Ohio state Sen. Ben Espy, who died at 81, to be remembered at service for breaking barriers

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Respected Ohio attorney and former state Sen. Ben Espy will be remembered at a celebration of life Monday for his decades of service to the state and its capital city.

Espy died on Jan. 4 at age 81 after a brief illness.

Espy, a Democrat, broke racial barriers as the first Black person to serve as president pro tem of the city council in the capital, Columbus, for most of the 1980s and as minority leader of the Ohio Senate, where he served from 1991 to 2000.

Though his hopes of attaining higher office were ultimately dashed, Espy continued to earn honors from members of both parties throughout his career.

Then- Democratic Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann tapped Espy as his top lieutenant in 2007 and chose Espy in 2009 to lead a high-profile internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the office. The final report was damning.

''I don't think anyone anywhere is going to question Ben Espy's integrity," Dann's spokesperson, Leo Jennings, remarked at the time.

Two years later, Republican Maureen O'Connor invited Espy to deliver the keynote address at her swearing-in ceremony as Ohio's first female chief justice.

Espy's most lasting efforts were probably in the city of Columbus.

He established the city's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, now one of the nation's largest, as well as the Columbus Youth Corps, a program teaching ethics and professionalism to young people that was designated as one of President George H.W. Bush's ''points of light.''

He also created ''The Job Show,'' a cable program produced by the city that helped people find jobs. It was named the best municipal cable program in the U.S. in 1986 and 1987.

''He was the community's person," daughter Laura Espy-Bell said. "We're hearing countless stories of people whose lives were changed because of my dad.''

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther remembered Espy as ''a remarkable leader and advocate'' for city residents. U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, who represents Columbus in Congress, said Espy's legacy "is felt in every corner of community.''

Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin called Espy ''a towering statesman and a fighter for justice and equality.''

''Ben Espy is the kind of trailblazer on whose shoulders so many of us stand now,'' Hardin posted on X.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 12, 1943, Espy graduated in 1961 from Sandusky High School, where he played football and ran track. He was recruited to Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team, where he was a running back. He graduated from The Ohio State University in 1965 with a bachelor's in political science and went on to earn a law degree from Howard University in 1968.

Espy began his legal career as a corporate lawyer for Allegheny Airlines and then entered the U.S. Air Force, serving as an assistant staff judge advocate. He returned to Ohio in 1972, where he began the first of his stints at the Ohio Attorney General's office before starting his own law practice and eventually entering politics.

He and his wife, Kathy Duffy Espy, who died in 2022, had four daughters and 11 grandchildren. Espy-Bell said that by day her father worked hard for the community, but at night he always had time to read a bedtime story to his daughters or attend his grandchildren's soccer games.

Espy was involved in a freak accident in 1984 in which he was struck by a falling cornice that broke off an aging building in downtown Columbus as he walked by. He lost the lower part of his right leg.

Espy-Bell said her father didn't let that slow him down.

''Two things got him through that,'' she said. ''One was the strength of my mother to carry our family through, raising four little girls. The other was the strength of my father, in his resiliency, to come back even stronger and even better.''

Derrick Clay, president and CEO of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, said Espy's story ''reminds us all that challenges can become opportunities to make an even greater impact.''

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff in Espy's honor on the day of his funeral.