Middletonian Winter 2023 Issue

BY REID MAUS

BY CHRIS VOGT

Madison

coach, Jeff Smith

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Winter 2023 • Vol. 5, No. 1

INSIDE

6 8 10 12 16 19 20

A New Start

A Middletown restaurant is set to close A Shared Vision

Miami teams up with Cincinnati State

Honoring a Legend

Madison Basketball coach Jeff Smith

Master Plan

Middletown announces building plans

Head Elf

Principal starts each day as ‘Elf on the Shelf’

Recipe Spotlight

Hash Brown Potato Soup

Middletown History

Charles W. Shartle

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PUBLISHER: One Pride Publishing, LLP

WRITERS: Richard O Jones, Laura Leavitt, Reid Maus

PHOTOGRAPHER: Bailey Osborne

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CONTACT: The Middletonian, 131 North 3rd Street, Hamilton, Ohio 45011 • (513) 816-1450

A NEW START

Owner closes Middletown restaurant, but is set to reopen a popular Madison Twp. market

■ ONE MIDDLETOWN downtown restaurant is closing and a popular Madison Twp. business is reopening.

Nancy Griffith, who has operated Mockingbirds Cafe for nine years, including eight years on Central Avenue, is closing her restaurant and taking over former Peggy’s Produce Market in Madison Twp., 380 Middletown-Eaton Road.

Griffith said the “timing was right” to change careers. She said the Middletown restaurant business became “stagnant” during the COVID-19 pandemic and during the

major renovations that closed Central Avenue to traffic for months.

She expects to close Mockingbirds before her lease expires in May and hopes to reopen Peggy’s in late February or early March after passing all the health inspections.

The business will be owned by Griffith, her husband, Tim; and Michael Stafford. The produce stand will be named Aimee’s.

After opening the produce stand, she may add a delicatessen. Griffith said several neighboring businesses in the

township and teachers in the Madison district have encouraged her to offer lunch sandwiches.

Last year, Peggy and Larry Landers closed Peggy’s that operated for nearly 10 years. They cited the difficulty hiring employees and increased prices as two reasons. But more than those two economic indictors, Landers said, after battling breast cancer, she had a deeper appreciation of family and friends.

Peggy was diagnosed with breast cancer in July and had surgery in August. She said it appears the cancer was detected early and hopes for a full recovery.

PROVIDING

Soon to close, the Mockingbirds Cafe

A SHARED VISION

resources at Miami Middletown and greater exposure to Miami’s four-year degree options. Cincinnati State’s focus on certificates, associate degrees, and technical programs complements Miami Regionals’ bachelor degree offerings and workforce oriented microcredentials.

University and Gateway Community and Technical College. Launched in September 2021, Moon Shot for Equity aims to remove barriers and create solutions focused on reducing equity gaps in higher education by 2030.

■ MIAMI UNIVERSITY and Cincinnati State Technical and Community College have announced that beginning in fall 2023 Cincinnati State will open a branch location at the Miami University Regionals’ Middletown Campus.

“Working together will enable us to substantially increase educational opportunities,” said Ande Durojaiye, vice president and dean of Miami’s Regionals campuses. “The collaboration will enhance transfer pathways for students, increase the number of bachelor degree graduates in the region, and better support workforce and economic development.”

Cincinnati State students will have access to the full-service campus

Currently, Miami University Regionals and Cincinnati State are focused on aligning curriculum and degree offerings to facilitate seamless transfers and create additional educational opportunities.

Increased access to post secondary education and higher levels of degree completion are the ultimate goals. Added to the direct support of student success, they are also exploring how cross-institutional use of facilities and resources will promote operational and financial sustainability.

The partnership is part of the work Cincinnati State and Miami University are doing as part of Moon Shot for Equity, together with Northern Kentucky

“Aligning our programs and creating pathways to greater higher education access is a win-win for Butler County and the State of Ohio,” said Miami President Gregory P. Crawford. “This partnership will enable us to help students achieve their educational and career goals and build a strong, high-performing, solution-oriented workforce for the future workplace.”

