Dick Church Jr.
Dick Church Jr., Miamisburg’s longest-serving mayor and the 15th longest serving mayor in U.S. history, died at 81.
Church was elected to an at-large city council seat in 1987, two years after selling his flower shop. He ran for mayor and defeated the incumbent by 27 votes in 1991. He retired at the end of 2019.
Miamisburg City Manager Keith Johnson said Church’s death was “a huge loss” and that he had been “almost like a father” to him over the nearly 30 years they worked with one another.
Church spent a decade as a newspaper manager, his profession, before helping to take over his family’s flower shop in 1972.
Before running for public office, Church was a firefighter for five years, a police dispatcher for a year and a member of Miamisburg’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board for 13 years. He also served on the committee that wrote the city charter in the 1960s.
Church’s 28-year tenure as mayor in the city began just after the announced closing of a top-secret defense research and nuclear production facility that was Miamisburg’s largest employer since opening in 1949.
Roger Glass
Roger Glass, president and chief executive of Marion’s Piazza, died at the age of 79.
Glass — president and CEO of Marion’s for 16 years and an employee of the family-owned company for five decades — was the second-generation owner of Marion’s. His father, Marion Glass, founded the business in 1965.
“He will be greatly missed by his family, friends, employees of Marion’s, and his business and community associates,” the Glass family said in a statement.
The business today has restaurants in north and south Dayton, the Dayton Mall area, Centerville, Beavercreek, Kettering, Englewood, Troy and Mason.
Glass was also known for philanthropy, with the most visible examples of his generosity at the University of Dayton and Chaminade-Julienne High School.
Arthur “Scott” Hadley
Former Beavercreek mayor Arthur “Scott” Hadley is being remembered as someone who was committed to the well-being of his city, and whose volunteer work went “above and beyond.” Hadley died at the age of 82.
A lifelong Beavercreek resident, Hadley served as the city’s mayor twice, from 2006 to 2007 and 2010 to 2011, and served on city council for 8 years. Hadley was instrumental in helping establish the city of Beavercreek in 1983.
Hadley was also a founding member of the Rotary Club of Beavercreek, and a charter member of the Beavercreek Chamber of Commerce. He was awarded Beavercreek Rotary’s Outstanding Community Service Award in 2004. He and his family were particularly active in Beavercreek’s signature Popcorn Festival, held annually the weekend after Labor Day.
Brian Harlamert
Brian Harlamert, the head baseball coach at Coldwater High School since 1998 and a member of the Dayton Flyers Hall of Fame, died at 51.
Harlamert was the first baseball player to receive a scholarship at UD. He remains the program’s all-time leader in games played (230) and ranks second in home runs (38) behind another Coldwater graduate: Brooks Vogel (45, 1998-2001).
Harlamert coached Coldwater to state championships in 2014 and 2019 and runner-up finishes in 2004 and 2018. The school also reached the state final four under him in 2000, 2008 and 2009.
Harlamert was inducted into the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in January. He won his 400th game in 2016 and reached the 500 career victory milestone in 2021.
Chris Harris
Credit: Dayton Daily News
Credit: Dayton Daily News
Chris Harris, a top player for Tom Blackburn in the 1950s, a teammate and close friend of Don Donoher and the father of two Dayton Flyers, died in Dayton at 89.
Harris was born in Southhampton, England, and moved to New York City with his family when he was 2. He grew up in Floral Park, N.Y., and joined the Flyers for the 1951-52 season, following in the footsteps of Pete Boyle, another New Yorker who invited Harris to visit Dayton and try out for Blackburn.
“I owe it all to my buddy Pete Boyle,” Harris said in 2013. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have met my wife and my great friends and I wouldn’t have become a Dayton Flyer.”
Harris, a 6-foot-2 guard, increased his scoring average every season — from 1.3 as a freshman to 9.5 as a senior — and finished his career with 605 points. He ranks 101st in school history in scoring. Dayton was 94-30 in his four seasons. He was inducted into the UD Hall of Fame in 2013.
Ann Heller
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Ann Heller, longtime Dayton Daily News and Journal Herald food editor and restaurant critic whose passion for food equaled her zest for life, died at Hospice of Dayton at the age of 86.
Heller was born Feb. 1, 1936, in Middletown. She attended Northwestern University studying journalism. She started her professional career as a reporter and assistant city editor. Well-known for her long running “It’s Simple” column and decades of thorough restaurant reviews, Heller retired June 28, 2006. She served 29 years as food editor and 31 years as restaurant critic.
