Dates

• Existence: 1953 -

Biography

Jane Ann Christoffer was born December 31, 1955 in Emmetsburg, Iowa. Her family moved to Ruthven, Iowa where she became an outstanding participant in six-on-six girls´ basketball. As a sophomore Rubel took the Ruthven Consolidated High School team to the state tournament, having scored 46.7 points per game and hitting 60 per cent of her shots for the season. Christoffer married Kenny Rubel in her junior year, subsequently giving birth to daughter Jennifer. When she returned to play basketball her senior year the Iowa Girls´ High School Athletic Union forbade Jane Rubel´s participation, quoting a rule that a "student is ineligible for any Girls Union-sponsored activity after being associated with a marital status . . . ." Rubel filed a $125,000 damage suit in federal court. Rubel had the full backing of the Ruthven school administration and community and also the service of the American Civil Liberties Union. In November 1971 the girls´ union Executive Secretary E. Wayne Cooley and the union´s board repealed the seventeen-year old ruling which forbade married mothers from interscholastic competition. Rubel played her senior season, averaging thirty points a game and leading her team to within one game of the state tournament. The Rubels have two children. Jane Rubel later became postmaster in Ruthven.

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