To the Editor:

I hope everyone has seen the wonderful article beginning on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (02.22,2025) honoring Fayette’s Judy Rethwisch for her 60 year career leading the Affton High school speech and drama program in St. Louis County, producing over 120 shows and musicals and establishing her reputation and legacy with theater students and teachers statewide. Filled with fascinating details about Judy and her career, three full page columns are needed (more than for most politicians!) to narrate background on Judy’s life, her early efforts to establish the drama department and produce the first shows at Affton, and her unique personal style and methods for inspiring, encouraging, and challenging students (including John Goodman!) to develop their talents and increase their confidence and life skills on the stage. She has demonstrated combined abilities in working with students, their parents, other educators, and the community to establish this much-lauded program. Further, she has founded a statewide thespian conference for high schools and in 2000 helped create the Affton Education Foundation which has a 2.6 million dollar endowment today, awarding scholarship funds to students and grants to teachers. On a personal level, her connections to Fayette and Central Methodist, her marriage to dear Braxton, and her closeness to her family comprise a detailed and very special part of the story.

Although I’ve known Judy for many years, (since we were Zetas together; she was the president!—and through having a weekend home in Fayette with my late husband Hal), as I read, I was completely in awe of the scope of her achievements and so proud to know such an outstanding, talented person, one who has influenced so many lives.  She is a celebrity! What an honor for all of us here that Judy Rethwisch has lifetime connections to Fayette and Central Methodist University! Everyone who reads about her achievements during her storied career — which continues to this day — will feel an immense sense of pride in the person that she is and all that she has accomplished.

Marian Olson Rusk

Webster Groves, MO