Cincinnati State President Monica Posey said: “Partnerships like we have in Butler County are where higher education is going. Our goal in each is to allow each student to affordably take the next step in their lives, toward a rewarding future.”

To further increase opportunity, in early 2023, Cincinnati State and

Miami teams with Cincinnati State to increase education pathways and options for student success and workforce development.

Butler Tech will be announcing that Cincinnati State will begin teaching classes at Butler Tech’s D. Russel Lee Campus in Fairfield Township to augment the already growing partnership between the two institutions at Butler Tech’s Bioscience Center in West Chester.

State Representative Thomas Hall commented that “the announcement further shows how crucial higher education is to this great district, this Southwest Ohio region, and ultimately this state.” He congratulated Cincinnati State and Miami, noting that “together we can address these concerns head on and develop solutions to move us forward.”

Butler County Commissioner T.C. Rogers said: “Butler County and the Board of Commissioners are committed to working with public and private partners to leverage resources and expand opportunities to remain competitive in the State and in the greater Midwest region. These partnerships and programs for advancing the workforce will uniquely position Butler County as a change agent and an initiator for meaningful progress.”

Rick Pearce, president and CEO of The Chamber of Commerce serving Middletown, Monroe and Trenton, said: “As the fight for talent increases in the years to come, Butler County students are at a tremendous advantage to have a career technical school, a community college and a 4-year university all working together to meet their needs and the needs of local employers.”

Looking to the future, Durojaiye remarked that “having this unique educational ecosystem in place will

go a long way to support continued economic and workforce development. The alignment of Butler Tech and other secondary schools with Cincinnati State and Miami will offer Butler County residents a seamless pathway from high school through undergraduate and graduate degrees.

“Our closer working relationship will strengthen our efforts in workforce development and deepen our shared commitment to economic development and community engagement.”

Celebrating Madison Basketball coach, Jeff Smith

BY CHRIS VOGT

■ JEFF SMITH didn’t know exactly how many coats of paint the Madison High School gymnasium floor received during his 23 seasons as head coach of the Mohawks’ boys basketball program.

If he’d guess, he thought it to be four or five. “It never really crossed my mind to be honest,” Smith said.

Now, the gym floor has its newest coat. Madison’s court was dedicated to and named after Smith on Dec. 3 before the Mohawks’ varsity home contest against Arcanum. “There is nothing that (the school) could have done that would have meant more to me,” said Smith, 63, who retired from coaching following the 2020 season.

Smith, who has worked with the Madison school district for 29 years, is the current physical education teacher at the high school. “It’s ironic,” Smith said. “My adult life has been in this gym for almost a half a century.”

Smith began his 29-year coaching career in 1984 at Middletown Christian before becoming an assistant women’s coach at the University of Dayton for a small stint in 1989. He went back to Middletown Christian until 1994, when he came to Madison.

He also spent 14 years as Madison’s athletic director, which put him in a position to be able to have a say in the layout and design of the current

gymnasium. That was in 2001. “It was neat to be a part of,” Smith said.

Countless hours of practice with his former players and assistant coaches, in that exact gym, helped him produce 406 wins.

GETTING THE WORD

Smith hadn’t the slightest clue about the dedication. That is until one of his former players, and 1998 graduate, Aaron Lawson gave him a phone call. “We sort of returned each other’s favors,” Lawson said.

Just weeks prior, Smith phoned Lawson to give him some news. “He called to tell me that I was going into the Madison Hall of Fame for athletics,” Lawson said. “So, I got to pay it back to him.”

Lawson said naming the court after Smith was long-overdue. Lawson, who is also on the Madison school board, put in a resolution for the basketball court to be named after the coach.

