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Service with a smile

R. Andrew sounds like too formal a name for the affable and well liked Andy Bell, a 1963 graduate of North High School.

Bell graduated from Miami University in 1967, attended post-graduate school at the London School of Economics and served as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard before returning to Springfield.

Not only does he serve as president of both Consolidated Insurance and the Independent Insurance Agents of Ohio, Bell has a lengthy resume of community activities.

He's been president of United Way of Clark and Champaign Counties, the Springfield Family YMCA and the Springfield Rotary Club. He has also served on the boards of the Springfield Foundation, the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, the Clark State Community College Foundation and Community Hospital.

And it's been service with a smile.

"Andy is a successful and dedicated individual that so many of us know and respect," said his nominator, Sue Smedley. "It is nice to see people excel, and it is satisfying to know that they are a product of our Springfield City Schools."

The reel McCoy

"Young Man, you have a way with words," a Springfield teacher told a teenage Homer Circle.

The 1932 graduate of Springfield High went on to an award-winning career as a fishing writer and later sportscaster, all based on the allure of his words.

A sports editor of the Springfield Daily News, Circle moved into the business world as vice president of James Heddon Sons lure-making plant, then of Daisy BB Guns, while writing on the side.

Later the angling editor of Sports Afield magazine, then Outdoor Life, Circle eventually hosted three television fishing shows and was known as "Uncle Homer" by the time he was named to four national fishing halls of fame.

But in a fondly written column about Circle, fellow fishing writer Jay Cassell described a well-rounded man: "No matter how many great articles and columns 'Uncle' Homer has written over the years, no matter how many new lures, rods and reels he has tested, no matter how many awards, how many accomplishments he has achieved — at the heart of the matter is the fact that Circle is a compassionate, caring person — more so than anyone else you're going to meet. Guaranteed."

Mayor Jack

He's known as "Jack" to his friends, his classmates, and even to the citizens of Toledo he served as mayor,

A 1965 graduate of South High School, John Marshall Ford earned a bachelor's in social welfare while playing football for Woody Hayes at Ohio State University. Then Ford went on to earn a law degree, a master's in public administration and an honorary doctorate from the University of Toledo.

He also was a man of firsts: first black person to be elected as president of the Toledo City Council; first black Democratic leader of the Ohio House of Representatives; and first black mayor of Toledo.

Among his career highlights were speeches at the 2000 and 2004 Democratic National Conventions.

Although his lengthy list of honors includes the Ohio State University Distinguished Career Award in 2006, nominator Alice Bell appreciates Ford for being "an attentive nephew to his 95-year-old aunt, Annabelle Smith."

Likewise, Debrah Burch-Humphrey mentioned a visit he made to his long ago second grade teacher during which he "shared how much he enjoyed being in her class."

That's just Jack.

A cellular calling

Sometimes a single title can announce someone's status as a star in his field.

For C. Fred Fox, it's chairman of the executive committee of the University of California Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program.

The 1956 graduate of Springfield High went on to Wittenberg University, attended graduate school in physiological chemistry at Ohio State University and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Chicago. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Science Foundation at Harvard Medical School, he returned to the University of Chicago to teach.

In the course of his career, Fox picked up many awards, including the prestigious American Chemical Society Award in Biochemistry, known as the Eli Lilly Award.

Joining the faculty of UCLA in 1971, he founded and developed the UCLA Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology, now a 40-meeting series that serves more than 10,000 scientists annually, and in 1972 created the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry in 1972, which he continues to serve as executive editor.

A life-saver

In the course of a career whose capstone has been the discovery of how hormones including estrogen work in the body, Elwood V. Jensen has amassed a boatload of honors.

One can't help but feel the highest involves knowing — as the Albert Lasker Foundation proclaimed in giving him its 2004 award for basic science research — that his work "transformed the treatment of breast cancer patients ... and saves or prolongs more than 100,000 lives annually."

Graduating from Springfield High School in 1936, he received a degree in chemistry from Wittenberg and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago. A founding member of the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research there, he served as the institute's director from 1969 through 1982 and now is the Charles B. Huggins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Cancer there.

