MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Middletown is going to recognize Vice President-elect JD Vance with street entrance signs at seven locations following Monday’s inauguration of the Middletown native and President-elect Donald Trump.
Vance was born in Middletown in 1984 and attended Middletown schools until he graduated in 2003 with an honors diploma.
The signs will read “Hometown of J.D. Vance, 50th Vice President of the United States of America.”
The plan is to install the signs at several locations unless there are mitigating circumstances, such as sight distance issues or conflicts with utilities.
The proposed sign locations are:
- Central Avenue eastbound at Carmody (approaching downtown from the river)
- Ohio 4 southbound at Germantown Road (near the airport)
- Ohio 73 eastbound at the city limits (coming from Franklin)
- Ohio 122 westbound near Bob Evans
- Ohio 4 northbound at the south city limits near Lafayette Avenue
- South Main Street northbound at the city limits
- Cincinnati-Dayton Road northbound at the south city limits (coming from Monroe)
Shortly after the November election, controversy brewed after some community members addressed council on what they thought was a lack of recognition of Vance’s accomplishment, including his mother Beverly Aikins.
Aikins, who lives in Middletown, attended a December meeting and asked council to “acknowledge that this is his hometown and put up some signs.”
“I am just here because I am JD Vance’s mother and as you know he is our new vice president-elect and he thinks of Middletown as his home. I still live here and his sister still lives in Middletown. He’s got two nieces who live here and I just think it would be nice if we could acknowledge that this is his hometown and put up some signs,” Aikins said. “He graduated from Middletown High School, he comes back here frequently to visit me and take me to dinner, and I humbly request that.”
This came after local Pastor Lamar Ferrell blasted council for not doing enough to recognize the vice president-elect, who also wrote a best-selling book about growing up in the steel town.
Politics aside, said Councilman Steve West II at the December meeting, “What we are saying is the fact that the city won’t even recognize that a Middletonian has been elected as vice president that is a problem. I would say the same thing if it were an independent or a Democrat. We should be proud.”
At the guidance of council, staff started planning signs for entrances to the city. Acting City Manager Ashley Combs said, “we are ready to put them up after the inauguration.”
After graduating from high school, Vance joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served as a public affairs marine in Iraq. He then attended Ohio State University, graduating in 2009. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013.
Vance rose to national prominence in 2016 with the publication of his best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was adapted into a Netflix film in 2020.
He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.
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