Following the school board’s approval, that’s when Lawson called Smith up. “Once it got through the board, I had to be the one to call him,” Lawson said. “I wanted to be the one. He was my coach.” Said Smith, “Aaron was a three-year starter for me. I knew that some players

were sort of making it a mission of theirs about the court thing, but the conversation went quiet for a little bit. I hadn’t heard too much after a while.”

“When I called him and told him about it, it was dead silence,” Lawson further recalled. “He just said he had to go and hung up on me. Coach was too emotional to talk. He didn’t even know what to say.

“He called me back, though,” Lawson laughed. “He collected himself.”

IN THE MOMENT

Smith went through his own collection of memories spent on Madison’s basketball court. “There’s so many great moments,” Smith said. “Some heartbreaking ones, too. There were a couple of nights when we’ve won league titles on that floor.”

But nothing stood out more to Smith than when his squad opened the 20092010 season against then-powerhouse Dayton Jefferson.

Dayton Jefferson, at the time, had three Division I college prospects — Adreian Payne, Cody Latimer and Devin Foster. “We had a really good team that year,” Smith said. “But I remember we were down by 12 at the half. Then we came back and beat them by 12. We came back and beat the best team Madison had ever played on that court.

“People were running onto the floor. It was a madhouse,” Smith remembered. “We even had a terrible week of practice, too. It wasn’t good. But we ended up getting it right that night.”

That Madison team went 24-0 before falling to Taft in the Division III regional

semifinals. “We came in second that night, unfortunately,” Smith said.

QUOTABLES

But Smith was first in a lot of former player’s and coach’s lives. Many of them attended the court dedication. “He brought together the basketball community in such a short time when he first came here. The program was struggling,” said Shane Richardson, one of Smith’s former assistant coaches and now the current Madison coach. “And to me that’s the most impressive thing.”

“He was always there. He lived at the gym. So any time over summer or breaks anyone wanted to get into the gym, he was there to let you in,” said Grant Whisman, a 2020 graduate and Madison’s all-time leading scorer. “The special thing about Coach was that he was open to learn and listen to other people. It wasn’t just a his way or the highway deal.

“It always was a blessing that as a team, we weren’t against prayer and religion on the court for being a public school,” Whisman continued. “Coach believed in faith and prayer, and I’m thankful because of that. He did really love every player — from the best player to the worst player. It didn’t matter.”

Madison athletic director Matt Morrison noted that the court dedication to Smith is a no-brainer.

“He’s been involved for 32 years, which is absolutely tremendous,” Morrison said. “Burnout is real, administration change is real. All that is a realistic thing. So that says a lot of him to be a part of something for so long. Coach’s numbers are impressive, but what he does is better. The way he impacts kids is tremendous

— doing it on the court and in the class room. He continues to do it even after being away from the game. “He’s just a great man,” Morrison added. “He’s a great coach and even better man. It speaks volumes of his wife and family and who they are as people.”

Shay Richardson, Shane’s brother and former player of Smith, is made the trip from Tennessee. “He come over and really changed our program from the basketball perspective,” said Shay Richardson, a 1995 graduate and former Division III State Player of the Year. “I attribute a lot of my successes to Coach Smith. I feel incredible gratitude towards him. We still stay in contact with each other whether it’s life, family — you name it.

“Away from a basketball perspective, he’s just a wonderful Christian, Godly man,” Shay Richardson added. “He’s given me a huge foundation regarding my spiritual life. He’s the closest person outside of my family as far as a mentorship role. He’s the representation of how I want to lead my life. But from a basketball perspective, he had the vision that not everyone had in finding the capabilities in others. I credit him for the large part in me unlocking my potential and bringing together the team.”

A COACH’S MESSAGE

While Smith said he focused on inspiring his former players to be better individuals and people outside of the gymnasium, he also tried to help mold aspiring mentors. “I’ve told younger coaches that coaching a program has to be about the players,” he said. “It can’t be about you. I always wanted it to be about the players — my players. “They’ve impacted me more than they know,” Smith added. “I’ve loved every single one of them.”

