Ex-Ohio senator dies at 66 after suffering stroke

COLUMBUS (AP) — Former state Sen. Eugene Watts, who helped create achievement tests for Ohio students but was also caught up in a speaking fees scandal, has died. He was 66.

Watts’ daughter, Julia Watts Coleman, said her father died Tuesday evening at Ohio State University Medical Center after suffering a stroke last weekend while hunting alone in southern Ohio’s Jackson County.

As a lawmaker from suburban Columbus, Watts fought for proficiency tests in the 1980s when the skills of Ohio high school graduates were being questioned.

Watts, a Republican, was convicted of misdemeanor charges in a 1993 scandal that followed an investigation into speaking fees paid to some state lawmakers. Those payments are now illegal.

The scandal caught up nine companies or individuals in all, including then-House Speaker Vern Riffe and then-Senate President Stanley Aronoff.

It came at an inopportune time for Watts’ budding political career, just as he had announced his intentions to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Howard Metzenbaum. The seat ultimately went to the year’s Republican candidate, Mike DeWine.

A former college history professor and author, Watts was first elected to the Ohio Senate in 1984, swept into office — along with a new GOP majority in the Senate — on Ronald Reagan’s coattails.

Watts, a decorated Vietnam veteran who served in the Senate until 2000, had continued his advocacy for fellow armed service members in recent years — and done a lot of hunting, his daughter said.