Artwork
Bart Starr’s love letters to his wife, care and compassion for others shine bright at Bart and Cherry Starr Museum
Located in New London, Wisc., an hour west of Green Bay, Rawhide Youth Services has been a fixture in the area since it was created in 1965.
But without the help of Bart and Cherry Starr and the 1968 Rally Red Chevy Corvette he received for being named Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl II, Rawhide may not have had the longevity it has endured. That’s because Starr donated the Corvette to Rawhide and it was raffled off to provide financial support to the organization that offers a full array of programs for at-risk youth and their families.
That Corvette, as well as other artifacts from Starr’s career, are now on display for football fans to view at the Bart and Cherry Starr Museum located on the Rawhide Youth Services site in New London.
The museum opened in the summer of 2024 to recognize the support that Bart and Cherry Starr provided Rawhide over the years. The museum is also the culmination of years of working with Cherry and the Starr family.
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Kaleb Schad, director of strategy and marketing for Rawhide Youth Services, said Cherry, who passed away in February 2024, wanted the museum to serve as the Starr biography and “be their story.”
The multiyear process for the museum to become a reality was “complicated and long,” Schad said.
“Once we knew what our anchor point was going to be, and it was around that choice to love, then we were able to build the rest,” Schad said. “We didn’t want it to be just a boring walk through their life, because the story is so much richer than that. So, it had to have meaning.”
Schad said a lot of the research for the museum was done directly with Cherry and Bart Starr Jr. And while some of the material in the museum was furnished by the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, Schad said Rawhide also spent time searching for and securing artifacts for the museum, including the 1968 Corvette.
It took some time to track down the Corvette and convince the owner to sell it to Rawhide for the museum, Schad said.
“They actually lived real close to us,” Schad said. “I think it was just in storage and wasn’t in real great shape when we got it.”
STARRS & RAWHIDE
The story about how the Starrs became involved with Rawhide is explained in an 11-minute video that museum visitors can view prior to touring the museum.
As the video explains, Rawhide was founded by John and Jan Gillespie, who began fostering kids in 1964 and started the Rawhide organization a year later “with a dream of having a foster home and a boys ranch.” A year later, at the urging of his wife, John looked up Bart Starr’s phone number in the phone book and called him out of the blue. He explained the Rawhide program and asked if the Starrs would be willing to help finance the program.
“We really didn’t have any money to help them out, but we wanted to do something for them,” Cherry Starr said in the video. “That was the year he won the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player [award] and he won an automobile Corvette convertible. We held a raffle for it. And believe it or not, in four days we sold 40,000 tickets. Raised $40,000.”
There were only 18,630 Corvette Convertibles manufactured in 1968. Instead of receiving the perks of having a brand-new Corvette, the Starrs gave it to a charity to help others.
“They donated significant resources to Rawhide—their time, their love of these kids,” Schad said.
LOVE LETTERS
Some may wonder why the Bart and Cherry Starr Museum is located on the Rawhide property instead of closer to or in Green Bay, where the Starrs are a household name.
“This is where their heart was,” Schad said. “They loved coming out here and spending time with the kids. They were so proud of what Rawhide was. They were proud of their friendship and relationship with John and Jan Gillespie who started it. She (Cherry) just knew she didn’t want it in Green Bay. This is about more than just his time with the Packers. Being with the Packers was important, but it was really about dedication to other people.
“It’s here because this is where Rawhide started and where they found so much meaning and fulfillment in helping other people.”
For those visiting the museum, after watching the video at the entrance, visitors are allowed to go on a self-guided tour. And the museum doesn’t just chronicle Starr’s prolific football career from high school through his time with the Green Bay Packers, but it also chronicles the life and special bond that Bart and Cherry shared.
“It just follows their life and goes through that humble beginning,” Schad said. “It talks about where they started. I think Bart’s relationship with his dad is a key piece of his history.”
At the beginning of the tour, the focus is on Bart’s home life and high school football. One of his quotes about his dad is shared in the exhibit.
The quote reads, “My dad was the toughest man I’ve ever known in my life. He intimidated me. He was my master sergeant. Next to him, Coach Lombardi was a piece of cake.”
To back up that quote, Schad shared a story about when Bart wanted to stop playing football in high school.
“His dad knew Bart hated working their family garden so much, and he made him an ultimatum, you either work the garden or you play football,” Schad said. “The next day Bart went back and kept playing football. He could not stand the idea of having to weed the garden.”
That is reflected in the museum with garden tools being displayed.
The museum also reflects on the love story of Bart and Cherry, their relationship and how they met. One of the exhibits features a homemade wooden box made by Bart, with a plethora of love letters he had written to Cherry throughout his life.