“Even though I feel like I may not have been able to make everyone happy as a coach, I still loved them all,” Smith said. “My life had been impacted by them greatly and forever.”

Smith’s happiest fan, on the other hand? His wife, Denise. “I wouldn’t be able to be where I’m at right now without my faith and where God put me,” Smith said. “I’ve got the greatest coach’s wife in the world. We’ve been through it all — the highs and the lows.”

Asked what he said during the court dedication, Smith replied, “I thanked my children, my wife, my assistant coaches and my players. Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens with other people involved.”

But his goal was to not talk too long during the dedication. “I hope I was able to convey how blessed I was to have coached everyone I did in as little time as possible. That way we could watch some Madison basketball on the court — which was the main reason why we were all there.”

They watched it on “Coach Smith Court” for the first time.

MASTER PLAN

Middletown announces plans for a new housing development  BY REID MAUS

■ 2022 WAS A marquee year for Middletown. Many areas in southwest Ohio have been progressing forward, but few have been propelled in recent years as much as Middletown. The next calendar year is shaping up to be no different.

There are several items in the 2023 city plans that are of particular note. Reinvestments into the community and new developments aim to improve the area, and should have the citizens excited.

The former Paperboard site in town, which suffered major damages back at the start of 2020 due to a fire, is near the top of the list of projects the city aims to tackle in the new year. Since the fire damaged most of the building, the city has been looking for funding to remediate the site and prepare it for redevelopment. Butler County will be providing the site with funding through the ARPA program.

The other piece of the reinvestment into the community center expansion. Three different organizations pledged millions of dollars to expand the Robert “Sonny” Hill Community Center. The center, which was built in 1917, received

money from the Butler County Board of Commissioners, the City of Middletown and Middletown City Schools.

Included in the renovations are the following; a preschool, additional

offices, adult training rooms, Student Leadership Program rooms, a gymnasium, as well as community health and wellness areas.

Middletown is committed to reinvesting in itself, and building pride within its community along the way. It is also continuing the trend of building a stock of homes within the town.

Brandon Homes will be developing 20 unattached single-family homes within the limits of the former Roosevelt School Property. Brandon Homes is a custom home building company based in Middletown.

Near I-75 and Atrium hospital an Indiana developer plans to invest 45 million dollars and create 319 luxury apartments. These units will provide more housing options for an ever growing city. Kendall Property group has dubbed the development “Innovation Way” Apartments.

The property will feature one, two and three bedroom units and will highlight a pool, dog park, workout facility and clubhouse. It’ll be the first development of this size in Middletown in years.

Also across the street from Atrium Medical Center will be another upscale apartment complex. The development will happen on a piece of property which has been for sale since 1979 and will be called the Atticus Apartments.

There will be 10 buildings built, each with 24 units. Totally 240 more options for Middletown’s east end. The

community will be gated and, like the Innovation Way development, will feature one, two and three bedroom apartments. As well as amenities, like a pool, clubhouse, dog park and walking trails. Those properties aim to be completed in 2023.

New homes and reinvestments aren’t the only things Middletonians have to

Middletown is committed to reinvesting in itself, and building pride within its community along the way. It is also continuing the trend of building a stock of homes within the town.

be excited about. Several new dining and entertainment spots are also on the way including a new Arby’s.

Coming in the first quarter of 2023 at the former Murphy’s Landing spot in Downtown will be Primo Steakhouse. Primo is a subsidiary of Prime Steakhouse in Cincinnati. This gives Middletown a needed upscale dining experience from a steakhouse with an outstanding reputation.

MK Airsoft Entertainment opened in 2022 on Roosevelt Boulevard, giving the town another source of entertainment.

More projects are in the pipeline and will be announced in the future. Proving that Middletown is growing at a faster rate than most cities in southern Ohio.

The Roosevelt Site Community Center

HEAD ELF

Principal starts each school day as ‘Elf on the Shelf’ to surprise students

■ EVERY MORNING in December an area school principal transformed herself into life-size replica of a beloved children’s Christmas fable and surprised her students by popping up unannounced on campus.

