Former Congressman Tony Hall leads a group of six people who will be inducted into the Dayton Region Walk of Fame this fall by Wright Dunbar Inc.
Hall will be joined on the Walk of Fame by Jerry Gillotti, Alyce Downing Lucas and Ned Sifferlen, as well as Harvey Dunn Geyer and Frederic Charles MacFarlane, who will be inducted posthumously.
There will be a ticketed luncheon at Sinclair Community College at 11 a.m. Sept. 26 to celebrate this year’s inductees. For ticket and sponsorship information call (937) 443-0249. The Walk of Fame is located in the Wright Dunbar Historic Business District on West Third Street, between Williams and Broadway Streets.
Hall, the son of former Dayton Mayor Dave Hall, served 24 years in the U.S. Congress and was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on poverty issues. He also served as ambassador to the United Nations food and agriculture agencies, and executive director of the Alliance to End Hunger.
Geyer manufactured airplanes for the Wright Brothers, was a partner in the Dayton Auto School, and helped develop a new process for constructing the automobile steering wheel , which led in part to the launch of Inland Manufacturing. He also oversaw the reconstruction of the Wright Flyer III before dying in 1952.
Gillotti became one of the greatest jazz and blues promoters in the nation, starting at the Wedgewood Inn and the Green Derby before moving Gilly’s downtown to Fifth and Jefferson. Gillotti brought such performers as Tony Bennett, BB King, Wynton Marsalis and many more to Dayton.
Lucas helped organize the United Golfers Association, which in the 1950s helped remove the “Whites Only’ clause in the PGA. She organized the first Beautillion Militaire event for outstanding black high school seniors, and in 1968 she became the first black woman on radio station WDAO.
MacFarlane, who lived from 1889-1948, became the first black principal of a high school in Dayton in 1933. He strengthened the school’s state-required curriculum to incorporate trade skills and specialized classes such as radio code and aeronautics. He was one the charter members of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.
Sifferlen has spent more than four decades in local education, mostly at Sinclair Community College, and served on multiple corporate and community boards. He chaired the speaker’s bureau that was instrumental in getting Sinclair’s levy campaign passed in 1966, and he helped launch the county’s out-of-school youth task force in 1998, which helped cut the dropout rate. In 2006, he received the Citizen Legion of Honor Award from the President’s Club of Dayton.