Gladys woman wears patriotism on her sleeve, everywhere else

Her dress suit is red, white and star-spangled blue stripes. The pockets are red and fringed.

Red fringe on the mid-length skirt brushes against flag-patterned stockings. Neat blue pumps are decorated with patriotic stickers. Her wrists are bejeweled with rhinestone patriotism and her earrings are blue stars with glittering tassels.

Some call her Miss Liberty.

Slideshow: Showing her true colors

Renee Rucker, 81, made a pledge not too long after Sept. 11, 2001, never to go outside without wearing red, white and blue “until the guys come home.”

She pretty much keeps to that.

“I’m in my seventh year,” she said.

Rucker, of Gladys, has captured the admiration of many for her audacious patriotism.

“The first time I met her was the first rally at Monument Terrace, Nov. 30, 2001,” said Steve Bozeman, a Vietnam War veteran.

It was a little over two months after the World Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., were attacked by Islamic militants and nearly 3,000 people died.

The rally was the first of the Friday support-the-troop vigils in Lynchburg.

“She showed up in red-white-and-blue attire,” Bozeman said. She carried a sign, “Honk if you support the troops.”

Energetic and petite, Rucker was there the next Friday, as well. And almost every Friday since.

Her eye-catching garb can be smile-inducing as well.

But Bozeman points out that she has moments that are quite somber.

“She’s very respectful,” he said. “Sometimes we have soldiers in from Iraq or Afghanistan, and she’s been emotional with them, thanking them for the service and making them feel like their grandmother welcomed them back home.”

She tells parents how proud she is of the troops. She is very religious and her faith is intertwined with patriotism.

Some of the World War II veterans are frail. She has helped ease “the pain in the last part of their lives,” Bozeman said.

Some will have chemotherapy on a Thursday and try to come to the vigil on Friday, he said. “They’re sick and weak, but they come until they can’t come any more.”

Rucker has had health problems herself. Sometimes she calls Bozeman and says, “I can’t make it Friday, but I’m praying and thinking.”

The colorfully dressed woman also goes to nursing homes. Bozeman says she’s an older version of the “Doughnut dollies,” the women who volunteered at the USO to serve soldiers coffee and doughnuts just to make them feel good.

Her intense loyalty to the troops can spill over into tears, as when she was told of the rejection described in a TV interview by a veteran with disfiguring head and facial injuries.

“How can people do that?” she mused.

Her husband, James Rucker, is equally patriotic, but his is a less flamboyant style. He is the sergeant at arms for the funeral detail of the American Legion Post 16 Honor Guard.

His uniform is understated —dark jacket with gold braid, white shirt, gloves, and dark pants. The Honor Guard is in constant demand, often with funerals several times a week.

On this Tuesday, Renee Rucker is at a Moose Lodge event, introduced as “Miss Liberty Renee Rucker” by Brenda Walsh, who is coordinating the gathering of Campbell County seniors.

Rucker steps forward to give a brief for-the-troops, for-the-nation message stirred with a little independence-through-oil-drilling-at-home commentary.

She radiates allegiance.

The hat she wears with her striped suit is from her “Net Head” days, when she would travel to international and stateside Davis Cup events and cheer for the U.S. tennis team. She’s given that up, but has integrated that U.S. booster clothing into her wardrobe.

The cheerful red and white striped topper has bright blue ribbon curls bouncing on the brim. At the front, like a miner’s headlamp, is a patriotic Boyd’s Bear.

Rucker, who has been laughing and talking with folks, stands at the edge of the dance floor as the group forms several parallel lines, and begins the graceful patterns.

Rucker tries to match them, but it’s an unsolved motion puzzle for her and she steps to the sidelines. “One of these days I’m going to get it down.”

“I jitterbug, waltz, do the tango, and the Charleston and the twist — you’re never too old to learn.”

Karaoke singer Melissa Commins had never seen Miss Liberty.

“I thought she was wonderful,” Commins said. “I thought we should all be able to go out there, every day, dressed like that.”

At home, without her hat, Renee Rucker’s white hair is worn almost pixie-style.

Rucker grew up with three sisters in Iowa, one a non-identical twin.Their dad was a veteran of the First World War. In her town, American flags were in each schoolroom and the Pledge of Allegiance was recited daily. She remembers that on Memorial Day, her mother, active in the American Red Cross, went to area cemeteries to put flags on the graves of the veterans.

The schoolchildren would put a lilac on every grave that had a flag, “and then we went home. That’s how we celebrated Memorial Day.”

Her husband, James, also in his 80s, was a Merchant Marine during World War II, the Korean Conflict and a portion of the Vietnam War era. He retired in 1970.

The couple has been married 52 years and has lived in Central Virginia about 20 years. They have four daughters, Sharon, Linda, Kimbra and Callie.

On this day, Renee Rucker had gathered her flamboyant wardrobe in the living room. The clusters of patriotic garb ranged from swimsuits to gauzy dresses, tailored pants suits, and everything in between. Many items were sewn by a former resident of Brookneal, an artful seamstress who was even able to rework red, white and blue sheets and outdoor bunting into outfits.

Much of the manufactured clothing was purchased after Sept. 11, 2001, in the surge of patriotism that flooded the country. Most of those items can’t be found any more, she said.

She has patriotic sweaters, jackets, skirts, dresses, tennis shoes, watches, earrings, bracelets, pins and necklaces. The clothing includes a Desert Storm sweatshirt. One of her patriotic Boyd’s Bears is baby-grizzly sized and wears one of her tank tops.

Glance around the living room, and you’re eye-to-eye with a veritable platoon of Uncle Sams. And that doesn’t count the fabric door decoration or the inflatable Uncle Sam on the porch.

When fully bedecked, Rucker’s sparkly self includes gold-tone Jesus First pins and several eye-catching bracelets.

Rucker has a wish list of sorts — a hope that someday people will say “thank you” whenever they encounter Americans in military uniform, give them a hug, and say that they’re praying for them.

She hopes one day to see more people come to patriotic remembrance events and not just jump at the chance for a three-day weekend.

“I’d like to see them know what the poppy stands for.”

Renee Rucker stands nearly camouflaged amid a sea of red, white and blue clothing in the closet of her Gladys home. Rucker found many of her clothes during the surge of patriotism after 9/11. Some of the items were ordered from catalogs, some custom made. ‘Material was everywhere after 9/11, everywhere,’ she said.
CHET WHITE/THE NEWS & ADVANCE