The Dayton Daily News published a collection of Heller’s recipes in In 1992 titled “The Best of It’s Simple: Easy Recipes for Today’s Lifestyles and Tastes.” The cookbook was so popular she continued to receive feedback more than 20 years later. She was also the author of a 1980 cookbook and a series of stories entitled “Best Recipes of the Year” that were published in the Dayton Daily News and Journal Herald.
Heller was also a world traveler, a superb tennis player, and enjoyed gardening at her home in the Oregon District where she also enjoyed cocktails on her porch. She was a staple of the Oregon District having lived there since she purchased her home in 1980.
Donald Huber
Longtime local developer and builder Donald Huber died at the age of 90.
He and his family were perhaps best known in the Dayton area for being responsible for building the distinctive array of thousands of quickly built, one-story, single-family brick homes in Wayne Twp., which became the namesake city of Huber Heights in 1981.
The homes were notable not just for their quick, panelized construction but for their inexpensive price, at $9,900, at a time when some competing homes were priced above $13,000.
A graduate of Oakwood High School, Huber represented the third generation of Huber family builders.
Don Huber went on to form Donald L. Huber Enterprises, and developed communities in Kettering, Centerville, Miamisburg, Beavercreek, Lima, Sidney, Cincinnati, Columbus and communities outside of Ohio.
His obituary noted his philanthropy and community support. “During many development efforts, both he and his family’s company donated millions of dollars’ worth of land to schools, parks, churches and playgrounds.”
Richard Kidd
The Chaminade Julienne boys basketball program mourned the loss of longtime assistant coach Richard Kidd, who died unexpectedly after a brief illness.
Those who knew Kidd well said selfless acts to help young men was his mission in life. He was known to and appreciated by coaches and high school players all over Dayton for his gifts of encouragement and behind-the-scenes work to better the lives of high school basketball players.
Kidd graduated from Patterson High School and soon after began hanging around the CJ program in the late 80s. Former head coach Joe Staley’s first memory of Kidd was after a big home win in 1989. When Staley left the school building, he found Kidd in the parking lot with over 100 kids, including the basketball team, and music blaring from his Jeep.
“I thought, ‘Wow, this kid’s something else,’” Staley said.
“His gift was making kids happy and making them have fun,” Staley said. “He would go into a gym where nothing was going right, where kids were having a difficult practice, and two or three minutes later everybody’s laughing. He will certainly be missed by every kid that played at Chaminade. You can’t find a kid from the last 30 years that doesn’t have great memories of Richard Kidd. He made life a blast for a lot of people.”
Peter Kuntz
Longtime Dayton businessman, philanthropist, and champion of local Catholic schools Peter Kuntz, died at the age of 93.
Kuntz served as president of his family’s namesake foundation, a supporting organization of the Dayton Foundation, and was involved with a myriad of philanthropic efforts around the Dayton area.
A devout Catholic, Kuntz was involved in the initial capital campaign to construct both Alter and Carroll high schools.
“He felt a strong sense of service to the community, to give back,” his son, Peter Kuntz, Jr., said. “He was a great man, but more importantly he was a good man. Even though he was born of some privilege, he approached his entire life with humility and what you would hope the Catholic religion — or any religion — would stand for: he was a servant leader.”
James “Pee Wee” Martin
James “Pee Wee” Martin — a locally celebrated and much-loved World War II veteran who parachuted into France with Allied troops on D-Day — died on Patriot Day, according to his family. He was 101 years old.
Martin, a Sugarcreek Twp. resident, parachuted into Normandy near Saint-Come-du-Mont behind Utah Beach at 12:30 a.m. on D-Day.
Martin later fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and he received a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and European African Middle Eastern Service Medal for his service. Martin earned the nickname “Pee Wee” by being the lightest paratrooper in his regiment.
As a member of the 101st Airborne Division, known as the “Screaming Eagles,” he parachuted into Normandy on June 5, 1944, one of the first American forces to land.
Martin lived in Sugarcreek Twp. from the late 1940′s until his death.
Nate Miller
The Springfield community reacted in shock to the death of Nate Miller, 34, a 2005 South High School graduate who played college basketball at Bowling Green and remained active in his hometown, coaching middle school basketball and baseball.
As a senior at South, Miller shared the the 2004-05 Springfield News-Sun Clark County Player of the Year award with Southeastern’s Matt Poole. Miller averaged 19.7 points and an area-best 12.7 rebounds. He scored 1,300 points in his high school career.
