And even if you know what it is, Kim Izor, a Miamisburg resident, can certainly do you one better. He designed a rotogravure machine from the ground up. He holds several patents, in fact.
First, a few words of definition: rotogravure is a method of printing where an image is engraved onto a copper cylinder and then printed with a rotary press.
Rotogravure printing used to be used mostly for large print jobs, often of a million or more copies. Now it’s used where even a couple of hundred thousand copies may be needed at a low price.
Izor designed the new machine. His wife, Mary, designed the software.
Fresh out of the University of Cincinnati in 1980 with a mechanical engineering degree, Izor thinks back to his youth to discover the beginnings of his interest in how things work. His father owned several gas stations and Izor remembers in particular a 1959 DeSoto Adventurer, the first vehicle with a dual four-barrel carburetor.
“There were some problems with them,” Izor remembers. He walked in to see that his father had disassembled one of the carburetors and had the parts lying on cafeteria trays. “Just hundreds of little parts,” Izor said.
Izor comes from a family of mechanics of sorts. “My mother will fix anything,” he said. After returning to Miamisburg in 1992, Izor began attending St. Jacob Lutheran Church. He slowly began fixing things — on a volunteer basis — and it was during those repair jobs he’d often come across some artifact that got him thinking about the history of the church.
“I’ve always loved history,” he said. When he visited the church’s archive room, he knew he was on the right track.
He began cataloging the church records on a computer.
Izor describes the rich buried treasures that he’s continually finding. He and Laura Hendley, who often helps him paint, “keep opening drawers and finding stuff.”
The church owns the saddlebag bible of Pastor John Caspar who began traveling between the Lutheran congregations of Germantown, Gebhart’s and Stettler’s in 1815.
Is there something he’d still like to uncover? Yes, and it would come in the form of a photo, a crystal chandelier in the sacristy was removed in the 1920s. There’s not a single picture of it to be found.
Hung in the 1890s, the chandelier lit with gas. Today only the ornamental work on the ceiling remains above where the chandelier once hung. It’s surrounded by multiple images of Martin Luther.
Contact this columnist at (937) 696-2080 or williamgschmidt@frontier.com.
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