Buckeyes, volunteers and leaders: A look at notable Columbus deaths in 2023

Clintonville's "Flag Lady."

Columbus' "Food Soldier."

A baseball slugger.

And a winning, cantankerous, surly college basketball coach.

All were notables with local ties who passed away in 2023.

This is by no means a definitive list. We are sure we are missing someone who meant a lot to readers. But here are 14 notable people with connections to Columbus who died in 2023. They are listed in alphabetical order by last name:

John Brockington

John Brockington was a bruising running back for Ohio State more than 50 years ago for coach Woody Hayes' "three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust" teams.

He was a member of Ohio State's 1968 national championship team that defeated Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl that season. He became the Buckeyes' featured running back in 1970 when he ran for 1,142 yards and 17 touchdowns. OSU was undefeated until losing to Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

The Green Bay Packers drafted him in the first round in 1971. Brockington ran for 1,105 yards as a rookie and was named the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. He made the Pro Bowl three times.

Brockington died on March 31. He was 74.

Emily Foster

Emily Foster was a well-known writer, editor, communications specialist, and neighborhood advocate. She was stabbed and killed in a random attack in her University District home on Sept. 9. She was 77.

Foster started her career as a grant writer and administrator. She became a freelance writer, eventually moving on to Columbus Monthly magazine, where she became senior editor.

She also worked at Steiner-Lesic Communications for several years and was an assistant vice president for communications at Ohio State before retiring in 2008.

Frank Howard

Howard was a star athlete at South High School and a baseball and basketball All-American at Ohio State University, but he was just getting started.

The 6-foot-7 Howard went on to become one of the most feared sluggers in Major League Baseball, beginning his career with the National League's Los Angeles Dodgers, winning a World Series ring with them in 1963, then moving on to the American League's lowly Washington Senators, where he was often one of the few players that team's fans had to cheer about.

He hit a career-high 48 home runs with the Senators in 1969 and led the American League in homers in 1968 and 1970 with 44 in each season. He belted 382 through his 16-year career.

He spent his last big-league season with the Detroit Tigers in 1973. He later spent three decades coaching in the majors and minors, including the New York Yankees organization and managed the San Diego Padres in 1981 and the New York Mets in 1983. He spent many seasons in Columbus, working with the Triple-A Clippers, which had been a long-time Yankees farm team.

Howard died on Oct. 30 following a stroke. He was 87.

Mike Jackson

Mike Jackson was a longtime anchor at WCMH-TV/Channel 4.

He worked in broadcasting for more than 40 years, including 25 years on the air at NBC4, but had not been on the air since 2019 after he had a stroke.

In November 2022, Jackson announced he had laryngeal cancer. Treatment for the cancer required the removal of his throat box and radiation treatment.

The West Virginia native began his career in radio in Charleston before moving to television in Oak Hill. He also worked at WSYX-TV/Channel 6 here in Columbus before becoming a news director in West Virginia and a reporter in Washington, D.C. He came to NBC4 in 1994.

Jackson died on Oct. 27. He was 66.

Bobby Knight

Robert Montgomery Knight was born in Massillon in Stark County in northeast Ohio and grew up about 20 miles west in Orrville in Wayne County. From there, Ohio State University, where he was one of the "Super Sophs" on the 1960 basketball national championship team, the last OSU team to win it all.

After OSU, of course, he became one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time at Indiana University from 1971-2000, where he won 903 games, national NCAA titles in 1976, 1981, and 1987, and an Olympic gold medal with the national team, and an Olympic gold medal coaching the U.S. national team in Seoul, South Korea in 1988.

He graduated 90% of his athletes but also became notorious for his anger and antics, including the infamous chair-throwing incident during a game against Purdue in 1985.

Knight died Nov. 1. He was 83 and under hospice care.

Neal Lauron

Neal Lauron was an award-winning photographer, passionate about his faith and family as he was about photography.

The former Dispatch photographer was named Ohio News Photographer Association Clip Photographer of the Year in 2001, 2005, 2008 and 2011. He went to Manhattan to document the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Lauron had been was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He died on Sept. 14. He was 63.

Mary Leavitt

Leavitt was better known as "The Flag Lady," who, for decades, operated her North High Street store in Clintonville.