Her students were eager to see each school day at Middletown’s St. John

XXIII Catholic School where Principal Dawn Pickerill appeared in full costume as the popular “Elf on the Shelf” Christmastime character.

Prior to classes, Pickerill perched atop the campus school sign in front of the school near University Boulevard, drawing the attention of both her students and drivers passing

by who wondered why is an adult-sized elf sitting there clad in a bright red elf fashion?

And she takes the holiday fun even further by duplicating the elf’s doll-like manner by not moving or acknowledging her students, who often have fun trying to get her to react, Pickerill said. “I try to keep the magic

in it and try to stay as still as possible and I don’t talk back,” she said.

It’s a first for the veteran principal, whose pre-K through eighth-grade school is a feeder for Middletown’s Bishop Fenwick High School.

St. John XXIII was created in 1972 as a combined entity to serve all students in the area who were attending the local Catholics schools of Holy Trinty, St. John’s and St. Mary’s. The school is on the former Fenwick

campus site, where it moved in 2004 when Fenwick moved to its new campus in the Warren County portion of Middletown that year.

Pickerill’s new Christmas tradition is appreciated by both students and

school staffers, said St. John XXIII teacher Alina Gohlke.

“She’s not only a strong leader who has made St. John XXIII a pillar in the Middletown community, but she’s a fun-loving, approachable, compassionate individual who is adored by her students and their families,” said Gohlke.

“Mrs. Pickerill strives to make St. John XXIII an amazing place for children to call ‘home’ and she sure knows how to keep it festive — during the holidays and all year round.”

“The children seeked her out in the early December mornings. They were excited to see where their resident “Elf on the Shelf” is hiding each day,” she said.

Though Pickerill can’t show it while in Elf character, she is having as much fun as her students.

“Even the older students are having fun with it and giggling and laughing when they discover where I’m sitting. It’s been great.”

Hash Brown Potato Soup

INGREDIENTS

1 30 oz. bag of Ore-lda shredded hash brown potatoes

32 oz. of chicken broth

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup onion diced

Recipe Spotlight

3 tablespoons flour

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Add broth, water, onion, salt, pepper and potatoes to slow cooker.

2. Cook on high 3 hours.

3. Whisk flour and cream together until smooth, then add to slow cooker.

4. Cook 30 minutes on medium

5. Add cheese and stir until cheese is melted.

6. Serve hot with cheese, sour cream, bacon and green onions

MIDDLETOWN HISTORY

CHARLES W. SHARTLE

Innovator in paper-making and machine shop technology

BY RICHARD O JONES

■ ONE OF Middletown’s foremost industrialists was also one of the city’s early historians.

Charles W. Shartle, an innovator in paper-making and machine shop technology, employed thousands of Middletonians beginning in 1889 with the Middletown Machine Company and later with the Shartle Brothers Machine Shop, which he sold to BlackClawson Company in 1926. BlackClawson remained one of Middletown’s largest employers until it was acquired by the Kadent Corp. in 1997 and ceased local operations in 2001.

Shartle died in 1930 in Geneva, Wisconsin, at a spa where he had been convalescing from a heart condition, but he left his family a 210-page manuscript of his memoirs, stories of his youth and business career. Middletown historian George Crout often referred to this unpublished volume in his Middletown Diary newspaper columns in the 1960s and ’70s.

Shartle was born in 1862 to the owner of a small paper mill in Oxford, Chester County, Pennsylvania. When Charles was nine, the family moved to Maryland when his father built another paper mill there. That mill burned to the ground within two years, and young Charles earned his first spending money by recovering and selling nails from the ashes.

In 1873, the family relocated again as his father got a job as the superintendent of the Tytus Paper Company in Middletown. By that time, Francis J. Tytus was “a fine old gentleman and the most important man in town” in young Charlie’s memory.

