28.6 points per game and led Fair Grove to a 24-5 record. Her senior year she averaged 27.7 points per game, led the Eagles to a 29-2 record, and was the number one vote getter on the Springfield News-Leader’s all-Ozarks team. Over her four-year career at Fair Grove, she amassed 2,350 points. Charity was also an outstanding student, graduating fourth in her class in academic standing.
During her senior year, she signed to attend Rice University in Houston, Texas, and play basketball for the Owls. She averaged over seven points per game her freshman year and almost seventeen points per game her sophomore year. She then transferred to Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State) in Springfield, where, during her senior year, she helped the Bears to a 31-3 record and their first Final Four appearance in school history.
Charity began her coaching career in 1992 as freshmen girls’ basketball coach at Glendale High School in Springfield. The next year, she moved up to the college ranks as an assistant coach at San Diego State, and she later served as an assistant at Southwest Missouri State, Southwest Baptist, and the University of Arkansas. She became head women’s basketball coach at South Adelaide in 1999 and has since served in the same capacity at California Baptist, Portland State, and the University of California San Diego, where she led the Tritons to the NCAA Division II Tournament four out of her five years at the school. Charity is currently the head coach at Division I Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, where in 2019 she led her team to the Women’s NIT.
Marilyn Smith
Marilyn Kay Thomas Smith was born in Fair Grove to Joe and Irene Owen Thomsas. Marilyn’s father and his father, aunts, uncles and brothers were Fair Grove graduates. Marilyn and of all her siblings graduated from Fair Grove. She married Terry Smith and had two children, Tim and Tina, both Fair Grove graduates, and three grandchildren, Owen (Fair Grove Graduate), Mia and Ali.
Her writing credits include Buffalo Reflex Newspaper (30+ years of columns), Ozarks Senior Living Magazine (served as Associate Editor and 18 years of articles), Fair Grove Gazette newspaper, Fair Grove Interchange newspaper, Fair Grove Heritage newspaper, Marshfield Mail (15 + years), Springfield News-Leader (guest columnist), Springfield! Magazine, The Ozarks Mountaineer magazine, Possum Trot magazine, Reminisce magazine, and Journal of the Ozarks magazine (articles, poems and served as Contributing Editor). Her work is also featured in numerous anthologies.
Her books include “A History of Highway 65, from the middle of the road,” “The Window Pane Inn and other short stories,” and “Ozarks Recipes, Momma’s, Mine and Others,” “My Red Convertible,” “After a hard day on the Farm,” “Those were the days on the Farm,” “Bessie’s Secret and other short stories,” and “Poetic Verses.” Terry and Marilyn also appeared in the documentary movie, “Held As Bandits-1932 Highway Robbery in Fair Grove.” She is in the process of writing the history of Fair Grove.
The Fair Grove Historical and Preservation Society began in the late 1970s. Shortly after being formed, it sponsored an annual ice cream social and arts and crafts festival. At the festival Marilyn had a craft’s booth for the first twenty-plus years, then manned the information booth. For many years she was the coordinator for the ice cream socials. Her pies were and are always present at the socials and the bean booth at the Fair Grove Heritage Reunion. She held the Society’s secretary position for 30-plus years, and music coordinator for nearly that long. She co-published the annual Historical Society calendar.
Marilyn is a member of the Missouri Writers’ Guild, and an honorary member of the Springfield Writers’ Guild (speaker and board member). She also served as president, treasurer and secretary of the Springfield Poets and Friends group. She is very active in the Fair Grove Sunshine Club and served as president for twenty-plus years.
Colonel Rick Barnhart
Lieutenant Colonel Richard D. Barnhard is the Chief of Contracting, Theater Special Operations Command Africa at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. Lt Col Barnhart leads Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine contingency contracting officers who deliver special operations forces “peculiar” mission suport across 24 African countries.
Prior to this assignment, Lt Col Barnhart commanded the 771st Enterprise Sourcing Squadron at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. He led an organization chartered to strategically source approximately $58B in mission support requirements spanning 84 installation worldwide.
Before his Pentagon tour, Lt Col Barnhart commanded teh 35th Contracting Squadron, Misawa Air Base, Japan, where he was responsible for installation contracting support for the Joint and Bilateral operations of the 35th Flighter Wing. Under his command the 35 CONS won teh 2012 Pacific Air Forces “Best Contracting Squadron of the Year” award.
Levi “Lee” Gearhart
Levi “Lee” Gearhart was pastor of Fair Grove Baptist Church for about seventeen years from the early fifties to late sixties. He went to FGHS. One source says he graduated from FG, but another source says something about his attending school in Springfield his senior year. Either way, he grew up in FG and went to FG Schools most of his youth. After college at SMS (now MSU), he came back to the FG area as a teacher (not sure if he actually taught at FG or the rural schools around FG) for a while before finishing his teaching career in Springfield, mainly at Hillcrest as a math teacher. He was pastor at FG mostly while he taught at Hillcrest. In addition to his regular pastoral duties of preaching sermons, etc. Rev. Gearhart sponsored the Royal Ambassadors, a youth group for boys, and did a lot of extracurricular things, like taking the boys on fishing trips. He was beloved by the people of the church, who had a big celebration for him when he retired.