For more than three decades, Jim Collver has transformed Northeast Ohio into a gallery of public symbols. 

Bras. Banners. Red maple trees. Anything that makes people stop and feel something. 

Collver uses such items to amplify voices that are or were muted by society’s past norms. Yet he initially struggled to explain why he’s invested so much time in channeling his polite stubbornness into convincing government officials and community leaders to back his visual initiatives, many of which he funds as the lone member of what he calls the Celtic Club. Then it occurred to him. 

His father, John Collver. His hero. 

The man who taught him how to be a man. Taught him to judge a man by his heart, not his skin. He’ll turn 99 years young on Feb. 27, 2026.  

“I think as time has gone by,” Jim Collver said as his eyes reddened, “you know, when you get older and pay more attention to how much time is left … I’m trying to make the best use of that while he’s still here.” 

At 73, Jim Collver still wants to make his dad proud. 

(Left to right) University of Akron students Augustine Davis and Braylyn Farrington, who are on the track and field teams, along with Sara Bower and Kaylen Goddard, who are on the women's soccer team, hang strings of bras along the fence outside the university's track in order to raise awareness about breast cancer awareness. The event was organized by Jim Collver, who said he started it after his girlfriiend, aunt and grandmother died of cancer. Collver organized similar events in 2010 in downtown Kent along with displays in seven Northeast Ohio counties. He said this was his 44th or 45th event over the last 16 years In the past, he donated about 12,000 bras to battered women's shelters.
(Left to right) University of Akron students Augustine Davis and Braylyn Farrington, who are on the track and field teams, along with Sara Bower and Kaylen Goddard, who are on the women’s soccer team, hang strings of bras along the fence outside the university’s track in order to raise awareness about breast cancer awareness. The event was organized by Jim Collver, who said he started it after his girlfriiend, aunt and grandmother died of cancer. Collver organized similar events in 2010 in downtown Kent along with displays in seven Northeast Ohio counties. He said this was his 44th or 45th event over the last 16 years In the past, he donated about 12,000 bras to battered women’s shelters. (Susan Zake / Signal Akron)

Love, loss and a line of bras

Jim Collver remembers his late girlfriend, Mary Rita Murray Klein, who in 2007 died from lung cancer. He remembers his grandmother and aunt — both died from breast cancer.

He honors them by hanging bras on structures, turning pain into spectacle. This includes the eye-catching “Bras Across the Crooked River” — since 2010, Collver and volunteers have hung a yards-long, strung-together set of colorful bras across the Main Street Bridge in downtown Kent.

His most recent effort got help from University of Akron athletes, who hung bras on a fence facing East Exchange Street along the university’s outdoor track.

Jim Collver (left) snaps a photo of friend Dave DiDomenico, Pastor Rodney Bowden of Akron's Rooted in Christ Community Church, Collver's father John and Bowden's wife Crystal (left to right) at a tree-planting ceremony at the Barberton Military Honor Roll memorial on Monday, Nov. 3.
Jim Collver (left) snaps a photo of friend Dave DiDomenico, Pastor Rodney Bowden of Akron’s Rooted in Christ Community Church, Collver’s father John and Bowden’s wife Crystal (left to right) at a tree-planting ceremony at the Barberton Military Honor Roll memorial on Monday, Nov. 3. (Ryan Loew / Signal Akron)

Honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, one red maple at a time

Jim Collver plants trees to remember his father’s friend and college basketball teammate. 

Before Bill Cox became Kent State University’s third African American athlete, he served as a flight mechanic with the Tuskegee Airmen, America’s first Black military pilots and airmen. During World War II, the Tuskegee Airmen flew into danger 1,578 times, earning a reputation for protecting bomber crews. 

Meanwhile, John Collver graduated from North High School on June 6, 1944 — D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, during World War II. About a month later, his son said, the elder Collver was serving as a gunner aboard the USS Copahee in the Pacific Theater. 

“They used to talk a lot about their service in the war,” Jim Collver said. 

The two men also reminisced about playing college basketball at Kent State during the days of Jim Crow.   

“You know what the situation was with racism then,” Jim Collver said, “and if [the basketball team] went on the road and couldn’t get served in a restaurant, they would leave. They were going to stick together.”

To honor Cox — he died in 2019 at the age of 97 — Collver has donated and planted red sunset maple trees at the University of Akron, a Hudson home and earlier this month at the Barberton Military Honor Roll memorial. The trees’ color pays homage to the “Red Tails” nickname of the Tuskegee Airmen, who painted the tails of their planes red.

Jim Collver is also responsible for a retractable banner that has made its way around the region, recognizing the efforts of Tuskegee Airmen with Ohio roots.

His next mission: a Tuskegee Airmen mural in Akron.

“We’ll try and get some art students from the university to paint it,”  he said, “or maybe some high school students from the Akron Public Schools.”

A tribute to Jesse Owens, a Buckeye legend

Collver and his friends also donated and planted pin oak trees a few years ago in Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Kent and Fairlawn to honor Olympian Jesse Owens, who grew up in Cleveland and attended Ohio State University.

Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany (100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and 400-meter relay), challenging Adolf Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.

A legacy rooted in symbols

Jim Collver has a need to bring people together. No matter their age, gender or religion. So he thinks long-term. 

He believes in beautifying public spaces with lasting symbols. Something of value. Something of substance that’s going to resonate with people, maybe encourage them to think about similar efforts they can do. 

“I wanted to come up with something that everybody could support,” he said.   

A broken leg that’s slow to heal has made it more difficult to get around recently. So has watching after his father, who earlier this month attended the ceremony at the Barberton Military Honor Roll memorial.

Yet he continues on, soliciting support wherever he goes. 

Said Jim Collver: “I’m going to keep doing it and seeing how much good can come out of all this.”

Editor’s note: Abby Cymerman contributed to this article.

Managing Editor (he/him)
Gary is returning to Akron after previously working at the Akron Beacon Journal as a sports reporter from 2003 to 2006. He is committed to delivering authoritative, trustworthy journalism that is accessible to everyone. Gary mostly recently worked as a newsroom leader in Clarksville (Tenn.), Murfreesboro (Tenn.) and Nashville, where he was the business, race and culture editor at The Tennessean. He is a native of New Orleans and a product of Southern University and A&M College. In his free time, you can find him cycling, playing paintball and smoking meats.