Ruchotzke aims to preserve Ash Grove history with YouTube videos

When Jacob Ruchotzke decided he wanted to make a difference in the Ash Grove community, he chose to do so by creating YouTube videos that capture the history of the area.
“I wanted to have an impact on the community here and leave a legacy,” he said. “I’m part of the … Ash Grove Assemblies of God, (where) I’m the media director at the church. I’m connected with different people in the community, (and) we were talking about ways that we can reach out to the community, ways that we can impact the community, and video editing and graphic design are some (of the things) that I've done in the past. So, I felt that it would be a really good way to leave something behind for Ash Grove … for future generations, to just talk about the history and stuff like that.”

Local historian Buskerus provides information for videos
Ruchotzke has teamed up with Mike Busekrus, the superintendent of the Nathan and Olive Boone Homestead State Historic Site to make videos detailing the various aspects of Ash Grove’s past. Ruchotzke said that Busekrus brings an invaluable wealth of knowledge regarding the area’s history to the project.
“He's pretty much what we call a local historian … because he's the one that's done the most (research),” Ruchotzke said. “So … I started talking with him, and after we got to have some of these conversations, we just said, ‘Well, let's pick some topics right let's talk about some of the pasts of Ash Grove and pick some key topics and do videos on those.”
To make the videos, Busekrus essentially deliver a presentation on the topic the video is covering while Ruchotzke records him.
“I'll sit down with Mike, and he’ll have all his talking points,” Ruchotzke said. “He's just a wealth of information, so he just goes and goes and goes. What I do is then (is) … I basically cut out a lot of just excess stuff and hit the main points to make (a) … video that makes sense to people.”

Two videos made so far
So far, the two have made two videos: one about the Nathan and Olive Boone Homestead, and another about Christmases past in Ash Grove.
“We did one on … Christmas traditions …  and the Ozarks and some of the past history of Ash Grove,” Ruchotzke said, “including the lights going out (when) they lost power (and) the introduction of Christmas trees. I'm going way back to early 1900s, when … all that stuff first started becoming popularized, along with Christmas lights with the advent of electricity … The one before that was basically just kind of foundational video of how Ash Grove came about … when Nathan Boone came here. It is (about) settlers … coming to this region.”

Future projects
Ruchotzke said he and Buskerus hope to make at least one video detailing some aspect of Ash Grove history per month. He said one upcoming video will cover some various explosions which took place in the early 20th century.
“(One of the videos) we're getting ready to do probably here in the next couple weeks is there was a bunch of different explosions in Ash Grove for various (reasons),” he said. “Like somebody tried to blow up a safe, (and) they tried to blow up the railroad bridge. I haven't heard all the details of it, but there were four or five different instances of explosions in this community … going way back to the early 1900s. It’s really interesting.”
Another video, he said, will show the truth about Kate Barker, the supposedly infamous Ma Barker, whom Ruchotzke said was not the criminal mastermind she has been made out to be. Rather, he said, she was the mother to two men who were actual criminals, though she was not involved in any crimes herself. However, when she went to visit her sons in Florida, federal agents engaged in a shootout with them, and she was caught and killed in the crossfire, leaving the FBI in the embarrassing position of having killed a civilian.
“What happened was that the FBI ended up having to spin the whole thing to protect their reputation,” he said, “because they had just gunned down an innocent woman in the house … and so this legend formed. It really is just more so just a legend; it's not really the truth, and the reality of it was she was just a mother visiting her sons.”
Ruchotzke posts the videos to his YouTube Channel, “Ash Grove Missouri.” In addition to the historic videos, he also posts videos about community events as well.