From The Scoop: Superhero of the West Plains

From the May 26 issue of Gemstone Publishing's The Scoop:
Writer Lin Waterhouse contributed the article, “Superhero of the West Plains - Russ Cochran and His Town,” in Ozark's Magazine's April 2006 issue. It is reprinted with their kind permission. To find out more about the magazine, visit www.ozarksmagazine.com.

Russ Cochran looks back to the future. Almost single-handedly, the West Plains native has renovated nineteen historic buildings in his hometown's downtown business district. Once deteriorated and almost abandoned, the city's heart now throbs with vitality. The 6'5”, bearded bear of a man is a constant presence on the West Plains square. He lives one-quarter block away in the historic Zorn building, and his cluttered, eclectic office nests comfortably in another nineteenth century building he restored. “Being a preservationist means wanting things to stay the same,” says Cochran. “In the 1940s the downtown was West Plains, and as a boy, it was my domain.” He recalls wandering the businesses that lined the courthouse square and adjacent streets, describing an idyllic childhood of exploration, love and security.

Coming Home
Fresh out of the University of Missouri, first in his class with a Ph.D. in physics, Cochran began teaching at DrakeUniversity in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1960s. Although he quickly rose to head of his department, he yearned for his Ozark roots. In 1975, he resigned his academic position and returned to West Plains with his family. “I wanted my kids to know their grandparents on an everyday basis, not just at Christmas. I wanted them to have the kind of town to grow up in that I had.” By the 1970s, downtown business districts all over America were losing their retail vibrancy to the new economics of warehouse giants and strip malls. West Plains was no exception. Cochran resolved to renovate the buildings that were “old friends” to him and to encourage local businessmen to find “a niche doing some thing Wal-Mart is not.” The bustling square is a testament to his efforts and philosophy.

Comics
As a boy Cochran avidly read fantasy-hero comics. “For ten cents, I was swept away into another dimension.” His love for the colorful, dramatic genre morphed into a second career. After discovering the comics of his youth were fetching huge prices as collectibles, Cochran struck a deal with William Gaines, New York publisher of EC Comics in the 1940s and 1950s, to reprint the EC library. Next came republishing the original artwork from the Tarzan series. His childhood love of adventure stories propelled him into a lucrative career as a publisher and internationally known collector and dealer of comic book art. In the 1970s and 1980s, Cochran and his brother Michael published The West Plains Gazette, a quarterly magazine dedicated to the history of their boyhood home. “I don't believe another small town on the planet has its history as well-documented as West Plains in the Gazette.” Guitar-picking is also part of Cochran's resume, and he jams with local musicians on weekends at his son's Red Apple Grill, a 1950-style diner on the square. His heroes are the old time master guitarists. With his brother Michael, Cochran co-authored Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars and Les Paul - In His Own Words. After forging friendships with film notables Spielberg, Lucas, and Landis, Cochran played a panhandler in a 1992 vampire film. “Type casting,” he quips.

It's Not About Money
However far flung Cochran's interests, preservation is his passion. “Friends and neighbors - this is what it's all about,” muses Cochran. “Whatever money I have made in business, I have spent on this thing I like to do.” He scoffs at the suggestion that he is a civic do-gooder. “I do it because I like to do it.” He brushes the top of his graying head, “Nope, no halo here.”

The crown jewel of the West Plains square, the 1887 opera house, is Cochran's latest renovation. “Think what it would have been like to live here in the 1880s,” says Cochran. “Work all day, go home. No radio, no TV.” The opera house was the center of community life, hosting traveling musical and theatrical troupes, political rallies, dances, and basketball games. Cochran is proud of the meticulously restored building. The copper clad door to the men's room was salvaged from a New York theater, and the iron railing around the ballroom's stage became from a successful bid on eBay. Cochran points to a marble drinking fountain, rescued from the demolition of the Davis Theater. “I got many a drink from that fountain as a boy. Now, my grandchildren drink from it, too.” So, what's next? “I'm not sure yet,” admits Cochran. He's working on several publishing projects, but he admits to being “distracted by new challenges.” His own personal self-appraisal: “I'm crazy and eccentric, and I wear that badge with pride.”

Russell of the Apes
“I saw too many Tarzan movies as a boy,” laughs Russ Cochran. “I thought it would be neat to have a friend who was a chimp.”

In 1990 after reading about a Fenton, Missouri, woman who raised chimpanzees, Cochran adopted three-month-old Sammy. Eventually, chimps Sally and Buck joined the household. “Having a chimp is not like having a child that is going to be depending upon it parents for all its life,” explains Cochran. For years the chimps lived and travel with the family. Tucked surreptitiously into a tote back, Sammy even attended a performance of Les Miserables in New York.

Then there's the story about the time Russ' youngest chimp, Buck, had an asthma attack at the age of three months. The local vet told Russ that he didn't have anything to treat the 5 lb. chimp, so Russ bundled Buck into a blanket and took him to the local hospital, Ozarks Memorial Canter in West Plains.

When he got to the ER, Cochran told the nurse at the front desk that he had a very sick baby. Once in the emergency room, when hospital staff removed the blanket, they were shocked to find the chimp. Cochran pleaded with them to treat Buck because he was obviously in such distress that he would die without help. After anxious glances between doctors and nurses, the administered drugs and sent Russ home with a nebulizer and all the accoutreatments needed by an asthmatic child.

And then the chimps grew up. “When chimps hit puberty, their personalities change,” says Cochran. “Owning a chimp turns from a fun thing into a new area of responsibility.” Mature chimps can become aggressive and territorial, and their incredible strength makes then a potential threat. Face with the dangers and difficulties of caring for adult chimps, most owners dispose of their apes, giving them to circuses, zoos or medical laboratories.

The Cochrans continue to love and care for their chimps, but they have also formed Apes, Inc. a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the creation of a national ape refuge. Cochran dreams of an island off the coast of Florida or Texas planted with food plots designed to sustain a chimpanzee colony where, according to Cochran, “they can live out their lives in a natural friendly environment.”

For more information about Apes, Inc., go to www.russcochran.com/apesinc.

To view all of the pictures from this article, read it at The Scoop’s website at http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/scoop_article.asp?ai=12260&si=124.

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