Bellefontaine Mayor Ben Stahler is honored on stage at the 2023 Ohio Art Education Association’s Conference in Toledo. (SUBMITTED PHOTO)
Bellefontaine Mayor Ben Stahler was honored over the weekend by the Ohio Art Education Association with their 2023 Distinguished Citizen for Art Education award at the OAEA Conference in Toledo.
Melanie Antram Ingraham, former Bellefontaine art educator, and Benjamin Logan High School art educator Jennifer Davis nominated Stahler for the OAEA statewide award.
“Mayor Ben Stahler believes that art honors individuals, brings people together and constructs thriving communities for the future,” Ingraham and Davis said in their nomination letter.
“He leads by example as an artist, performer and advocate because he knows that strong art culture will appeal to new businesses and young families, promoting city growth.”
Additional letters of support came from Myles Bowers, Benjamin Logan High School band director, and Jordan Reser, Bellefontaine Middle School teacher and city council member.
Bowers and Davis are also the co-directors at LoCo Art, an organization that Mayor Stahler has consistently supported and partnered with, they noted in their letters.
Stahler said it was a true honor to receive the OAEA state award.
“Serving the community as mayor for over nine years, it’s been a joy to be involved in a number local arts projects, murals and Holland Theatre engagements,” he said.
“I’m most proud of the mayor’s art exhibit that displays 22 framed works by local students from kindergarten to 12th-grade.
“We change these out twice a year and host an open house with each new round of art, paying honor to art students and their families for sharing their talents.
“As a huge fan of art of all kinds, I truly enjoy seeing the art created by youth.”
His nominators noted that last year, he collaborated on a project with LoCo Art and local middle school students on a public art display — a mural that celebrates the music history-makers, The Mills Brothers.
“Mayor Stahler stayed in contact throughout the year’s events and was monumental in planning and implementing a community event to reveal and celebrate the mural,” Davis said.
“From making calls and inviting key people connected to the mural, to delivering and setting up chairs on a very hot summer day, Mayor Stahler was directly involved in the wonderful event that celebrated youth and the arts. The mural is now a permanent public work of art in Bellefontaine’s downtown.”
The 2023 OAEA award recipient related that some of his earliest influences in his life were art educators, which continues today in his family.
“I am proud to share that my life is filled with visual arts educators. My mother became an art educator in 1953,” he said of his mother, Wanda, who passed away in August at the age of 92. Even in her later years, he said she painted in watercolors nearly every day and was a member of the Ohio Watercolor Society for many years.
“My mother, my wife (Sara) and today my daughter Jennifer Jervis all taught (or currently teach art) in the Bellefontaine City Schools. My brother Jeff is a nationally syndicated political cartoonist, as well.”
