Humbled by the honor, the one-time Hamilton mayor believes “it’s just that I’ve been around for 800 years.”
In her nomination letter, Hamilton resident and Rotarian Bethany Spaeth said Nye’s impact on the city has been through his entire tenure in the city. Nye, a native of Fostoria, Ohio, arrived in Hamilton in 1987 after graduating from The Ohio State University’s College of Optometry.
Community organizations he’s served on, or is currently serving, range from the Hamilton Rotary Club and American Red Cross to the Hamilton-Fairfield Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. He was named Ohio’s “Young Optometrist of the Year” in 1991 and the Ohio Optometric Association recognized Nye as the “Key Optometrist of the Year” in 2006.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
He continues to serve as the treasurer and board member of the Dayton Lane Historic Area and Historic Hamilton Inc., and is an active member of St. Julie Billiart Catholic Church.
“Dr. Tom Nye is widely regarded as a person of exceptional integrity, professionalism and fairness, both in his optometric practice and in his extensive community and civic leadership,” Spaeth wrote in her nomination letter. “Throughout his career, he has consistently demonstrated a commitment to ethical decision-making, transparent communication, and treating every patient, colleague and community member with dignity and respect.”
Nye said technology has improved his practice over the years, and how an optician works today is “dramatically different” than a few decades earlier.
“We rely much more on technology, and we’re able now to treat various diseases and conditions that, in the past, we have not been able to do so,” he said, saying early detection of eye diseases to better and improve treatment options with minimal side effects make him “a better doctor” today than in his early years of his practice.
Nye said it’s easy to be a Hamiltonian, and own a business in the city. “From Day One, Hamilton has embraced me,” he said. “It’s been a great place to have a practice, it’s been a great place to raise a family. The relationships I have with my patients, my friends, has just been indescribable.”
Now he’s seeing the kids and grandchildren of patients he treated when he first started. Some patients return to Hamilton to see him, whether it’s a college student home for winter or summer break, or a former Hamiltonian that moved out of state and returns for an eye appointment.
He said all the affection he’s experienced from the community “is wonderful.”
”Those sorts of things are very rewarding to me, and I appreciate it."
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