Vance, 39, figured it was the perfect time to talk about his roots, and how his upbringing led him to graduate from Middletown High School in 2003, serve in the U.S. Marines during the Iraq War and graduate from Ohio State University and Yale Law School.
“I will never forget where I came from,” said Vance, who two years ago prior had announced he was running for U.S. Senate during a rally at Phillips Tube Works in Middletown. “It’s good to be here. This town has been so good to me.”
He joked that after Monday’s rally that packed the 934-seat MHS auditorium and left hundreds more Trump and Vance supporters standing outside, he would take members of the U.S. Secret Service to Central Pastry Shop before they drove him to Dayton International Airport.
Central Pastry’s owner, Vera Slamka, who purchased the business 40 years ago with her husband John, was at a doctor’s appointment Monday in Cincinnati and unable to attend the rally. When she returned to work, she said many people from the rally said they stopped by after hearing Vance’s remarks.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
“That was so nice of him,” Slamka said. “I don’t know much about him.”
She has seen photos of Vance as a young boy and said he looks familiar.
After Vance mentioned Central Pastry, someone in the audience encouraged Vance to stop by Milton’s Donuts on Roosevelt Boulevard.
“I love Milton’s too,” Vance said.
Jay Byrne, whose family purchased Milton’s in 2014, said it’s “very exciting any time you get positive publicity.” And since Vance’s speech was broadcast on national news, that made it “even more special,” Byrne said.
Byrne, a 1982 Fenwick High School graduate who later coached boys basketball and softball at Middletown High, said it’s great that Vance is bringing the national spotlight to his hometown.
Vance said his grandmother, who he called “Mamaw,” was a “tough” lady who also had a soft side. One day when she picked up Vance from school when he was 10 or 11 years old, there was a teenage girl Vance didn’t know sitting in the back seat. He said the girl appeared to be “freaked out.”
Later, Vance’s Mamaw told him the teen was abused and she ran away from home. When she needed a safe place, she was told to go to the Vance house.
“The Middletown I knew looked out for us,” he said. “She trusted people here.”
Vance also talked about one of his math teachers, Ron Selby. He said Selby was known for handing out difficult math tests, and on the day of one test, there was a bomb threat at the school.
The school was evacuated. Then Selby went to the locker of the student he expected had caused the threat, pulled out the device and threw it into the trash. He said the student wasn’t smart enough to build a bomb, Vance recalled.
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