It’s true in both literal and figurative ways. The metal, hand-operated relic divides a state highway near the feed store and post office, two of few remnants of the small southwest Missouri agricultural community of La Russell. Instead of water, a community spirit flows from it today – so much that every Thanksgiving, locals decorate it with Christmas lights and kick off the holiday season with pump lighting and parade. They gather in the street to yell, “Light that pump!” and see Santa flip the switch, as fireworks explode in the distance.
It’s a remarkable sight, especially in the rural space that’s home to about 134 people. It reminds us that traditions can start even now, and can be based on simply celebrating what we have.
“Every year or so, somebody that’s new will come, and they’ll say, ‘This is like being in a Hallmark movie,’” said Linda Heman, a La Russell local and one of the event’s leaders. She was part of its start some 15 years ago. Back then, her grandchildren were small, and her loved ones “kind of looked at each other like Grandma lost it” when the event idea came about.
But back then, as the community changed and its presence shrank, it seemed like the thing to do. Even then, the pump was a community symbol.
The water pump was installed in the early 1900s, and it was where locals got their water. In addition to its practical use, the pump was a symbol of community. It was hailed as a beacon of home by at least one soldier returning from World War II.
“Upon seeing the pump, my first thoughts were ‘Thank God, thank God Almighty! I am back on solid ground!” the late A.E. (Noney) Graff wrote years ago. “What a feeling it was! The pump seemed to be sending a signal – ‘This is La Russell!’ For all practical purposes, it might as well have been the Statue of Liberty. It was a beacon in the night!”
The pump was so beloved that on one occasion, when it was hit by a car – remember, it’s in the literal middle of the highway – the Missouri Department of Transportation planned to remove it permanently. Locals weren’t having it. They protested and got it put back in place.
That affinity was what led to the idea for the pump lighting and parade.
“It’s created a bridge between generations,” said John Hacker, a local journalist who has covered the event for years.
Zac Babcock, right, proposed to his now-wife Madeline at the 2024 pump lighting and parade. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
Reflecting on Memories
The sun softly settled down on Thanksgiving Day in La Russell as I stood along Highway U with a growing crowd of people. As we waited for the parade to begin, attendees snapped photos with the celebrity-like pump that even has its own Facebook page.
“You come up here, and you just never know who you might see – someone you went to school with, or someone you grew up with,” said Carmen Campbell Wilke, who grew up around La Russell and whose father used to operate a long-shuttered service station. “When we were kids, what we would do for fun is we would play hide-and-go-seek, and the city limits would be the boundaries, and the pump would be ‘base.’”
Dana Potts, Wilke’s sister, has made her first trip to the pump lighting after moving away from home 25 years ago. “It’s a really cool thing for this little town,” she said, then shared memories of what once was: A restaurant, a grocery store, a laundromat, and even a domino parlor.
Those things are gone, but the future rolls down the street on a hay wagon full of family.
“They really enjoy it,” Denae Anderson said of her kids, the next generation in the Campbell family, who participate in the parade. “They feel really special to be able to wave at people.”
It’s not a long parade, although it’s grown significantly since the event’s start. It includes what one might expect at such an affair: hayride wagons pulled by antique tractors, laden with families; a tanker truck from the local livestock-feed company; candy being tossed from a firetruck to the kids along the curb, who run to grab the morsels like hungry trout after bits of bait.
“I think people say, ‘Parade!’ and think there’s going to be a lot of big, fancy floats,” one attendee quipped. “We don’t care (about that). It’s just about participating.”
One more unexpected element is the Humdingers, a kazoo band that makes a once-a-year appearance at the parade.
Like the event itself, the kazoo band was born out of a can-do attitude when local marching bands were unavailable on Thanksgiving. The Humdingers wear matching costumes that change from year to year. One time, they were stars. This year, they were magicians. It was fitting, after all, since the theme was “The Magic Moment,” and the co-grand marshals were a couple who got engaged at the pump lighting the previous year.
A key part of La Russell’s annual parade is the Humdingers, a kazoo band. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
“It was one of the first things we did together as a family,” said Zac Babcock, who proposed to his now-wife Madeline at the parade in 2024, and said he was taken by the small-town, friendly environment.
The small parade moves down the street, and awards are given before they gather up for a group photo taken by Hacker, the local reporter whose coverage of the event earned him the parade’s grand marshal post in 2020.
“I hope it continues for a long time,” he told me. “I hope it continues drawing these crowds to this tiny eastern Jasper County village. It really is a bridge between La Russell’s future and its past.”
What Does All This Mean?
Hacker told me about the event years ago. I went once, and was hooked – bringing my own family and making new friends in the years since. When I tell people about La Russell and its pump, I’m often met with curiosity and quizzical looks. A water pump? In the street? With fireworks and Santa?
“My grandkids — they all think it’s the greatest thing ever,” says Linda Heman, one of the event’s organizers.
Those details are unique, but to me, the greatest part of this story is the decision to start. This unexpected idea has resulted in an enduring tradition and paints a new picture of the community to kids who never knew the town without it.
“It kind of connects me to the past,” Heman said. “There were so many people in the beginning, a lot of older men who had lived here forever, and they just were thrilled to death with it. It meant so much to them to have had this going on every year.”
And, now others do, too — such as Heman’s grandkids. “It’s just a tradition for them every year. Some of them who were babies don’t remember before we did it. My grandkids — they all think it’s the greatest thing ever.”
It reminds us that community traditions aren’t necessarily only of the past. There is always time to build new ones.
As people leave La Russell and things change, it may feel like the opportunity has closed up, like that old service station. But sometimes we just have to look a little harder to see what’s special about where we are, something taken for granted for far too long. It could be around a corner, on top of a roof, in a backyard. It might be out there in the middle of the street.
The post An Old-fashioned Water Pump Is at the Heart of La Russell, Missouri appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
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