Media titan Roger Ailes remembered by former classmates in Warren schools

Staff report

WARREN

Warren-born television pioneer Roger Eugene Ailes, the founder of Fox News who died Thursday, is remembered as someone who absorbed life in the heartland and created programs to appeal to those values.

“In my travels over the years, I’ve always taken Ohio with me,” Ailes, who grew up on Belmont Avenue Northeast in Warren, told The Vindicator in 2008. “Everywhere I’ve traveled, I’ve taken the traditions ... the values I’ve learned in [Warren].

Ailes had returned to Warren that year to attend his 50th Harding High School class reunion.

During that visit, he told The Vindicator that Warren was “a part of everything I’ve done, including Fox News.”

Born May 15, 1940, Ailes has described his working-class upbringing with three words: “God, country, family.”

Afflicted with hemophilia, he spent much of his early years housebound in front of, and fascinated with, television.

Hemophilia is a genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to make blood clots.

Ailes told The Vindicator that he got his start in entertainment in the drama club at Harding High.

“I liked to get out of class, and I wasn’t a great athlete,” he said. “That left the theater.”

Even as a youth, Ailes left a lasting impression on those who knew him.

His former classmates recall seeing in Ailes at a young age the same traits that made him a titan of the news media.

Read what they and others had to say about him in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.