Interesting things often happen around interesting people.  I had lunch the other day with one of the more interesting people I’ve known in my time on the planet.  Buck Rinehart and his law partner, Jim Rishel, came to town for a bite to eat at the Warehouse, a peek inside the Palace and a tour of Marion’s new intermodal freight facility at the Marion Industrial Center.

If you’ve been around Central Ohio for any length of time, you probably know Dana G. “Buck” Rinehart.  He was the plucky upstart who ran against incumbent Franklin County Treasurer Herb Pfeifer back in the mid 1970s, then became the two-term mayor of Columbus.  It is ironic that both of these former adversaries, Pfeifer and Rinehart, have been in Marion recently, within days of each other.  Pfeifer has an interest in the former Baker Wood property on the west side of Marion as a potential site for an ethanol plant.  Buck’s presence here was by invitation.

Whether Mr. Pfeifer is successful in his pursuit of an ethanol facility on that particular site remains to be seen.  Suffice to say, he is not the first, nor will he be the last person to investigate Marion for such a plant.

Buck’s presence here was on my invitation for lunch.  I first met Buck Rinehart about  thirty years ago, just as he was beginning his climb up the political ladder.  He was spirited, quotable, and determined to unseat Mr. Pfeifer.  I was in the early years of a radio news career at WTVN in Columbus. Buck would sometimes stop in at the station, share a cup of coffee, and, more often than not, have something to say that would get him on the air.  As a budding politician, Buck understood the media and how to use it better than almost anyone I’ve seen in public office before or since.  He wasn’t afraid to tell you what he thought then, more often than not, act on it.  Some called him impulsive.  But with the passage of time, Buck’s impulsiveness looks more and more like wisdom.

As Columbus Mayor, one of his more famous escapades involved the Old Ohio Penitentiary.  For decades, the huge stone walls on the west edge of downtown Columbus housed a notorious prison that incarcerated the likes of O. Henry and executed more than a few Ohio killers.  After one final escape from its antiquated walls, the state shut the old pen down.  But there it sat on the banks of the Scioto, bogged down in bureaucracy and impeding the progress Mayor Buck saw for his city.  Frustrated by the eyesore and the seeming inability of the state to do anything about it (and never missing a good photo op) Buck mounted a bulldozer and began pushing in the walls of the Old Pen’s administration building.  The TV cameras whirred and it wasn’t long before a court ordered those walls repaired.  They were, temporarily.  It took a while after the mayor made his rather blunt point, but the Pen finally did come down.  And Nationwide Arena rose in its place along with millions of dollars worth of new urban development and a revitalized Short North district.

Since those heady days as Columbus Mayor, Buck’s been divorced, remarried, had more children and partnered in a law firm specializing in economic development projects.  We met recently in Columbus outside a hearing room where we were presenting projects for consideration by the state tax credit authority.  After a few e-mails later, Buck and his partner agreed to come up and see what’s happening in Marion.  Like many who’ve traveled past our town, but never really stopped in, they were impressed with what they found here.  The friendliness, the revitalization, the Palace, the intermodal facility “blew me away,” to use Buck’s words.  It was fun sharing a cup of coffee again with Buck Rinehart.  That famous Rinehart enthusiasm is now focused on this town.  Over lunch, we discussed the possibilities here for some of his firm’s clients.  Who knows, perhaps we’ll work together on a job-creating project here in Marion. 

If nothing else, it should be interesting!