Mimi Barash Coppersmith, a businesswoman, philanthropist and iconic figure in the State College community, has died at the age of 92.
Town&Gown, the State College-based magazine founded by Barash Coppersmith in 1966, confirmed her death on Monday evening.
“Mimi was more than a publisher—she was a passionate community leader, fearless trailblazer, and a tireless advocate for meaningful conversation and connection,” Town&Gown wrote in a social media post.
Her list of accomplishments and contributions is vast, perhaps equaled only by the scores of community members she mentored, befriended and inspired for generations since she arrived in State College as a Penn State student in 1950.
Born Marian Lee Ungar in the Northeastern Pennsylvania borough of Kingston to Jewish immigrant parents who fled Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, Barash Coppersmith graduated from Penn State in 1953 with degrees in English, French and economics.
Six years later, she and her husband, Sy Barash, founded the Barash Group as an advertising agency in the basement of their Homan Avenue home. The company and its Morgan Signs grew over the decades to include offices in Altoona, Johnstown and Philadelphia, as well as State College.
The couple had two daughters together, Carol and Nan, and Barash Coppersmith was fond of calling Town&Gown her third child.
Starting out as a black-and-white, 16-page publication, the magazine grew with the community and became a State College institution. Barash Coppersmith sold Barash Media, the publisher of Town&Gown and the Centre County Gazette, in 2008 to Indiana Printing & Publishing, but remained active as an advertising consultant until 2021. Her popular “Lunch with Mimi” column, a monthly Q&A that became a much-read honor for those selected to sit down for the interview, continued on for another year.
“For decades, her voice shaped the stories that mattered most, championing local voices and celebrating the people who make this region special,” Town&Gown wrote on Monday. “Mimi’s legacy lives on in every page we publish and every connection we foster. Her dedication to storytelling and community impact continues to guide us.”
Barash Coppersmith took on challenges throughout her life, chronicled in her 2018 memoir “Eat First, Cry Later.” She raised her daughters and managed a business after losing Sy Barash to cancer in 1975. She battled breast cancer, lost her second husband, Lou Coppersmith, to a heart attack in 1989 and divorced her third.
Through it all, though, she was a trailblazer and a monumental figure in the Centre County community. The recipient of myriad honors for business and community leadership, Barash Coppersmith said what she most wanted to do was help others — especially women, whom she frequently mentored and aided with her charitable contributions and community service.
“I just want to wake up every morning ready to do what I love to do most, and that’s to help other people,” Barash Coppersmith said in 2021. “It gives me the greatest pleasure when I can help other women. I want to help women unlock who they are and who they want to be. I’ve identified it as what has helped me survive and recover from losses that still bring tears to my eyes, happy tears that I have put in their place in my life, but not allowed them to overcome me with grief.”
She was dedicated to giving back to her alma mater, serving seven terms as a member of the Penn State Board of Trustees and becoming the first woman elected as the governing board’s chair in 1990.
Her community involvement was extensive, serving as president of what would become the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County, the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and the Renaissance Fund, capital campaign coordinator for Centre LifeLink EMS, Palmer Museum of Art Advisory Board member and a leader in developing the Osaze’s Heart Community Service Scholarship.
A recipient of Penn State’s Distinguished Alumni Award, her numerous gifts to the university have supported a wide range of endowments for scholarships and programs. In 2023, the Palmer Foundation gave a $500,000 gift in her honor to create the Mimi Barash Coppersmith Studio Classroom at the Palmer Museum of Art. The museum bears the namesake of Barash Coppersmith’s lifelong friend Barbara Palmer and her husband James.
“I’ve been fortunate to live a rich and satisfying life, but my service at Penn State has driven home the lesson that there is nothing more gratifying than helping those in need,” Coppersmith said at the time.
Her philanthropic endeavors have touched an enormous range of causes. She established the Mimi Fund at Centre Foundation, where she was a former board chair and where a Women in Leadership Award is named in her honor. She was also a benefactor for the American Cancer Society, Pennsylvania Pink Zone, the Girl Scouts, the Youth Service Bureau, Jana Marie Foundation, Strawberry Fields, Centre County Historical Society and Centre Safe, among many others.
“I’ve learned so much from her about what it means to be an integral part of a community and about women’s leadership,” Anne Ard, the now retired executive director of Centre Safe, told Town & Gown in 2021. “She has consistently helped promote Centre Safe and educated the community about the work that we do for domestic and sexual violence survivors. We need her wisdom and insight.”
Socially conscious and politically minded, Barash Coppersmith also was not afraid to speak out, recalling the discrimination her own family had faced while advocating for women’s and minority rights.
“I want to be remembered as a fair person, as a kind person, as a person who didn’t hesitate to express her point of view, as a person who believed in equality for everyone,” she said in the final “Lunch with Mimi” published in 2022.
A celebration of life for Barash Coppersmith is expected to be held later this fall.