Jensen's "dedication to his life's work is exemplary and his contributions are monumental," wrote nominator Charles Dominick, and reflect "outstanding ideals of hometown high school and college alma mater alike."

Environmentally friendly

M. Brandon Jones not only works to improve the environment, his nominators said; the 1987 graduate of South High School has been honored for helping to make the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency an environment in which more people can thrive.

Jones earned his bachelor's degree in biology from Lincoln University, his master's in marine biology and biochemistry from the University of Delaware and his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware's Graduate College of Marine Studies.

Now a marine biologist with the EPA in Washington, he was honored with that agency's 2005 Suzanne E. Olive Award for employees who excel in promoting or providing equal employment opportunities.

"When I heard of the Alumni of Distinction Award," wrote nominator James Welch, "I immediately thought of Brandon."

Volunteer for life

In the days before Community Chest, United Appeals or United Way were around, Marianne Ludlow Nave and her mother canvassed Springfield on health drives to benefit their community.

On the drives, Nave learned the lesson that people must be concerned with one another's welfare — the basis of a lifetime of her tireless work to benefit the Springfield community.

A backbone of Community Beautification Committee for 43 years, the 1953 Springfield High School grad spearheaded the creation of the Clark County Park District and served as its first president. Active for more than 35 years in both the Buds and Blossoms Garden Club and the City Federation of Women's Clubs, she now is state chairman of the Ohio Federation of Women's Clubs Empowering Women — One By One Program.

Wrote nominator Jean K. Wagner: "Marianne's selfless devotion to making Springfield a beautiful place to live and to be proud of is something truly worthy of note."

Teacher, coach, mayor, friend

Government teacher, baseball coach, city commissioner, church member — all of the late Robert Pyle's roles served as outlets for the 1956 graduate of Springfield High School to spread his intelligence, sense of humor, work ethic and honesty around the community.

Described as "a friend to anyone who crossed his path," he took an interest in his students and their achievements, just as he took an interest in his community, serving on the City Recreation Board and eventually becoming mayor in 1970.

As a baseball coach, he was known for helping players who could not otherwise afford to participate, buying them uniforms in a reflection of his goal to assure fair treatment and respect for all.

His close friends Martee and Roy Rogers, who will accept the award on Pyle's behalf, best remember Pyle's Christian example.

The unpretentious prodigy

Jean Geis Stell began her music career as a star pupil of Springfield piano teacher Ralph Zirkle and at age 19 earned a bachelor of music degree and a diploma "with great distinction" from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati College of Music.

There followed a five-year fellowship at the Juilliard Graduate School in New York, a scholarship at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, plus two awards to study abroad through a Fulbright Scholarship and a Rotary International Fellowship.

Stell subsequently did extensive concert work in the United States and Europe; has been featured with the Boston Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the NBC Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra; and helped to found the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, still going strong after 49 years.

"Her character is impeccable," said Jeanne R. Braun, a fellow member of the Springfield High Class of 1942, "and in spite of great international recognition, her personality is warm, open, caring and unpretentious."

Caring for

Raised by a mother who invited the community into her back porch beauty parlor, Patricia Gentry Young of the South High School Class of 1968 has grown into a woman who cares for more than her customers' hair.

The owner-operator of Young Hair Inc., Young and her employees work with the American Cancer Society's "Look Good ... Feel Better" program to help women cancer patients with appearance related affects of treatment, and in 2004, Young helped to form Sisters United for Prevention, which seeks to increase cancer awareness in the black community.

A recipient of the city's Black Business of the Year Award, Young is active in her church and in the National Council of Negro Women and serves on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Housing Authority.

She also volunteers with the Neighborhood Housing Partnership's Cultivating Neighborhoods Project and — with husband, John — was a Community Beautification Committee Home of the Week winner in 2007.

Nominator Hattie Lawson wrote that one of Young's special gifts is "her ability to connect with patients undergoing chemotherapy."

That, she said, "goes a long way in helping them to maintain" something very important: their sense of dignity.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com.