James Garfield is one of eight U.S. presidents born in Ohio, but like most of the Buckeye State’s other presidents, Garfield is not well known. In fact, even residents of Ohio are more likely to think of the comic strip feline than the president when they hear the name Garfield.
To be fair, James Garfield’s term as president was shortened by an assassin’s bullet and he was denied the opportunity to make his mark as president. Meanwhile, other presidents from Ohio — Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes and Warren G. Harding — at least enjoyed full terms as president while Ulysses S. Grant served two terms. William McKinley was assassinated in the midst of his second term. The first president from Ohio — William Henry Harrison — died just one month after his inauguration.
We mention all this because Garfield, the president, made news in May when his head was removed just one day after a 95-year-old sandstone sculpture was dedicated on the campus of Hiram College, located in the northeast Ohio town of the same name.
The statue had been acquired for the college by one of the school’s trustees, who found it on a farm in eastern Ohio. A person — who is not a suspect in the theft — turned the head over to police in July, and it now is back where it belongs atop the statue.
Meanwhile, students in the college’s entrepreneurship center capitalized on the incident by selling T-shirts with the image of Garfield’s head and the slogan, “Get A Head at Hiram College.”
Give them an “A” for creativity and for adding a bit of humor to an otherwise senseless act of vandalism.
