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Ohioans pay tribute to John Glenn
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Linda Meier is a Columbus-area resident who was in line early to pay her respects to astronaut and former U.S. Sen. John Glenn.
Meier was a kid in California when Glenn took his historic flight on Friendship 7, becoming the first American to orbit the planet. She was teary-eyed Friday as she waited with others walk past Glenn’s flag-draped coffin.
“To me, John Glenn was like Superman,” she said. “You can’t kill Superman; Superman doesn’t die. So to me, this is just unreal.”
She added, “A blizzard is the only thing that would have kept me away from this today.”
Meier was one of thousands expected at the Statehouse as Glenn lay in repose in a closed casket in the Statehouse Rotunda. The last of the country’s original seven astronauts died last week at the age of 95.
His casket, flanked by U.S. Marines, was in the Rotunda all day Friday, with public visitation from noon to 8 p.m.
Visitors said prayers, took pictures and bowed silently. Some brought flowers, some saluted. Some brought their children to witness history.
The latter included David Mackey, a 30-year-old Columbus man who was holding his daughter, Meredith. The toddler was clad in a blue NASA jumpsuit; Mackey said the family had recently visited the Kennedy Space Center.
“He’s an American legend,” Mackey said. “He’s known throughout the world, not just here. And so I just thought [taking part in Friday’s ceremonies] was very important.”
Noell Everhart, also from Columbus, added, “He’s an Ohioan. It’s really cool that we can say that. And also, he went into space and he went into space again as an older person, and it shows that you don’t have to stop just because you get older or any of that. You can keep going and follow your dreams.”
Steve Maurer, a former state senator from Shelby County and former state agriculture department director and current state executive director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, recalled campaigning with Glenn.
“John Glenn represented all the best that we can expect from public servant[s], actually what we can expect from humanity,” he said. “A good, kind, caring person. Most people that are still in public service have John Glenn to live up to, and their careers are not done, so let’s see if they can do it.”
Glenn is the ninth official to lie in repose on the capital grounds.
Glenn will be the subject of a “dignified transfer with full-honors procession” beginning at 12:30 p.m. today, with a platoon of Marines escorting his hearse up High Street to Mershon Auditorium on the campus of Ohio State University. A celebration of Glenn’s life will follow.
He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.