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Henry Solomon Lehr founded Ohio Northern University in 1871 as the Northwestern Ohio Normal School. Its purpose was to train teachers and to provide higher education to the people in Northwest Ohio. In 1885, the school became Ohio Normal University. The new name recognized that the institution drew students from all over Ohio and the nation, and offered courses in many disciplines, including literature, music, business, telegraphy, and law, as well as teacher training. Beginning with 131 students, the institution’s enrollment grew rapidly during its first thirty years of existence. Buildings on the early campus included Dukes Memorial (left), built in 1905; the Normal School Building, built in 1871 and demolished in 1915 to make way for Lehr Memorial (center); and Hill building (right) finished in 1879. The Methodist Episcopal Church (predecessor to the United Methodist Church) assumed control in 1899. Ohio Normal University became Ohio Northern University in 1903. On June 3, 1910, President William Howard Taft delivered that year’s commencement address near this spot.
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Many early settlers of Morgan County were of Scot-Irish heritage and brought the Presbyterian faith with them. From this group Reverend John Hunt and twelve charter members organized the first congregation in McConnelsville and Malta in 1824 and third oldest congregation in Morgan County. The congregation built a brick church in 1832 at a cost of $2,361. Known for its excellent acoustics and fine music, the building received the first pump organ in the two villages in 1849. In 1916 the church was stuccoed and added a Sunday school and vestibule. The original bell was sold to the steamboat H.D. Munson in 1865, and the present bell came from the Bristol Presbyterian Church. Because of its large seating capacity, the church was also used for civic functions, including an early court trial. Over the years, members have included General Robert McConnell, founder of McConnelsville, Henry Dawes, uncle of Vice-President Charles Dawes, and Frances Dana Gage, early women’s rights leader.
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The center of African-American culture in Akron during the mid-20th century, Howard Street was home to many of the city’s black-owned business and entertainment establishments, and provided an atmosphere in which minority-owned businesses could thrive. Attracted to the vitality of the neighborhood, entrepreneur George Mathews (1887-1982) established a barbershop here in 1920 and in 1925 opened the adjoining Mathews Hotel. The hotel quickly became the anchor of the Howard Street district. Mathews’ success allowed him to endow a scholarship fund at the University of Akron in 1964.
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Country music writer and recording star Lloyd Estel Copas was born on July 15, 1913 on Moon Hollow near Blue Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Reared by musical parents, he learned to play the guitar and fiddle at an early age and began a singing career by age 10. As early as age 14, Copas started playing and singing on radio stations in Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee. He later adopted the sobriquets “Oklahoma Cowboy” and “Cowboy Copas.”
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Marion civic leaders Shauck Elah Barlow and Ida Harsh Barlow built “Waldheim,” their Colonial Revival residence, between 1903-1905. Ida Barlow, then president of the Marion Women’s Club, hosted a December 1905 meeting in her new home. Members discussed art, music, literature, and ideas for “civic improvement.” In 1909, this and other Marion clubs reorganized as the Marion County Federation of Women’s Clubs. Federation members soon organized into action: providing college loans to young women; sponsoring visiting city and later school nurses; purchasing trash receptacles; providing dental clinics for low-income residents; and funding railroad crossing safety equipment. Upon her death in 1945, Barlow bequeathed her house to the Federation as the “Women’s Club Home.” The new Federation headquarters offered meeting space for the Executive Board and the many associated clubs. (Continued on other side)
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Field Musician Richard W. Thompson. Tunes played on fife and drum regulated a soldier’s life in camp and his actions on the battlefield. Heard over the roar of battle and through the haze of smoke, fifes and drums – field music – communicated orders to massed troops quickly. Richard Willoughby Thompson (c. 1742-1837), buried in Fancher Cemetery, was a field musician during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. According to his grandson Henry’s recollections from the 1920s, Thompson was born in Dublin, Ireland, and enlisted in the British army, where his service culminated in his capture while picking blackberries. He switched allegiances, joined the colonials, and was sent to Virginia. Thompson was appointed the Fife Major of the 5th Virginia Regiment and remained a Fife Major as Virginia units organized during the war. (Continued on other side)
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The North Baltimore Elementary and High School stood at 124 S. Second St. and was dedicated November 11, 1927. The tan and brown brick building replaced a school (built 1884) that a fire destroyed on January 26, 1926. The new school building, for children in grades 1-12, also included classrooms for home economics and business courses, as well as a 900-seat auditorium (including balcony), second floor cafeteria, gymnasium, administrative offices, and a public library. E.E. Leidy was the school’s superintendent and R. Vern Northup was the high school principal. The members of the board of education were Dr. E.A. Powell, President, D.B. Bushey, Vice President, C.G. Nigh, Clerk, and Nellie Roberts and R.E. Simon. Previously known as the “Independents,” the school’s sports teams became the “Tigers” in 1931. (Continued on other side)
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“The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future and we’ll continue to follow…” President Ronald Reagan
As the second American woman in space, Judith Resnik (1949-1986) paved the way for the future of women in space exploration. A gifted science and music student and valedictorian of Firestone High School’s class of 1966, she earned a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland in 1977 and was accepted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an astronaut candidate in 1978. Her first flight was on the inaugural mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1984. Resnik was aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger as a mission specialist on January 28, 1986, when it exploded just 73 seconds after lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All seven crewmembers died in the explosion.
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