John Glaze is pictured at the 2018 HCHS Ghost Walk in 2018. (Photo by Steve Roush.)
John Glaze is pictured at the 2018 HCHS Ghost Walk in 2018. (Photo by Steve Roush.)
NOTE: This is Part 2 of a series leading up to the Highland County Historical Society inducting five more into its Hall of Fame. This week, we profile John Glaze.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the realm of music, arts and entertainment, John Glaze has been well known and respected in Highland County and beyond for many years.

Glaze graduated from Hillsboro High School and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in music therapy at Ohio University, followed by an internship for registered music therapist at the Cleveland Music School.

Returning to Hillsboro, Glaze became an adjunct professor of music at Southern State Community College and served as director of the SSCC Singers. He established the Music at St. Mary’s concert series, was an organist at the Hillsboro Church of Christ (1978-2007) and serves as organist, musical director and historian at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church (2007-current).

Glaze is the newsletter editor, webmaster, former board member and a volunteer for the Highland County Historical Society and is the newsletter editor of “The Red Door” for St. Mary’s and for the Wilmington-area Emmaus.

While at the Church of Christ, Glaze directed and performed in the annual Madrigal Dinners. At St. Mary’s, he did additional research and completed for publication “The History of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Hillsboro,” after the death of the Rev. John Carson.

In 2021, Glaze helped form and organize a new group named FOG for the Hillsboro Cemetery, which is an acronym for Friends of Greenwood.

When the group was formed, Glaze wrote that Greenwood Cemetery was created on May 30, 1862 when Hillsborough Cemetery Association purchased 31 acres, 1 quarter and 25 poles of land from Allen and Rachel Trimble. This was the fourth or fifth cemetery created within the town.

On July 22, 1862, the association sold about 4 ¼ acres to Lafayette Lodge No. 25 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Then, on Aug. 21, 1883, the Lodge conveyed the land back to the association, along with an additional acre.

“Therefore, we have determined the name Friends of Greenwood in order to point to the desire to restore, repair and clean stones mainly put in place when the cemetery was named Greenwood, with some entry into Hillsboro Cemetery, as the Greenwood name was only used for about 15 years,” Glaze wrote in 2021, adding that FOG is a committee founded under the Highland County Historical Society after he and HCHS board member John T. Willis attended training by Cemetery Conservators for United Standards. Goals of the organization are, first and foremost, to do no damage to the stones. “There is a wonderful feeling of seeing a monument in pieces and then put back together and restored to its former beauty. These jobs are multifold – some requiring concerted group efforts, especially with large, multi-stone monuments while other jobs can be done by one person. There is something for every type of worker preference in the cemetery.”

In addition to John Glaze, the 2022 Highland County Historical Society Hall of Fame inductees are Betty Bishop, Leadership; the late Donnie Eugene Lytle (“Johnny Paycheck”), Arts and Entertainment; Beverly D. Rhoads, Leadership; and the late McKinley Hobart “Mack” Sauer, Arts and Entertainment.

The five recipients will be honored at an induction ceremony Sunday, Aug. 21 at 2 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church in Hillsboro, followed by a reception at Highland House directly across the street from the church. The public is cordially invited.

For more information on the Highland County Historical Society, please call (937) 393-3392 or email the society at [email protected]

Steve Roush is vice chairman of the Highland County Historical Society Board of Trustees, a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press. He can be reached by email at [email protected]