Leavitt was a Columbus native and a graduate of Columbus City Schools' North High. She started her business by selling flags out of the trunk of her car in Libertyville, Illinois, during the Iranian hostage crisis, which began in 1979, while one of her sons, Andy, was on a U.S. Navy ship stationed off the coast of Iran.

“My journey began almost 38 years ago, hand-sewing and repairing flags in our basement,” Watson told The Dispatch in 2021. That year, she sold the business to her daughter, Lori Leavitt Watson.

Leavitt died on Dec. 4. She was 87.

Bob Miller

Bob Miller won 573 games in a 41-year career as basketball coach at Groveport-Madison and Thomas Worthington high schools.

He started in Groveport in 1965. There, he worked with the baseball, basketball, football and golf programs, going 150-54 with five league basketball championships in 10 seasons vrom 1973 to 1983, including a district runner-up finish in 1979.

At Thomas Worthington High School, he was 423-269, winning seven league titles with district championships in 1982, 1996 and 2001, and five district runner-up finishes.

Miller died on Oct. 26. He was 82.

Larry Mixon

Larry Mixon was Columbus City Schools superintendent from 1992-1997. He also was on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Ohio Wildlife Council for 20 years until his death on March 7 at the age of 74.

He began his career with Columbus City Schools in 1975 as a coach and counselor at his alma mater, Eastmoor High School. After graduating high school, he attended Central State University, a historically Black university in Wilberforce, from 1967-71. There, he played football for three years.  He won a scholarship to Ohio State, where he received a master's degree and doctorate in physical education.

Roshelle Pate

Pate was known as Columbus' "Food Soldier." She was a U.S. Air Force veteran and often wore fatigues or camouflage as she organized scores of food giveaways across central Ohio for around a decade. Her Facebook group, The Food Soldier, had nearly 20,000 members, a mutual aid network she founded in 2015 to share information about the giveaways and hunger in the area.

Pate, 58, died on Nov. 13.

Dimitrious Stanley

Dimitrious Stanley was a top Ohio State wide receiver in the 1990s and a graduate of Thomas Worthington High School.

With the Buckeyes, he caught 63 passes for 1,136 yards and 13 touchdowns. His 43 receptions for 829 receiving yards and eight touchdowns were team highs in 1996.

In his final game, Stanley helped Ohio State win its first Rose Bowl in 23 years, catching a 72-yard touchdown from Joe Germaine late in the third quarter as the Buckeyes won 20-17 over Arizona State.

Stanley's death was announced on Feb. 9. He was 48, and had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2019.

Maria Susi

Maria Susi founded the Italian restaurant The Berwick with her husband Tony in 1955.

Her husband was an Air Force chef from Columbus when they first met in New York. They married and moved to Columbus, where they opened The Berwick Seafood Manor in 1955. It moved to Refugee Road on the Southeast Side, where it became Berwick Manor, then Berwick Party House, then The Berwick, hosting weddings and other big events.

Maria Susi died on Oct. 28 at 93.

Leon L. Troy Sr.

The Rev. Leon L. Troy Sr. served as pastor of Second Baptist Church on Columbus' Near East Side for about 20 years. He was a longtime community leader who served on the Columbus school board and was inducted into the Columbus Hall of Fame in 2020, and the Lincoln Theatre Walk of Fame in 2023. He came to Columbus in 1976.

Troy died on July 30. He was 97.

Sandy Wood

Sandy Wood was a leader in turning the Short North into the vibrant destination it is today. Columbus city leaders called him the "godfather of the Short North Arts District."

Wood, a St. Louis native, moved to Columbus in 1962 to work for Huntington Bank. Twenty years later, he founded the Wood Companies, which remains one of the largest developers and landlords in the Short North.

Wood started developing property in that area in the early 1980s. He took on his first project, a former school at West 1st and Harrison avenues, in 1982. The neighborhood then was run-down with empty buildings.

He remained active long after the Short North became what it is today, an area teeming with restaurants, bars, shops, and, yes, still some art galleries.

Wood died March 9 at the age of 84.

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Here is a list of some notables with Columbus ties who died in 2023.