He wrote of once getting his shoes shined downtown and coming upon Mr. Tytus in the street, who remarked to the young man, “Charlie, if you had a very rare and valuable pin in your shirt, many people would question its value, but there is no mistake in that shine. It is certainly genuine.”

Charlie was also impressed by John B. Tytus, the son, who was a dozen years older. It was the younger Tytus who,

inspired by watching the rolls of paper coming out of his father’s mill, invented the continuous mill for rolling steel, another revolutionary industrial development emerging from Middletown.

Charles Shartle received his early education locally, and at seventeen went to become a machinist’s apprentice at a foundry near Philadelphia with designs to become an engineer. After working for a time at the shipyards there, a 24-year-old Shartle returned to Middletown where in partnership with a local tobacconist, he opened a small machine shop, the Middletown Machine Company. There Shartle developed a small gasoline engine known as “The Woodpecker,”

PHOTO SOURCE: MIDPOINTE LIBRARY SYSTEM, MIDDLETOWN, OHIO

used primarily on farms and for powering industrial saws. It sold well. According to a 1906 book Middletown in Black and White by Harry Sims, “from the lakes to the gulf... there is scarcely any community that is not familiar with the phrase, ‘Woodpecker, Middletown, Ohio.’

In 1901, he retired from this prospering endeavor (the company continued operations until 1928) and he went into business with his brothers Daniel, Bob, and Frank in the Shartle Brothers Machine Shop on Clark Street, where he concentrated on the repair and rebuilding of paper-making machinery. They developed the revolutionary “continuous paper beater,” which would later be used by three-fourths of America’s paper-making plants.

Shartle recalled purchasing some of the earliest automobiles to be seen in Middletown. First was a Cadillac touring car that was such a novelty that the family drove it over 5,000 miles in the first two months. Then they bought a second car, a smaller sedan that had one of the latest accessories: a dome light. Shartle wrote that one of his daughters would drive around town at night while another daughter sat in the back seat, pretending to read a book. “Middletown was as much impressed with the new dome light accessory as were the daughters,” Crout noted.

Shartle had quite a large family of thirteen children, and while his claim

to be the inventor of the bunk bed is spurious, he tells a funny story of how he learned to stack children.

The Shartle house on Broad Street had seven bedrooms, but no spare room, so “when company came, the only way to take in a guest was for someone to move out and double up... When sixteen-year-old Christine returned home from the Christmas holidays this year from Wellesley, she brought with her two girl cousins from Portland, Oregon, who attended school at Boston. Three other girl cousins from Hackensack, New Jersey, also decided to come to Middletown to enjoy Christmas in the Midwest. Then a niece from Versailles was invited. This, with the two Shartle girls at home, made nine girls to accommodate with beds. To meet this holiday emergency,

Mrs. Shartle decided to put up another bed in one of the boys’ rooms, and put the son on the davenport in the library.”

Things were thought settled, but then Mr. Shartle’s sister in Portland informed him that she was coming to town for a visit, but she asked him to keep it quiet to surprise her daughters. Charlie was up for it, and connived to get all of the women out of the house to go meet the young ladies in Dayton while he had some of his employees to remove the beds from a girls’ room and use four-by-four studs to build a gigantic double-decker bed that held four double mattresses.

As Crout re-told the story: “When the crowd arrived home that afternoon, one of the girls went upstairs to be faced with this gigantic bed. She came down the stairs in tears and said it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever seen, that the Shartles would be the talk of Middletown... Everyone else thought it a good joke. The eight girls had so much fun in the new doubledouble decker that the holidays were a success.”

The Shartle house did become the talk of the town, but in a delightful way as the enormous bed became slumber party central.

The Shartle House is now home to the Middletown Historical Society, and the name Shartle still lives as the address of thirty-six houses on Shartle Street.

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Nathan R. Bjork, OD Katherine Fisher, OD

Shartle recalled purchasing some of the earliest automobiles to be seen in Middletown. First was a Cadillac touring car that was such a novelty that the family drove it over 5,000 miles in the first two months.