Author: Guest Contributor

BY: Linda Pelfrey, Phone Navigator, Goodwill Easterseals Miami Valley I fondly recall the first time I was able to vote. This was many years ago.  As a young woman who is blind, my options for casting my vote were limited. There was no guarantee of a private and independent means for voting. I spent hours going […]

By: Nan Baker, Leadership Ohio Board Member I can speak first hand as an elected official to the importance of voting.  In my community of Westlake, I first began my public service as a grass roots candidate organizing local supporters and walking door to door talking directly to thousands of neighbors listening to their concerns […]

By: Todd Kleismit, Leadership Ohio Board Member What is our civic responsibility? It is a question I would never have pondered as a young man growing up near Dayton and cannot recall anyone ever positing such a question. Well, let’s start asking this question of each other – starting today. Election 2020 will be my […]

By: Anne Trinh, Senior Program Manager, Addiction Innovation Fund, OSU College of Public Health Nearly 100 years ago, on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote and representation. In 2016’s presidential election, women accounted for 55% of the electorate. Additionally, the number of female voters […]

By: Bhuwan Pyakurel, City Councilman, Reynoldsburg, Ohio I often remember the day where my class teacher wrote 08/08/88 on the black board’s right-hand corner.  I was a third grader in my elementary school in Bhutan. This was my last day at school in Bhutan. Within months, we were told that schools were closed, and that […]

By:  Paul Koomar, Mayor of City of Bay Village, Ohio Growing up I never had a vision of serving in an elected office.  I always enjoyed volunteering, but politics was never front and center in my mind.  In 2000, I was approached to fill a vacant city council seat for our town. After some thought […]