“The city of Kettering contacted the company that made die-cast police car replicas in 1995, and had them make up 2,600 Kettering cruisers that sold for $5 as a fundraiser. I bought one and then got addicted to them. I’d buy cars wherever we went.”
Conroy is a 1976 graduate of Wildwood Catholic High School in New Jersey. He attended the University of Dayton where he studied criminal justice. During his second year in college, he met his future wife, Diane O’Neil, a communications major who grew up in Columbus and was one of eight students in the last class to graduate from St. Joseph Academy in 1977.
“I graduated on a Friday and was working for Oakwood in the public safety office the following Monday,” said Conroy, who graduated in 1980, but cross-trained as a firefighter and emergency medical technician for one year in order to work in Oakwood.
“I really enjoyed my career, but I really enjoyed the police aspect more than the fire, or EMS. I had an opportunity to work with the FBI for three straight months after 15 banks were robbed. We did catch the robbers.”
The couple wed in 1981, and in 1982 moved to Centerville where they raised their four children: Steven, 27, who is a married computer engineer living in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Jeff, 25, who graduated with an master’s in business administration from UD and works at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Research Lab as a contract negotiator; Meghan, a University of Toledo graduate working as a registered nurse at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich,; and Molly, a junior at Centerville High School, who is active in the band color guard.
In addition to volunteering for the band and PTO and raising her own children, Diane Conroy cared for 25 younger children in her home day-care program. The couple also welcomed four foreign exchange students into their home and sent their daughter, Molly, to Bad Zwischenahn, Germany, to participate in an exchange.
“The cars have been a lot of fun,” said Diane Conroy, who helps her husband collect cars. “We’ve met a lot of really nice people because of them. When we travel, we’ll stop and meet other collectors.”
Conroy soon found that collecting wasn’t enough for him, and in 2000 he contacted a toy manufacturer and with the help of retired Centerville Police Chief Steve Walker arranged to have models — at one-forty-third scale — made of the city of Centerville police cruisers. He later ordered Oakwood model police cars and started his business, Conroy’s Cruisers, which can be found online at www.conroyscruisers.com. He currently ships model cars across the country and to 15 foreign countries.
Contact this columnist at (937) 432-9054 or jjbaer@aol.com.
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