Instead of pocketing the savings and leaning back to bask in the life of a young professional, she was leaning forward, rolling up her sleeves for the betterment of Middletown.
Throughout the Middletown native’s 20s and 30s, she was volunteering — chairing committees in some instances — and pitching in around the community.
Friends use words like “dedicated,” “passionate” and “selfless” when describing her. Her list of accomplishments and credentials is as impressive as it is long.
She has volunteered with the Midfirst Ohio Challenge Hot Air Balloon event, Middfest, Middletown’s GreekFest, the Arts Central Foundation, Middletown Area Miami Alumni Association and the local visitor’s bureau.
She has worked at the Middletown Public Library for the past 19 years and currently serves as a library associate.
Maria — now Maria Langendorf after marrying Jim, in 1998, was named the 2010 Mary Maurer Volunteer of the Year by the Middletown Community Foundation.
Her knack is tying loose ends together, such as taking “Eight Minutes in Middletown,” a weekly segment on TV Middletown, from a medium for brief local announcements to a broadcast boasting community discussions with various officials. She has produced and hosted the segment — sometimes held on-site at various locations in the community — since 2005.
“In our business, she’s believable,” said Ty Thomas, of TV Middletown. “She’s a good saleswoman for the community. And that’s exactly what ‘Eight Minutes in Middletown’ does — it sells the community.”
The program is an extension of work that began long ago.
“In my 20s and 30s, I truly believed if not me, then who?” Langendorf, 43, said with a laugh. “I guess my role would be that I understand that nothing is beneath me ... I’ve been chairman and I’ve picked up the garbage after an event.”
The mother of two is still actively involved in Women Living United, the alumni association and the visitor’s bureau, to name three.
Ann Mort remembers working with Langendorf right after she graduated from MU. The two collaborated on Middletown’s bicentennial celebration in 1991 and various balloon events together. Mort now refers to Maria as her “second daughter.”
“She just had a ball with the bicentennial,” Mort said. “She just jumped right in. She’s truly a nice person, however she does have a backbone.
“I’ve seen her negotiate,” Mort said with a laugh.
Langendorf said it’s about making lemonade out of what can be bruised lemons.
“If you look for the worst, you’re going to find the worst; but if you look for the best, you’re going to find the best,” she said. “I don’t care if it’s a person, a place, whatever.”
Maria’s local activism runs in her blood, Mort said.
“She was born and bred that way,” Mort noted. “Her parents loved being Americans. They instilled in their children that freedom isn’t free and to get out there and do their part.”
Langendorf’s parents, Fotis and Kitsa Papakirk, had the opportunity to come to Middletown from Greece the year before Maria was born. As Langendorf recalls, they were farmers, and didn’t speak fluent English. They were immigrants with “not much in their pockets.”
The family spoke Greek at home and Maria didn’t learn English until she was 4 years old. Through her schooling years, the Papakirk kids were “expected to be clean, work hard and make straight A’s.”
Large Greek dinners were prepared on a nightly basis. When other kids brought chocolate chip cookies into school, Maria brought homemade baklava. A friend in high school made light of the fact that she had never eaten a taco.
“We didn’t go out,” Langendorf laughed. “My mother cooked every night.”
The real push into the outside world came through the “thriving congregation” at Middletown’s Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church on Grand Avenue. Langendorf was involved in the youth group, choir and the annual Greek festival. There was an expectation that children in the congregation were going to pitch in, be involved.
Maria’s sister, Stella Tompoulidis, remembers that time well. “Part of it was that you just don’t take care of our immediate family, but of our extended family as well,” she said. “If you don’t take care of your community it’s a little like you’re not taking care of yourself.”
Langendorf now says her early experience in the church could have been a bridge to the work she would later do in Middletown.
“To go above and beyond — maybe it’s a natural tie,” she said.
In the early 1990s, Langendorf would see an opportunity to co-chair Middletown’s annual Greek Bazaar. She was one of the officials who made the call to change the name of the yearly event to “GreekFest,” a decision she says was radical at the time. Still, there are no regrets — the new name for the festival typically held the last weekend in July is “cleaner, smoother, easier to remember.”
There’s no way to account for how many hours of behind-the-scenes work Langendorf has recorded. “There’s a certain sense of making something happen,” she said. “It’s not for everybody ... I have to see that I’ll fit. It’s not a resume-builder for me.”
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