Cecil Watkins, born on July 28,1909, to Harry and Clara Watkins was a leader not only in his profession, but in the community and church as well. As a very active high school student, Cecil was one of four students in 1928 to make plans for a unique club that would become the IUTIS (In Unity There Is Strength) Club by 1930. Through the years, it became the sponsor of boys softball games on Harmon Field, boxing matches, golf league teams, and bowling leagues.
Also, while still a sophomore in high school, Cecil began working at the Sidney Printing and Publishing Company (Amos Press) where for a time his income was the only one for his entire family. He gradually moved from production manager to top management in 1956. He retired as vice president from Amos Press in 1974, after fifty years of service. However, he remained on the board of directors until 1997 as a consultant. Cecil Watkins oversaw many changes within the printing industry from handset type to the computer age. He wrote ten operating manuals in his lifetime. He also was an entrepreneur in developing a subsidiary company called New Engravers, known now as VisionMark. Additionally, he was a charter member as well as the youngest president of the Great Lakes Newspaper Mechanical Conference.
All of this would qualify Mr. Watkins for our recognition, but perhaps his greatest contribution to the community he loved was his role in the creation of Tawawa Park. He was one of the first to advocate for the purchase of the Kah land in order to develop it as a naturally beautiful wooded park. In 1948, when some feared that the land would be sold to out-of-town owners who might develop it as a motorcycle club, Cecil and Ken McDowell enlisted the aid of William Milligan and Wendell Whipp, who began the organization of the Tawawa Park Civic Association with the goal of purchasing and preserving the area. The initial land purchases totaled 110 acres after the trustees acquired the Kah land as well as that of several adjacent owners. Other early trustees and leaders of the Tawawa Civic Park Association included Charles Benjamin, Norb Pointer, Oscar Meyer, Jerome Wagner, William Conrad, Charles Manchester, and Reuben Aschenbach.
June 3, 1956, marked the incorporation of Tawawa into the city park system. Many of the improvements to the park had been made by then, all financed through private donations. A very proud Cecil Watkins presented the deed to Tawawa on behalf of the Tawawa Civic Park Board to then City Manager Glenn Lovern. On hand was Ohio Governor Frank Lausche whose remarks noted Sidney’s richness in natural resources was surpassed by “evidence of the true spirit of America…” in the actions of these civic-minded men.
Today the park totals 220 acres of paved walkways, shelters, historic bridges and the peace that only being in nature can afford. But none of this would have materialized had it not been for the efforts of two young men, Cecil Watkins and Ken McDowell, whose dreams for their community’s welfare sparked action to save this beauty for posterity.