Jack Mason

1952 - 2016

(News story) Jack Mason, a former Lucas County fair board president who taught industrial tech at Washington Local Schools for 30 years before becoming an auctioneer, died Thursday in St. Luke's Hospital.

He was 64 and died unexpectedly of sepsis, his wife, Marilyn, said.

Mr. Mason, a longtime Whitehouse resident, was a fair board member for about 20 years and told The Blade in 2000 that the fair is "a place where town and country come together."

He was in charge of the open-class rabbit and poultry shows, grounds, and entertainment and booked acts such as Chubby Checker, Sawyer Brown, Tracy Byrd, and Cheap Trick. The fair, however, struggled, and Mr. Mason was presented with the quandaries over the years of whether the Lucas County Recreation Center in Maumee was the best place to hold the fair as well as issues related to hot July weather.

Mr. Mason had never been a 4-H or FFA member as a youth, which are the mainstays of Ohio's county fairs. But he assisted both groups as an adult. He joined the Anthony Wayne FFA alumni in the mid 1990s because his daughters were involved and helped with public speaking, parliamentary procedure, poultry judging, and general-livestock judging teams. He was an adviser to the Golden Forks 4-H Club for about 20 years in the 1990s and 2000s when the club had about 100 members. His specialty was poultry.

He was born in Napoleon on May 20, 1952, to Bill and Sherley Mason. As a teen, he worked at Woods' grocery store in Whitehouse, carrying out groceries, cutting meat, and delivering groceries - with the store's hearse.

He graduated from Anthony Wayne High School in 1970 and worked for a while at Trapp garage in Monclova Township, pumping gas and repairing vehicles. He started college at Bowling Green State University along with his mother in 1971. He was about 20, and she was about 40, and both majored in education.

He liked to say that she did the homework, and he got the grades.

His mother's version was that he was able to excel with seemingly little effort because she had raised him well. But mother and son graduated together and Mr. Mason was hired at Washington Local, and his mother taught third grade, primarily, at Liberty Center for 22 years.

Mr. Mason taught high school for most of his career but spent part of the 1990s teaching junior high. He usually had six classes a day with a high percentage of boys and a wide variety of subject areas, ranging from welding and auto repair to woodworking and masonry to computer assisted design.

He enjoyed teaching students how to build things and fix things and was horrified when late in his career the administration removed the drill presses, lathes, and saws, leaving computers as almost the sole tools for his classes.

After retiring in 2007, he became an auctioneer, working with Whalen Realty & Auction. He typically had about six auctions a month, usually selling contents of homes, sometimes on site and sometimes at the auction house. His favorite items to sell were guns and coins, his wife said, because he collected them. Especially for outdoor auctions, he'd don a straw hat with an orange feather, which along with his trademark bib overalls and beard, made him an easily recognizable figure.

"He could talk a mile a minute," said Jerry Meller. "He definitely had the gift of gab. He always had something humorous to say."

Mr. Mason had worked for Mr. Meller's Meller Builders & Supply Co. in Swan Creek Township as a seasonal laborer and carpenter from the time he was in college on through summers of his teaching career. He was typically part of a three to five-man crew on residential remodeling projects in western Lucas County, but he also helped build the Neapolis Church of Christ.

While he was teaching he also received his master's degree in educational administration from the University of Toledo.

He was a bowler from the time he was perhaps 5 or 6, his father, Bill, said, and some years bowled five nights a week in various leagues. He had two 300 games, one 299 game, and a 298 game, and he coached youth bowling in Napoleon, his wife said.

Surviving are his wife, Marilyn; daughters, Jennifer Kilbarger and Amanda Mason; father, Bill; sister, Candy Moore, and three grandchildren.

Visitation is 3 to 8 p.m. today in Peinert-Dunn Funeral Home, Whitehouse, where services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The family suggests tributes to Delta American Legion Post 373.

This is a news story by Blade staff writer Jane Schmucker. Contact her at: jschmucker@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.