Jim Chrisman
SIDNEY — Four people will be inducted into the Fairlawn Local Schools Hall of Honor on Saturday, Aug. 26. New inductees include Craig and Tracey Francis, Ed Hamaker and Jim Chrisman.
The ceremony, which will be held at the school, begins at 4:30 p.m. with registration The welcome and dinner starts at 5:30 p.m. The dinner is being catered by Leslie Huelskamp.
Tickets can be ordered from Jenny Cardo at [email protected]. Tickets ordered before Aug. 20 the ticket price is $20 per person. After Aug. 20, the ticket price will be $25.
Craig and Tracey Francis are both graduates of Fairlawn High School. High school sweethearts, they married and continue to live and support the Fairlawn community. Their family includes four children, Ashley, Andy, Amanda and Audrey, all graduates of Fairlawn High School as well.
Ashley and her husband, Ken, have four children, Maddy, Kayden, Riley and Kenley who are current students at Fairlawn. Ashley is the Fairlawn High School varsity volleyball coach and an employee of the Fairlawn School system. Her husband Kenny is employed at Kettering City Schools and is the seventh-grade boys basketball coach at Fairlawn. Andy, who passed away tragically in 2018, has two children, Cooper and Josie, who live in Belleville, Ohio, where Andy and his wife lived and worked. Amanda and her husband, Xavier, have one child, Xandrew. They currently live and work in Sidney. Audrey, the youngest of the Francis children, currently lives in Wheeling, West Virginia. She is currently completing her Master’s degree and is employed as a grad assistant coach for the Wheeling University volleyball team, where she competed for five years.
Through the years, Craig and Tracey remain active and supportive of the Fairlawn School District. Tracey has served on the Athletic Boosters for 20-plus years and held all four officer positions throughout the years. Though the Athletic Boosters took up a lot of her time, she also found time to help with prom, PTO, fall festival, and room mother for many years.
Craig as well remained active in the Fairlawn community by serving numerous years coaching basketball and baseball. Craig began coaching at his alma mater in 1985 and continued for 20-plus years taking on many different coaching roles from elementary up to high school. In his later years of coaching at Fairlawn, he became the volunteer assistant for the boys basketball team. Along with his wife, Craig also helped with the Athletic Boosters and Prom Committees.
Currently Craig is employed at Area Energy and Electric where he has worked for 25 years. Tracey has been employed for 38 years at Wilson Health in the Home/Hospice department. Tracey and Craig are both members of the Greenview United Church of Christ. They love to spend time with family and friends. They keep themselves busy by traveling to many sporting events for their seven grandchildren. They also enjoy gardening and sitting outside on their porch during sunsets. Craig enjoys hunting and fishing, while Tracey enjoys baking and cooking for others.
Jim Chrisman, son of Jim and Martha Chrisman and for more than 55 years the blessed husband of Fairlawn classmate, Ruth Ann Bumgarner Chrisman, grew up in the country on a farm in Green Township. He attended Fairlawn Local Schools and graduated from there with the class of 1966. In high school he participated in baseball and basketball for the Jets. After graduation he attended The Ohio State University and enrolled in Army ROTC. In March 1971 he was commissioned a second lieutenant and completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in education and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history.
From 1971-1976 he served as a military personnel officer with assignments in Indiana, Arizona and the Panama Canal Zone. Upon the Chrismans’ return to the US, he acted upon a desire to prepare for work in a profession in which he could help others accomplish that which they could not do on their own. He entered The Ohio State University Law School and was awarded a Juris Doctorate Degree in 1979.
Jim and Ruth Ann then chose to move back into the Fairlawn School District. He joined the law office of Sidney attorney, Harold E. Christman, and for the next 34 years actively practiced in the areas of estate planning, real estate and banking law, including serving as board counsel for Mutual Federal Savings Bank. He is a past president of the Fairlawn Board of Education, of the Shelby County Bar Association, and the Caven Reunion.
The Chrismans are members of the Piqua Ward (congregation) of the Dayton Ohio North Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Over the last 50 years, Jim has had the opportunity to serve in a number of church leadership responsibilities, 25 years of which were in the stake presidency. In 2013, he left the active practice of law when he and Ruth Ann accepted calls to serve a three year, full-time mission to oversee the operation of the Church’s Columbus Ohio Temple as temple president and matron. Since the completion of that stewardship, Chrisman has been serving as a sealer in the temple and as a stake patriarch.
The Chrismans are the parents of Fairlawn graduates Carmen Jensen, Sarah Smith, David Chrisman, Joseph Chrisman and James Chrisman. They have 18 grandchildren, four of whom presently attend Fairlawn. Jim notes that a dominant theme in all the seasons of his life has been the influence of inspiring earthly and heavenly mentors.
After graduating from Fairlawn High School in 1967, Ed Hamaker received an associate degree from Miami Jacobs Junior College. He was fortunate enough to immediately land a job at Sidney Printing and Publishing Company in his hometown of Sidney, Ohio. Sidney Printing and Publishing Company to Ed was the greatest place to work “family owned and I had a great uncle and aunt, an uncle and a cousin working at this company.”
He started as an accountant from 1969 to 1972 and was honored with a promotion as Data Processing Manager, which he held until 1989 when he resigned to go out on his own. He attended Urbana University in his early thirties to continue his education and received a bachelor degree in Business Administration.
Ed went out on his own as a computer consultant with a variety of different companies in computer technology. Some of the companies he consulted with in computer technology were city of Sidney, Triple AAA, Piqua Pizza, Ross Aluminum Foundries/Ross Castings and Innovation, Orr Felt in Piqua and the city of Greenville. The last five years of his working career, he worked full time for Ross Aluminum Foundries/Ross Castings and Innovation in Sidney. He retired in 2011 to enjoy time with his family and grandchildren.
Ed also coached his three children in IUTIS softball and onto Sidney Amateur Baseball and Sidney Electric Softball League. He coached his two sons in basketball and football at the Sidney YMCA. In the meantime, he managed both the IUTIS and the Sidney Swimming Pool concession stands for the IUTIS Club.
In 2013 Ed became a member of the city of Sidney Council for eight great and challenging years and served on several committees, including the Park and Recreation, Lodging Tax, Family and Children First and Visitor’s Bureau. He left Sidney Council to spend more time with his family and to manage his 24 apartments in Piqua, Ohio.
“I am blessed with my beautiful wife Nancy of 51 years of marriage and three great and wonderful children (Shawn, Gina, and Craig).” Shawn graduated with a Master’s degree from the University of Dayton and is currently working as an electrical engineer at Emerson Electric in Sidney, Ohio. Gina graduated from Purdue University as a registered nurse. Craig graduated with a Master’s degree from Purdue University and is currently working in information technology in West Lafayette, Indiana. He is also blessed with nine grandchildren.
“Nancy and I travel all over the state of Ohio and surrounding states almost every week watching our grandchildren play baseball, soccer and basketball. Nancy and I attend dance recitals for my two granddaughters that live in West Lafayette, Indiana.
“As you can tell, I am bless with a wonderful wife and family, friends, great workplaces, and a great community to call my home,” he said.