With Miller and six other seniors on the roster in 2005, the Wildcats went 19-1 in the regular season and rose to a No. 2 rating in the Associated Press Division I state poll, the highest rating since the 1983-84 season.
Miller started his college career at UNC-Wilmington and played one season there before transferring to Bowling Green. In three seasons with the Falcons (2006-09), he scored 1,151 points. He was named to the All-Mid-American Conference first team as a senior.
Miller played professional basketball in Spain, Israel, Mexico, Argentina and most recently in South Korea in the 2018-19 season. He remained active as a coach in the area and ran an organization, MillerzElite Basketball.
Adreian Payne
Credit: Gregory Shamus
Credit: Gregory Shamus
A former Dayton-area high school basketball standout who played at Michigan State University and in the NBA died in a shooting at an Orlando, Fla., townhouse.
Adreian Payne, a 6-foot-10 center, was born in Dayton in 1991. He graduated from Jefferson High School in 2010. He helped lead the team to a Division IV state championship as a senior.
Payne played for Michigan State from 2010-14. He was a three-year starter who scored 1,232 points in his career.
The Atlanta Hawks drafted Payne with the No. 15 pick in the first round of the NBA Draft in 2014. He played four seasons in the NBA (2014-18) and appeared in 107 games with the Hawks, Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic.
Payne’s basketball career continued overseas through 2021. He played in Greece, China, Turkey and Lithuania.
Margaret Peters
Credit: Lisa Powell
Credit: Lisa Powell
Margaret Peters, Dayton native and nationally recognized historian, died peacefully in her sleep on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the age of 86.
Born on March 12, 1936, to parents Mary Margaret Smith Peters and Joseph Andrew Peters, Margaret Peters lived and worked in the Dayton area her entire life.
A 1954 graduate of Roosevelt High School, Peters went on to study history, English, and Spanish at the University of Dayton. According to the Dayton Peace Museum, over the course of 20 years, Peters earned two bachelor’s degrees, one master’s degree, and a supervisor’s certificate.
Peters was well-known throughout the Dayton community, and was a respected educator, historian, and writer, who devoted her life to her community, students, and to the fight for Civil Rights. In 2012, the Dayton Peace Museum named her a Peace Hero.
Peters was a Dayton Public Schools teacher for decades, retiring in 1993. She has authored multiple works, including “The Ebony Book of Black Achievement” and “Dayton’s African-American Heritage.” Peters served as president of the Dayton branch of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History beginning in 1984 and served on the National ASALH Executive Council from 1993 to 1995
Peters has received multiple awards including the National Council of Negro Women’s Excellence in Teaching Award for the Midwest Region in 1991, and she was featured within The HistoryMakers, the national oral history project, in 2006.
Julia Reichert
Julia Reichert, a Wright State University film professor for 28 years who won an Academy Award and two Emmys as a trailblazing documentary filmmaker died at her home in Yellow Springs while in Hospice care.
Reichert was 76 and had battled a rare form of terminal cancer for four and a half years.
For 50 years, Reichert, along with longtime collaborators Steven Bognar and Jim Klein, illuminated humanity, particularly America’s working-class, across compelling themes of feminism, family, politics and economics. In recent years, she continued her life’s passion, making three films, including the Academy Award-winning documentary, “American Factory,” Lela Klein said.
A longtime resident of Yellow Springs, Reichert received her first Academy Award nomination in 1977 with Jim Klein and Miles Mogulescu for “Union Maids.” She was nominated again with Klein in 1984 for “Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists.” Partnering with Bognar, she received an Academy Award nomination in 2010 for “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.” She ultimately won the Oscar in 2020 with Bognar for “American Factory.” She also shared two Emmys with Bognar for “A Lion in the House” (2006) and “American Factory,” which focused on the Chinese-owned Fuyao Glass America windshield plant that opened in the former General Motors factory in Moraine.
Mike Reichert
Mike Reichert, who helped lead the Dayton basketball team to success in the early 1980s, died unexpectedly at the age of 61 on April 3.
The 6-foot-8 Reichert, who starred at Celina High School, played with UD Hall of Famers Roosevelt Chapman and Mike Kanieski and started as a senior in 1982-83. He was fourth on the team in scoring that season with a 9.0 average and second in rebounding with a 6.9 mark.
Reichert had lived in Yellow Springs for years and coached high school golf.
Mark Schlemmer
Local sports radio host Mark Schlemmer died at 65.