“We had not expected Cherry to donate all of her love letters from her husband,” Schad said. “She showed up one day, she came out to tour the new home that we built and she said I have something for you, and she just gave us all of them.”
Another exhibit features flowers from their wedding celebration.
“A lot of people don’t know that they eloped,” Schad said. “The story is she had to change into her wedding dress in the bathroom in a gas station. They went out and got married.”
Schad said Bart had originally planned to attend the University of Kentucky to play football, but then he fell in love with Cherry.
“She was going to stay back in Alabama, so that’s when he decided to go play football at Alabama,” Schad said. “He really wanted to go play with this other coach in Kentucky, but he decided to stay close to Cherry, and he called it the best audible in his life, to make that last minute change.”
That change of direction is noted in the museum.
While Bart attended the University of Alabama, he and Cherry lived in Army barracks after they were married, Schad said.
“In the Army barracks, the floorboards, there was grass literally growing up between the floorboards,” Schad said. “And she was so dedicated to make a beautiful home she had to mow the floor before she could put a carpet down.”
There is an exhibit that tells this story, and replicates grass growing through floorboards.
The family life of the Starr family is also shared in the exhibits, the good and the bad. There is an exhibit dedicated to their younger son, Bret Starr, who died of a drug overdose in 1988 at the age of 24.
“This could have and would have torn a lot of families apart,” Schad said. “A lot of marriages fall apart when a child dies tragically, but somehow they did the opposite. They got even closer.
In the exhibit honoring Bret Starr, there is a letter on display that was written from Bart and Cherry to Bret.
“He [Bret] had that letter folded, and in his pocket when his dad found him,” Schad said. “So, he’d been holding on to it as he was trying to struggle through his addiction. That was really meaningful to them.”
The 1968 Corvette is the centerpiece of the museum. As Cherry Starr explains in the video, 40,000 tickets at $1 per ticket were sold over the course of several days for the raffle. An interesting tidbit, though, is that it was not legal to hold such a raffle in Wisconsin.
“Bart had a friendship with the governor and the governor said, ‘You know what, if you can do it over a weekend, we’ll look the other way,’” Schad said.
“That was the $40,000 Rawhide needed to secure a loan to pay for the property that Rawhide is currently located at. If it wasn’t for this donation, there wouldn’t be a Rawhide.”
GREEN BAY GRIT
At this point of the tour, the museum focuses heavily on Bart’s football career, particularly with the Green Bay Packers. Visitors have the opportunity to watch a video about Bart’s playing days.
“We really just take them through high school, college, and then of course Green Bay,” Schad said. “When he was on the field, he was a fighter and would not give up. I think that grit is one of our key values. That is inspiring for our kids when they come through here.”
There is a painting featuring Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers. In the painting Starr is holding a football. Schad said there are only four of these paintings. In addition to the painting in the museum, one was given to the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, one was given to Favre, and one was given to Rodgers. In the painting given to Favre, Favre is holding the football. In the painting given to Rodgers, Rodgers is holding the football.
There is an exhibit that features a tire swing and many footballs. While it is not the actual tire swing Starr used, the exhibit tells the story about how he would throw footballs through the tire swing and Cherry would retrieve them.
“It’s just this idea of how hard he worked,” Schad said. “He was not afraid of hard work at all. And he instilled that in the kids here.”
No museum honoring Bart and Cherry Starr would be complete without an exhibit about the Ice Bowl. There is an entire wall devoted to the historic game in December 1967.
“Cherry said that Bart’s fingers were so nerve damaged and numb from frostbite that he still had, to his dying day, nerve damage from playing that game,” Schad said. “It was an incredible amount of grit to get through that game.”
Other exhibits in this part of the museum include Starr’s Hall of Fame jacket, replica Super Bowl rings, and information about the Bart Starr Award that is given each year to an NFL player who best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership.
The museum concludes with a replica exhibit of Starr’s office that was located in Birmingham, Ala. It includes actual books and other items that were in his office.
“This room is really dedicated not just to his office, but dedicated to, you heard it in that video, he was a letter writer,” Schad said. “He wrote Brett Favre letters all the time. That’s an art and a gift that has left the world with email. We have some examples of letters he wrote to different people over the years.
“What we really want people to come out of this room with is, ‘Words are powerful.’ Bart was very careful about how he spoke, about making sure he spoke kindness to people and respectfully to people. And he expected them to speak respectfully to him.”
The final item that visitors to the museum see as they conclude their tour of the museum is a painting that includes many of things that were near and dear to Bart’s heart.
