The Chairman’s Gavel

By Kenneth M. Baughman, Chairman, Vermilion Township, Erie County Ohio

As I begin the third year of my first term as a trustee for Vermilion Township, I find myself once again serving as chairman of our board. Midway through my second year, I stepped into that role after one trustee resigned. Before the dust even settled, the other duly elected trustee also resigned. With two newly appointed trustees, we did what public bodies often have to do: we marched on.

Before 2020, many of our township trustees were institutional fixtures, serving three, four, even five terms. When long-tenured leadership changes quickly, a great deal of institutional history can be lost in a short period of time. Like most townships with newer trustee representation, we have worked to understand how things function within our offices, to uncover how certain practices came to be, and to ensure we do what needs to be done for the good of the township while meeting all statutory requirements of the law.

To maintain order during our meetings, we use a simple wooden gavel and square sounding block. The block helps amplify the sound, making the gavel’s strike clear and resonant when calling a meeting to order, punctuating a ruling, or signaling adjournment. It’s a small set, unassuming in design, but it does its job.

And yet, our gavel has a mystery.

On one end are scratch marks clearly made by hand: “G K 1945-6-5.” For a long time, no one could explain the initials or the date. Still, I’ve never been one to let a good mystery go, and I eventually had the opportunity to speak with a former trustee who came to a township meeting. Former Trustee Ron Dickel, who served four or five terms and is now long retired, suggested that “G K” could stand for George Koppenhafer.

George, I learned, had been a trustee for many years before Trustee Dickel ever took office.

Was it possible our simple little gavel had been in use for more than eighty years?

In 2006, our township hall building in the City of Vermilion was sold and we moved into a newer facility purchased in the township. Being something of a history buff, I wanted to learn more about the gavel I now hold as chairman and how it came into our possession. A call to Rich Tarrent, a local historian and curator of the Vermilion History Museum, revealed that George Koppenhafer passed away on May 4, 1988. He was eighty-eight years old, born May 17, 1899, and laid to rest in Maple Grove Cemetery.

So what kind of man was George?

In addition to serving as a longtime Vermilion Township Trustee, he was a past master and member of Ely Masonic Lodge 424, a member of the Scottish Rite Valley of Cleveland, and a member of Al Koran Shrine, and the Elks Lodge. He also served on a wide range of boards and commissions, including the Betty Rinderle School, the Vermilion School Board, the Sandusky Hospital Board, the Lorain Chamber of Commerce, the Harbor Commission, Vermilion Village Council, the St. Joseph’s Hospital Board and the Maple Grove Cemetery Board, along with several other civic bodies. In short, George was deeply engaged in the affairs of his community.

One of the most interesting pieces of his public service history is that he served with the Erie County Association of Township Trustees and Clerks and became Vice President of the Ohio State Association of Township Trustees and Clerks. Today that organization is known by a different name: the Ohio Township Association. George was not simply a township trustee. He devoted a lifetime to service locally and across the state.

George was preceded in death by his wife, Alma Cuddeback-Koppenhafer. That detail matters in another way. Vermilion Township’s historic Cuddeback-Orchard Beach Cemetery was already fairly full in the early to mid-twentieth century, and it bears his wife’s family name. It raises an interesting question: was George instrumental in the growth and stewardship of the cemetery system that would later include the Maple Grove Cemetery Board on which he served?

Old records also turned up a dramatic story from the summer of 1942: George and Alma caught a burglar in their home. The intruder was later found to be responsible for more than eighty burglaries across three counties. According to the account, a bloody knife fight broke out between George, the would-be robber and Alma. The struggle began in the couple’s bedroom, moved down a flight of stairs, continued out through a screen door and ended in the front yard of the Koppenhafer home. The town constable and neighbors became involved, and it was a major event in Vermilion. “Tough” doesn’t quite cover it. But it is also worth remembering that Alma was right there beside him in the thick of it.

There’s a lesson in all of this, and it’s larger than a gavel.

Never underestimate the power of history, the legacy you may leave behind, or the ways you can shape your community for the better. You may even inspire those who follow long after you are gone. The story of George Koppenhafer might have slipped away with time, if not for the simple inscription scratched into a township gavel decades ago.

Author Note: Kenneth M. Baughman is a first-term Vermilion Township Trustee and published writer/author. He has also served two terms on a county Mental Health Board and served in the U.S. Army as a Military Police Investigator.