As early as eighth grade, George McCann had the political interest that would lead him to amass the collection he’ll be recognized for Aug. 3 at the American Political Item Collectors convention in Columbus.

As important, McCann had the political instincts to go with it.

As good as the Sisters of Mercy at St. Raphael school were to him, McCann said if they had been aware of his Republican leanings, “there was no way they would have let me out of school” to see Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s whistle-stop in Springfield.

So young McCann kept his own counsel and, as a result, saw the first of the 10 chief executives he has seen in his 89 years.

The 10 presidents he’s seen are a sample of the leaders to be found in a memorabilia collection that dates to the election of Benjamin Harrison.

“We have an example from every campaign since 1888,” the affable retired druggist said in his Springfield home. “In some cases (it’s) only one or two examples,” he said. For others, “it’s many, many examples.”

Amassing items for their value was never on the agenda for the man who earned a master’s degree in history he never put to professional use. Both were driven by interest in the public square.

“I got my master’s in history from Wright State in 1978, and it took me nine years to get it,” said McCann.

Having graduated from Ohio State University in pharmacy, “I had no college level history at all in my bachelor’s degree,” McCann said, “so I had to get 39 credit hours at Wittenberg (University) before they would even take me at Wright State.”

“As a matter of fact, I was working 60 hours at the (McCann-Fireoved) pharmacy at the time,” he said. ” So those nine years I spent every Sunday almost all year long writing papers.”

By the time he started collecting credit hours, McCann was a decade into collecting memorabilia. He joined APIC in 1963 and his membership No. 175 is dwarfed by an organization now issuing memberships numbers above 18,000.

His collection features political mainstays Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

The material also includes also-rans like James Cox, who lost to Warren G. Harding; Alfred E. Smith, beaten by Herbert Hoover; John William Davis, second to Calvin Coolidge; and William Jennings Bryan, a three-time loser in the presidential sweepstakes.

Candidates like Robert Kennedy, assassinated before he could win his party’s nomination, also appear, as do third-party candidates Ross Perot, John Anderson and Theodore Roosevelt. (Although elected as a Republican, this Roosevelt later failed as the candidate of the Bull-Moose or Progressive Party.)

Vice presidents, most of whose names history remembers even less than failed nominees, also are represented. Exceptions to the forgotten rule are vice presidents Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford, who also served out terms of elected presidents. (Truman and Johnson went on to win elections themselves.)

At a time when so much of politics seem strident and lacking in humor, McCann is a contrast. “I was asked how I knew so early in life that I was a Republican,” he said. “Well, my father told me I was.”

In the same spirit is the title of the standard stump speech he delivers each quadrennial presidential election. Called “Presidents who have seen me,” it’s a sly reversal of the expected “Presidents I have seen.”

His favorite in that category is John F. Kennedy, who appeared at Wittenberg University during the fall of 1960.

“It seemed like everybody in Springfield was there,” McCann said. “It was a beautiful, beautiful afternoon, and he came in riding on the back of a convertible that went around the track.”

Making the occasion particularly special for McCann was that he took the historic scene in with wife, Freida, and four of their children.

McCann saw Gerald Ford at the Springfield Art Museum; Eisenhower at a whistle-stop in Springfield; Ronald Reagan and later George Herbert Walker Bush at rural gatherings north of Columbus; Bill Clinton in Springfield; George W. Bush twice, once in Troy and once in Dayton, the latter when candidate Bush performed impressively in a setting that had him completely surrounded with an audience.

“I had great admiration for the way he was able to talk to the audience around him, 360 degrees,” said McCann, “but I remember I disagreed with almost everything he had to say.”

McCann most recently was thrilled to be in Fairborn when candidate John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The atmosphere was electric.

His meeting with Richard Nixon was more happenstance and, ultimately, less pleasing. It came at an Ohio Pharmacy Civic Association event in Cleveland after Nixon’s defeat in the 1960 presidential and 1962 California gubernatorial elections.

He heard someone playing piano in the lobby, was told it was Nixon and introduced himself.

“He told me he was going to start a new life” in a job at a New York City law firm, McCann said. “It’s too bad he didn’t.”

Still, that conversation with the only president ever to resign from office is one of McCann’s presidential memories, a collection he treasures as much as he does his memorabilia.