Born to Jewish immigrant parents in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Mimi Barash Coppersmith ’54 Com came to Penn State as a journalism student in 1950. Over the next 75 years, she became a community treasure, a journalist, publisher, and philanthropist who “wanted to do good for the world, especially for women,” says her daughter, Nan Barash.

Listing Barash Coppersmith’s accomplishments would take a book (and she did publish a memoir, Eat First, Cry Later, in 2018). “I don’t know when she slept, in all honesty,” Nan says. In 1959, Barash Coppersmith co-founded State College-area advertising firm The Barash Group with her first husband, Sy Barash. Seven years later, they founded Town&Gown magazine. Barash Coppersmith became president of both businesses after Sy’s death in 1975, until she sold them in 2008. She continued to write Lunch With Mimi, her column highlighting notable locals, until 2022. “Working with Mimi was an unforgettable honor,” says Tiara Snare, Town&Gown managing editor. “Mimi taught me to lead with strength and confidence as a woman, a lesson I carry every day.” She was a philanthropic force in the community, assisting many local and national organizations over the years.

Barash Coppersmith served on the Board of Trustees from 1976 to 1997 and was the first woman to be board chair. She was integral to the creation of the Renaissance Fund, and endowed several scholarships of her own. She was a Distinguished Alumni and Alumni Fellow honoree, and a classroom at the Palmer Museum of Art is named in her honor.

Barash Coppersmith (FSS, Collegian, Froth) died Sept. 14, 2025. She was preceded in death by Sy Barash and second husband W. Louis Coppersmith, and is survived by daughters Carol and Nan. —Anna Andersen