Long before gaining fame on the radio, the 1974 Fairmont West graduate made a name for himself in baseball. Schlemmer played at Union College in Kentucky and then in the Detroit Tigers farm system, reaching Single-A. He was an assistant coach at the University of Dayton for two seasons before being named head coach in 1989. He stepped down just before the 1993 season and then spent four years managing in the independent Northern League, where he coached former big leaguers Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd and Pedro Guerrero.
Schlemmer was inducted into the Dayton Amateur Baseball Commission Hall of Fame in 2009. He competed in the DABC as a player and manager from 1972-89. His father Robert, uncles Jack and Jim and cousin John Schlemmer are also members of the Hall of Fame.
Schlemmer credited another sports radio host, former Dayton Daily News sports writer Chick Ludwig, for helping him break into radio. He made that move in 2007, joining 980 WONE-AM as a baseball insider. By the following year, he had his own show from 6-8 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Schlemmer left WONE in 2011.
Schlemmer returned to sports talk radio with WING-AM in 2018 and hosted a weekday show from 3-6 p.m. with Justin Kinner. He stayed with the station until March 2020 when he announced he was retiring because of health issues.
Anthony F.M. “Tony” Spaziani
“Tony” Spaziani, the owner of Giovanni’s Pizzeria é Ristorante Italiano in Fairborn died on Aug. 29 at the age of 74.
Giovanni’s, known as one of the region’s longest-established restaurants, was founded in 1953. Spaziani purchased the restaurant in 1994 and had since doubled the restaurant’s dining space by adding a banquet room and opening an in-house bakery.
Spaziani grew up in New York in the hospitality industry and came to the Dayton area to attend the University of Dayton. He received his master’s in communications and sold insurance before purchasing Giovanni’s, but always had a side job or weekend job bartending.
Spaziani was also known as the founder of the Italian Fall Festa.
Morgan Taylor
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Kettering native musician and cartoonist Morgan Taylor, known for his kid-centric art and music creations, has died following a “brief and sudden illness,” according to a GoFundMe created in his honor.
Taylor was a two-time Grammy Award nominee whose work quickly gained popularity with his creation of Gustafer Yellowgold, a friendly yellow animated character who came from the sun.
For more than a decade, Taylor performed multimedia shows of live music and colored-pencil animations, opening for bands like Wilco with stories of Gustafer’s adventures. His 2015 Gustafer Yellowgold’s Dark Pie Concerns CD/DVD was nominated for Best Children’s Album.
Taylor said he sang in musicals and plays from a very young age, at Kettering’s Prass Elementary School, then played in several bands in the Dayton area, including Glee and Beak with David Poe, OO OO WA, and Mink.
Taylor moved to New York City in 1999, where he worked as a sound engineer and joined a songwriting club. It was in 2005 that Gustafer Yellowgold came to life.
John Voss
John Voss, the founder and co-owner of the Voss Auto Network, died at the age of 79.
John Voss was born on Nov. 3, 1942, near Chicago. He launched his automotive career in Evanston, Illinois, and in 1972, he and his father purchased land in Centerville and opened Voss Chevrolet.
Voss spent the next several decades building Voss Auto Network into the largest auto group in the Dayton/Miami Valley area, one that has approximately 500 employees across its seven locations.
Voss was recognized as a leader and innovator in the automotive industry.
“Dad had the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew,” Craig Voss told Dayton Daily News. “It was interesting though, because he was very quiet about it. What he would do for for his employees, for his friends, for countless charitable organizations ... I can’t begin to tell you how much he did, but he did it very privately and very quietly.”
A.J. Wagner
A former Montgomery County judge, auditor, Dayton mayoral candidate and state school board member has died after a battle with cancer.
A.J. Wagner, 70, served Montgomery County in multiple roles, including as auditor in the 1990s and county judge between 2000 and 2010. He also ran for mayor against Nan Whaley in 2013.
Wagner served on the Ohio State School Board between 2014 to 2016, and was known as a strong advocate for high-poverty schools, urging board members to consider the impact their decisions made on urban districts such as Dayton.
Wagner moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania to be closer to family, and was around family for the final years of his life as he battled cancer.
Willie Walker
Willie Walker, the longtime president and chief executive of Dayton Urban League, died at Kettering Health Dayton, the former Grandview Medical Center. He was 80 years old.
Walker retired as Dayton Urban League president and CEO in June 2008. He took the job in 1985.
Walker’s work with the Urban League “profoundly shaped” the city of Dayton, his daughter, Teresa Walker, said. In that role, he was a contemporary of Jessie Gooding, former president of the Dayton Unit NAACP, among many others.
“My father was a good man,” Ms. Walker said. “He was a family man, and he loved his community, especially the city of Dayton.”