COLUMBUS, Ohio — Respected Ohio attorney and former state Sen. Ben Espy will be remembered at a celebration of life Monday for his decades of service to the state and its capital city. Espy died on Jan. 4 at age 81 after a brief illness.Espy, a Democrat, broke racial barriers as the first Black person to serve as president pro tem of the city council in the capital, Columbus, for most of the 1980s and as minority leader of the Ohio Senate, where he served from 1991 to 2000. Though his hopes of attaining higher office were ultimately dashed, Espy continued to earn honors from members of both parties throughout his career. Then- Democratic Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann tapped Espy as his top lieutenant in 2007 and chose Espy in 2009 to lead a high-profile internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the office. The final report was damning.“I don’t think anyone anywhere is going to question Ben Espy’s integrity,” Dann’s spokesperson, Leo Jennings, remarked at the time. Two years later, Republican Maureen O’Connor invited Espy to deliver the keynote address at her swearing-in ceremony as Ohio’s first female chief justice.Espy’s most lasting efforts were probably in the city of Columbus.He established the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, now one of the nation’s largest, as well as the Columbus Youth Corps, a program teaching ethics and professionalism to young people that was designated as one of President George H.W. Bush’s “points of light.” He also created “The Job Show,” a cable program produced by the city that helped people find jobs. It was named the best municipal cable program in the U.S. in 1986 and 1987.“He was the community’s person,” daughter Laura Espy-Bell said. …
