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Famous Warren: City has had its share of big names
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Psychologists say we humans need heroes. From a young age, heroes educate us about right and wrong.
And they lift us when we’re feeling blue.
A perfect example for Warren is when native son Dave Grohl, a world-famous rocker and leader of the band Foo Fighters, gave a free concert in Courthouse Square in August 2009 for the dedication of David Grohl Alley.
Before he sang “There Goes My Hero,” he dedicated it to Warren police officer Joe O’Grady, who stood in the crowd misty-eyed and overwhelmed.
O’Grady, now retired, was the driving force behind creating the alley, which gave the town a sense of pride at a time when the city was suffering monumental job losses.
Around that time, other Warren heroes dropped by, some with the same message of hope: I lived here like you at one time, and this is a good town.
It’s safe to say Warren has produced a sizeable number of famous people. From the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes to boxer Ernie Shavers, “Dukes of Hazzard” star Catherine Bach, actor Austin Pendleton, astronaut Ron Parise, movie director Christopher Columbus and historical figures such as suffragist Harriet Taylor Upton and industrialists J.W. Packard and W.D. Packard.
Warren has produced many professional athletes, including baseball player Bill White and NFL players Korey Stringer, Mario Manningham, Randy Gradishar and four members of the Browner family — Aaron, Joey, Keith and Ross.
Arguably the most famous Warren resident of all time is Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins receiving great Paul Warfield, born Nov. 28, 1942, when his family lived on Cedar Street, which no longer exists but was off of Pine Avenue just east of the former Republic Steel mill.
The Warren engineering department found Cedar Street on some old maps, just south of Roanoke Avenue, where the Warren City Schools parks its buses.
The Warfield family home after that, the one where the Warfield family lived when Paul was in high school, is at North Park Avenue and Federal Street Northeast on the North End.
In September 2013, Warfield came to Warren for the dedication of a life-sized statue and monument to him and his career near the the school district’s Mollenkopf Stadium, where he played.
The two double-sided panels tell some of his story — Hall of Famer, member of 1964 Cleveland Browns championship team and Miami Dolphins championship teams of 1972 and 1973.
He also was a state champion in the long jump in high school, where he also played basketball and was named best running back in Ohio while playing football for Harding. He was the starting halfback on the 1961 national champion Ohio State Buckeyes.
His friend from his youth, former Warren councilman Bob Dean, now living in Florida, said one thing about Paul Warfield that led him to be successful and admired is the good character traits he developed growing up in Warren.
Warfield and Dean attended Second Baptist Church on Main Street, where Paul’s father, Dryden Warfield, was a deacon.
“I think between watching us horse around, he insisted we always do the right thing — sit up straight, no chewing gum, and he was the one who got us down to Perkins Park to try out for Little League,” Dean said of Paul’s father.
“Every time we looked around, we were doing something together,” Dean said: They played baseball, basketball and football together and sang in the church choir. Paul Warfield served as best man in Dean’s wedding.
Dryden Warfield took steps to protect Paul from situations that might have derailed his future, such as staying out late, Dean said.
“If I stopped over at Paul’s house and I said we’re going over to Nancy’s and it was 9, 10 o’clock, his dad simply said no. He was a no-nonsense but a good guy. I think his dad was a reason he was able to stay focused,” Dean said.
“But the natural talent of this guy ... is just incredible. Nobody could touch him one-on-one, it didn’t matter if it was college or pros,” Dean said.
Dean was on the football field the day Harding coach Gene Slaughter tried Warfield at running back during Warfield’s sophomore year. Warfield played the position all three years at Harding, graduating in 1960.
Coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State switched Warfield to wide receiver.
ROGER AILES
Warren native Dennis Blank, a recent candidate for Warren mayor, knew Roger Ailes when Ailes first started Fox News in the 1990s. Ailes, a 1958 Harding graduate who died in May, came back to Warren Nov. 11, 2008, for the dedication of the Trumbull County Veterans’ Memorial on Courthouse Square.
During that trip, Ailes said he had always taken the traditions and values he acquired in Warren “everywhere I’ve traveled.” Ailes lived on Belmont Street Northeast near Paige Avenue, which is close to Harding.
Ailes’ birth certificate says he was born May 15, 1940, while his parents were living on Bingham Avenue Northwest, not far off of Parkman Road. His father, Robert E. Ailes, was a milliron operator at Packard Electric.
Blank was marketing director at Fortune magazine when he and Ailes would sometimes get together for lunch or a drink.
“He was very much to me a real Warren kind of guy,” Blank said of Ailes. “He was a very unpretentious, regular kind of guy. Pretty gruff, but Roger was the kind of guy you don’t ask him a question if you don’t want his honest opinion on something.”
Ailes, who was forced out of Fox News last year over accusations of sexual harassment, also was a top political consultant to presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Blank and Dean, who also knew Ailes, said Ailes was generous, including to various causes in Warren. He always asked that his donations not be revealed to the public, Blank said.
Like Grohl, Catherine Bach, who starred as Daisy Duke on “Dukes of Hazzard,” lived only a short time in Warren. Her father, Bernard Bachman, was an efficiency expert at the Lordstown Ordinance Depot and was born in South Dakota, her birth certificate says.
The family lived on Laird Avenue near Harding High School when Catherine was born March 1, 1953.
In an interview in The Repository of Canton, Bach said she “basically grew up in South Dakota” because her father was in Warren in the Air Force, “then he took my mom back to the ranch in South Dakota.”
She is perhaps best known for the short, denim cut-off “Daisy Dukes” shorts she wore in the show, which ran on television from 1979 to 1985.