Amazing Ashville wins a 2020 Ohio Local History Alliance’ OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Each year, the Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) presents awards honoring outstanding work in local history in our state. History Outreach Awards recognize outstanding local history projects that inspire, connect, and educate local residents. This year a History Outreach Award for Media and Publications is being presented to the Ashville Area Heritage Society for the book Amazing Ashville. The locally popular paperback book was published by Reedy Press in St. Louis, Mo.
Upper Arlington author Bob Hines—a former Ashville area resident—volunteered his time to write and illustrate Amazing Ashville, an entertaining book of short stories and vignettes about people from the rural Teays Valley School District area in Pickaway County. The book has received universal praise from book reviewers for the way it connects local people from the past to a dizzying array of world and national events, movements, and personalities. It has appeared in Amazon’s list of top ten Ohio Fact books and Ohio Travel Guides throughout the summer and is currently nominated for the 2021 National Council on Public History’s best book award and the 2021 American Sociological Association’s best book award on community.
Ashville resident, Charlie Morrison, a co-founder the Ashville Area Heritage Society, worked with Bob Hines over the course of 40 years to uncover many of the stories and photographs that are depicted in the book. Both men will be recognized for their efforts at the annual OLHA meeting on October 3rd.
The book is available in Ashville at the Apothecary and Baker Realty, in Circleville it can be found at Two Old Broads and a Geezer, the Pickaway County Visitor’s Center, and the Pickaway County Historical and Genealogical Library, in Columbus is available at the Book Loft and in Chillicothe it is at Wheatberry Books.