Honoring Bart and Cherry Starr

NEW LONDON – During its April 28 meeting, the Green Bay Area Public Schools Board of Education voted to name its new west side elementary Starr Elementary School — after Bart and Cherry Starr.

A seemingly appropriate way to honor the Pro Football Hall of Famer/former Green Bay Packer quarterback and head coach, and the wife that joined him in doing so much for the community.

But, last summer, The Bart and Cherry Starr Museum, located at the Rawhide Youth Services property in New London, set out to do the same.

The museum is the culmination of years of working with Cherry Starr and the Starr family.

Kaleb Schad, director of Strategy and Marketing for Rawhide Youth Services, said Cherry Starr, who passed away in February 2024, wanted the museum to serve as the Starr biography and “be their story.”

“She wanted it to be open for the public to come through and experience,” Schad said.

Schad said the process of turning the idea of the museum to reality was “complicated and long.”

“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.”

Rawhide worked with an agency to help design the museum, but a lot of the writing and research was done working directly with Cherry Starr and Bart Starr Jr. Research was done to find artifacts and memorabilia related to the Bart and Cherry Starr.

“Some of the material in there is from the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame,” Schad said.

Some may wonder why the museum is located inthe countryside of New London and not closer to Green Bay. Schad said that answer is simple.

“This (Rawhide) is where their heart was. They loved coming out here and spending time with the kids,” Schad said. “They were so proud of what Rawhide was. They were proud of their friendship and relationship with John and Jan Gillespie who started it (Rawhide). She (Cherry Starr) just knew she didn’t want it in Green Bay. The Packers already got that stuff. This was more than just his (Bart Starr) 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.”

While the creation of Rawhide was the idea of John and Jan Gillespie, Bart and Cherry Starr played an integral part in the success and growth of Rawhide.

“They were sold on it right from the beginning,” Schad said. “I think John and Jan Gillespie had the idea, did the work, they lived out here, but if it wasn’t for Bart and Cherry and the support and just visibility they brought to it, I don’t know if it would exist today.”

To help fund their dream of Rawhide, the Gillespies presented the program to Bart and Cherry Starr back in the late 1960s.

As Cherry Starr explains in the video that is shown at the museum, she and Bart wanted to help them fund the project, but they didn’t have extra money to do so.

“That was the year he won the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (Award), and he won an automobile, a Corvette convertible,” Cherry Starr said in the video. “We held a raffle for it, and believe it or not, in four days we sold 40,000 tickets, raised $40,000.”

Schad said it took Rawhide some time to track down the 1968 Rally Red Chevy Corvette.

They found the owner, Kris Erickson, who lived in Hortonville.

Erickson owned the Corvette from 1984 until he sold it to Rawhide in 2024.

Once the Corvette was in hand, it was restored, and became the centerpiece of the museum exhibits.

Some of the items displayed in the museum were already in the possession of Rawhide.

“Rawhide had for years and years a small, kind of display museum in a smaller space, so a lot of that was there,” Schad said.

The Starr family also donated a lot of memorabilia, including love letters that Bart had sent Cherry.

“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.”

Schad said some new memorabilia could be rotated into the museum in the future.

“Cherry hand-selected a lot of what is in there, so we won’t make drastic changes,” Schad said.

Since it’s opening last summer, Schad said the response from the public has been “huge.”

Visitors making the trek to the museum are allowed to go on a self-guided tour of the museum. At the beginning of the tour, there is a short video that visitors can watch. The video plays every 15 minutes.

“We did not have a box of Kleenex at that front bench at first, and then we saw how many people were getting choked up and moved by their story (in the video),” Schad said. “That’s what I love to see. It’s just been open arms.”

As one would expect, the tour takes visitors through Bart Starr’s football career, from high school through his time with the Green Bay Packers. But the museum tour covers more than just Starr’s football career.

It also delves into the love that Bart and Cherry had for each other, as well as the tough times in their personal lives, such as the loss of their son, Bret, who died of a drug overdose in 1988.

The museum also includes a plethora of photos of Bart and Cherry with the kids at Rawhide during their many visits.

“I think this museum has a good chance to make you a better person when you leave,” Schad said.

The museum, located at E7475 Rawhide Rd., New London, is open June–September on the third Friday of the month, 5-8 p.m.