Sun Feb 12 2012
By David Dix
Record-Courier Publisher
Portage County Common Pleas Court Judge John Enlow is one of many avid basketball fans who considers the college tournaments at the season’s end about the best show television has to offer.
A season ticket holder of Kent State men’s basketball, he roots for the home team, the Golden Flashes, but at this year’s Mid-American Conference tournament at Quicken Loans Arena, he’s had his bases covered.
Top seeded in the Mid-American Conference tournament this year, the Flashes unexpectedly collapsed before an aggressive Ohio University Bobcat team Thursday evening, the same team Kent State twice bested during its impressive 23-win regular season.
Following Thursday’s debacle, Flashes fans clustered in groups along the Arena concourse, some in mourning, others asking themselves what had gone wrong.
The judge and his wife, Lois, were in the same group of mourners Janet and I had joined, but unlike many, he could still look forward to the remainder of the MAC tournament, which area fans are so fortunate to have close by in Cleveland.
That’s because he and Mrs. Enlow are alumni of Ohio University, which last night was scheduled to face the University of Akron Zips for the Mid-American Conference tournament championship and the opportunity to play in the prestigious NCAA tournament.
“I’ve still got an OU sweater,” the judge said.
The fact that the Bobcats were playing Akron’s Zips made the judge’s options even better. That’s because he is also an alumnus of the University of Akron College of Law.
Proud of his alma maters, the judge has followed the Flashes so loyally in recent years that I am sure he would’ve rather had the Flashes battling for the Tournament championship and the NCAA opportunity.
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We attended the Flashes-Zips contest at Akron’s James A. Rhodes Arena a week ago last Friday and Janet noticed Akron’s cheerleader outfits all bear the number 23.
A University of Akron official told us that’s because LeBron James, who has used that number on his Cavs jersey, is a sponsor of the Zips, which entitles Akron to cut-rate prices from Nike, one of The Chosen One’s major sponsors.
King James is equally generous with Ohio State, the official said.
When we saw the Flashes wallop the Zips a week ago in an atmosphere that overwhelmingly favored Akron, I thought I was watching the best Kent State team since the one that went to the Elite 8 in 2002.
That’s the great team we all hope to see in the NIT tournament this coming week.
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Kathleen Clyde, doing “meet and greet” at Thursday’s Kent Chamber luncheon, told me she was encouraged to run for state representative in the 68th District by State Rep. Kathleen Chandler, who after eight years in the legislature is term-limited from running for re-election.
The James A. Garfield High graduate from Garrettsville did her college work at Wesleyan in Connecticut, one of the nation’s most selective private liberal arts colleges. She holds a law degree from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and recently served as deputy legal counsel to House Speaker Armond Budish.
She’s never been elected to public office unlike one of her rivals in the Democratic primary, Rick Hawksley, the former Kent councilman at-large. Hawksley, an architect, is a stalwart in the environmental movement. The third candidate for the Democratic primary is Sean Buchanan, this area’s liason officer for U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan.
Clyde’s campaign treasurer is Clerk of Courts Linda Fankhouser, a fixture in the Portage County Democratic Party. Her campaign colors are green and white, colors Democratic candidates in the general election sometimes use when they have the support of the Democratic Party chairman, Attorney Craig Stephens, who in primaries remains neutral.
High school sports fans may remember Clyde from her days on the Garfield track team when her event was the high jump. Clyde also made the Wesleyan track team as a high jumper.
Whoever wins the Democratic Primary will face Republican W. Roak Zeller, an activist in the Tea Party movement. Zeller, who ran two years ago against the incumbent, Chandler, is a graduate of Theodore Roosevelt High School and Kent State, and works for Rubbermaid in Mogadore. His great-grandfather, John Shanley, represented Portage County in the Ohio legislature, elected in 1910 as a Democrat. Also running to represent Portage County in the Ohio legislature will be Daniel Cartwright who has filed to run as a candidate for the Constitution Party.
The 68th District encompasses all of Portage County except for Atwater, Brimfield, Edinburg, Randolph, Rootstown and Suffield townships, those six being grouped with seven townships and cities in Summit County as the 43rd District.
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Tom Zawistowski, who makes his living as president of TRZ Business Services in Brimfield, is president of the Portage County Tea Party.
Seeking to better define this movement, he said the Portage County Tea Party is independent of political parties, but would like its representatives to participate in them. In that spirit, Tom has asked both the Republicans and Democrats to be open to the Tea Party’s message of accountable and limited expenditures of the taxpayer’s money.
Commonly held assumptions that the Tea Party is aligned with the Republicans are incorrect, Tom said, offering as proof the efforts he and his colleagues expended on behalf of Nancy Vines, a Democrat, who in November, defeated Republican Larry Solak for Shalersville Township trustee.
Locally, he said, the Tea Party has received a warmer receiption from the leadership of the Republican Party, whose chairman, Andrew Manning has invited Tea Party activists to participate in GOP events. The Democratic leadership, he said, has not responded to his appeal yet.
The Tea Party, Tom said, is not involved in socially conservative issues. He said the Tea Party also differs from the Libertarian movement.
“Liberatarians want the smallest government possible and do not favor any foreign involvement by our armed forces,” Tom said. “That is not the Tea Party’s position.”
In addition to a more responsible government expenditures, he said the Tea Party favors its members getting involved in policy discussions by their participation in the precincts and on central committees of established political parties.
“Being a good citizen takes more than just voting,” he said. “All of us should be active in precincts and the central commitees of our major political parties.”
Liz Sidoti, the Kent journalist, who has become the national political writer for Associated Press, recently described the Tea Party as a genuine movement, but said it is too soon to know if it can become “transformative” like the Civil Rights or Temperance movements, both of which brought constitutional change.
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