Officials with the Ozarks Heritage Research Center (OHRC) at Missouri State University-West Plains (MSU-WP) will host a presentation titled, “Half the Town Burned: The Great Wooldridge Fire of 2022” at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14, at OHRC, located inside MSU-WP’s Garnett Library, 304 W. Trish Knight St., in West Plains. The presentation will be given by Tim Scherrer.
Free and open to all, this event is sponsored by the OHRC and West Plains Council on the Arts and underwritten by Missouri Humanities. Refreshments will be provided.
More about the Presentation
Scherrer will give a presentation discussing the background and historic decline of Wooldridge, a village located in the northeastern part of Cooper County, Mo., and the fire that destroyed half of the town in ninety minutes. Included in the presentation are audio recordings of the participants and some illustrative videos that show the intensity of the fire.
“This was the largest fire that some of the most seasoned first responders in the state ever saw,” Scherrer said. “They navigated these challenges of unprecedented situations never seen before in the Midwest.”
Scherrer’s presentation will also include the stories of the dozen residents, some of which escaped minutes before fire took their homes. Additionally, the presentation will feature what happened to the residents of Wooldridge after the fire, up to the one-year anniversary of the event. The village has rebuilt some structures in the community, but most struggle after losing everything. Scherrer’s presentation highlights the issue of micro-disasters in the state.
More about Scherrer
Scherrer, a native of Quincy, Illinois, is a retired Lt. Col., who served 28 years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a Military Intelligence Officer. He received the Knowlton Award from the Military Intelligence Corps Association in 2015 and was inducted into the Army ROTC Hall of Fame at Truman State University (TSU).
He earned both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in History from TSU, where he was also a Distinguished Military Graduate of the Army ROTC program. He also continued further study at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Scherrer has worked in a variety of educational and leadership roles, including teaching Military Science at TSU, Military History at the University of Missouri-Columbia, serving as Director of College Placement/Counseling and Instructor of American and Military History at Missouri Military Academy. Currently, Scherrer serves as the Dean of Academics at Father Tolton Catholic High School in Columbia, Mo. He currently resides in Columbia.
Contact Information
For more information about this event, contact Rebekah McKinney at 417-255-7949 or RebekahMcKinney@MissouriState.edu.
Visit WP.MissouriState.edu/Ozarks for additional information and upcoming events hosted by OHRC.