Recordpub.com - OUR VIEW: Commendable idea Portage Bicentennial Plaque of Honor ceremonies celebrate county's heritage

Residents of Portage County who want to learn more about where they live have an excellent opportunity to do so this weekend at a series of memorial recognition events scheduled for the municipalities and townships of our county.

The ceremonies, some 17 of them, will be held in cemeteries and town halls of each community engaged in the process. Citizens singled out for recognition in some cases are the original settlers of 200 years ago. In other instances, citizens who made important contributions will be honored with the memorial plaque.

This is a great idea and the Bicentennial Committee that has worked hard to make the 200th anniversary of Portage County's founding meaningful is to be commended for coming up with it.

A committee of volunteers from each community selected the people to be honored with the Bicentennial Committee's Plaques of Honor and descendants of some whose names will grace the plaques are still living in the area.

Three of Portage County's largest municipalities, Aurora, Kent, and Ravenna, are holding their recognition ceremonies Saturday.

Aurora at 10 a.m. at the Aurora Cemetery will recognize Ebenezer Sheldon, who founded the community, and Charles Harmon, an early Ohio legislator who lived in Aurora. It also will recognize John Eldridge, who served as mayor in the 1950s and then served his community as a civic leader for the next 35 years.

Kent, participating as Franklin Township and possibly Franklin Mills, which was what the village was named for much of its history, will hold its recognition ceremony at 1 p.m. Saturday at the historic Pioneer Cemetery on Stow Street, where members of the founding family, the Haymakers, will be honored along with Joshua Woodard, a veteran of the War of 1812 and successful businessman, and Leman Ruggles, an early stone mason and businessman.

Ravenna at 10 a.m. in Maple Grove Cemetery will honor township figures John Campbell, Mary Woodbridge and Melvin Cole, the former trustee who recently died. The city, appropriately, will honor Fredrick Loudin, who founded and conducted the Loudin Singers, Gibson Braden and H.R. Loomis, the attorney who dominated banking and business in Portage County for several decades of the 20th century.

Brimfield, at Restland Cemetery at 10 a.m., will honor its original settler, John Boosinger, Charles Sprague, the dedicated township figure who died in 2000, and Cora Lee and Edgar McCormick, co-founders of Kelso House and renowned Kent State educators.

Among those recognized by other communities are Huber King, Windham's world renowned artist and woodcarver, Captain John B. Rodgers, one of the Nantucket whalers who emigrated to Portage County in the mid 19th century; Wanda Walters, Palmyra's prominent civic volunteer; Warren Pierce, founder of the Garrettsville Journal; and Edinburg's Eleanor McConnell, journalist, businesswoman and volunteer.

A complete list of honorees and times and places of recognition was published in Tuesday's Record-Courier and is available on our Web site. In addition, those interested may call their community for further details.

For history buffs and those simply wanting to know more about their communities, attending a Bicentennial Committee Plaque of Honor ceremony this week could be a very educational and fulfilling experience.

Take advantage of it.