Ron Lora

By Ron Lora

When John Dillinger held up Bluffton’s Citizens National Bank and relieved it of $2,100, no one in town, let alone the nation, knew that a day was coming when he would be designated “Public Enemy Number One.” For years, the date of that daring five-minute holdup, August 14, 1933, burned in the memory of Bluffton citizens.

By Ron Lora

Yesterday (April 30) was Arbor Day (celebrated in Ohio on the last Friday in April) and several members of the Swiss Community Historical Society planted Beech, Red Oak, Elm and Sugar Maple trees at the Swiss Homestead northwest of Bluffton. Our mission was to put in trees that were common in the community when Christian and Barbara Schumacher built what was then (1843) the second frame house between Bluffton and Pandora.

By Ron Lora

Saturday’s earthquake in Chile is linked directly to the earthquake that Charles Darwin witnessed 175 years ago at the same geological fault. He was the sole scientist on H.M.S. Beagle, whose mission it was to complete a survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and map the shores of Chile, Peru, and certain islands in the Pacific.

By Ron Lora                                   

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In yet another 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago defined itself as an activist court in striking down aspects of current campaign-finance laws, particularly restrictions on corporate-financed political ads.

By Ron Lora
Watching the New Orleans Saints defeat the Minnesota Vikings for the National Football League championship reminded me of Washington Post columnist George Will’s witty comment that football combines two of the worst features of American life: “violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

It was a highly physical game during which fast, powerful linemen pounded 40-year-old Viking quarterback Brett Favre again and again.

The game conjured up old mental tapes of the 1958 Bluffton College football team when we won our third consecutive Mid-Ohio League championship, with a fourth to come the following year.

By Ron Lora                                      

A Country Boy Reflects on Water

I grew up on a farm in good country. A creek ran through the southwestern corner of it. A creek is a natural waterway larger than a run but smaller than a river. In romantic lore, poets have celebrated the rivers of the earth – the Rhine and Danube, the Volga and Don, the Tigris and Euphrates. In Allen and Putnam counties it’s the Riley, the Blanchard, the Auglaize and Ottawa of which natives speak. So close to home, those small waters seldom rise to the level of romance.

Note: The Icon welcome Ron Lora as a regular columnist. Lora, a native of Bluffton, Ohio, is retired from the history department of the University of Toledo, where he continues to teach part time. He is the author or editor of several books and the recipient of teaching awards at the university and state levels. A past president of the Ohio Academy of History and of the Swiss Community Historical Society, he is active in several organizations. One of his greatest joys is hiking, preferably in dramatic environments such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and other national parks.

The cruel earth: Work to be done

By Ron Lora