Jerry Stahley was born in Red Lion, a small village located on Ohio 741 between Centerville and Lebanon. He was the first of his eight siblings to be born in a hospital.
“The hospital was located above the sweet shop in Lebanon,” said Stahley, who was in a family of four brothers, four sisters, four with brown eyes and four with blue eyes. “It was a little hospital. I was called “Number six,” because I was the sixth child born in the family.”
Stahley’s family moved to Trenton where Stahley graduated from Trenton High School in 1963. After graduating, he joined the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, Mich.
“I kept track of flying time on the airplanes and pilots and I did it on an NCR counting machine,” said Stahley, who struck up a friendship with the NCR repairman, who visited the base about three times a year to clean the NCR machines. “He told me to go by Building Number 26, which isn’t there anymore, when I got out and interview for a job.”
Before leaving the military, Stahley met Mary, who had grown in up Buckhannon, W. Va. Her parents were both teachers, until her father retired to Oscoda (in upstate Michigan) so he could fish and hunt. Mary had graduated from Oscoda High School in 1963 and was earning a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant. She earned a master’s degree from Michigan State University before marrying Stahley and moving to Miamisburg in 1969.
“I taught for 2-1/2 years in Alpena, Mich. and then started teaching at Weller Elementary School in Centerville after I moved down to Ohio,” said Mary Stahley, who taught second, third and fifth-grade students at Weller for 36 years before retiring in 2006. “I remember that we could look out and see cows out the windows before they built the subdivision and we knew people were riding horses on the school grounds because we could see hoof prints in the dirt the next morning.”
In 1972, the Stahleys moved to Washington Twp. where they raised their two children, Kendra and John “Randy.” Kendra graduated from Centerville High School in 1995 and is married to AF Tech Sgt. Benjamin Barlow, of Dayton. She currently lives with her daughter, Eva, 3, in Rapid City, S.D. while her husband is deployed in Qatar. Randy graduated from CHS in 1997 and attended Bowling Green State University where he met his wife, Heather. They are both teaching assistants earning master’s degrees at the University of Maine and live in Orono with their son, Grayson, 4.
Meanwhile, Jerry Stahley worked in the service department for NCR and remembers being trained to repair the first electronic cash registers in the area that had been installed at Dorothy Lane Market in Oakwood. In 1973, Stahley left NCR to work for Calcomp in service and sales, but eventually retired from DayCad in 2005.
In retirement, Jerry Stahley continued his involvement with the Centerville Noon Optimists serving as the Ohio State Chair for the Oratorical Contest. Past positions include president of the group and serving as zone Lt. Gov three times. In addition to volunteering at Southminster Presbyterian Church, Mary Stahley is also active in P.E.O, a group that provides scholarships to help women further their educations, South Metro Optimist Club and volunteers at Hannah’s Treasure Chest in Centerville.
For more information about Centerville Noon Optimists, visit www.centervillenoon optimist.com.
Contact this columnist at (937) 432-9054 or jjbaer@aol.com.
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