Jay County is still home

George Miller’s reasons for stepping down from the presidency of Martin University in Indianapolis aren’t clear. The best guess is that the job wasn’t the right fit, and when weighed against other opportunities, the other opportunities won out.
Having said that, it was truly a pleasure to meet the guy.
It was back in 2012 when we met.
Jay County attorney John Coldren had called the office and asked if I’d seen the editorial page of The Indianapolis Star. A columnist at The Star had mentioned, almost in passing, that the incoming president at Martin was a Hoosier and had been born in Portland.
John and I both wondered if that had been a mistake.
Surely, they mean LaPorte or Portage rather than Portland. Either one of those cities would be more likely to have been the birthplace of an African-American academic.
It seemed an unlikely connection, but I got on the phone and made some calls. Before long an appointment was set up, but I still sensed there was some confusion. After all, Miller was just getting settled in his new office. There was a good chance that someone on his staff had made a mistake. Typos, as I know all too well, do happen.
Just the same, it was worth a drive to Indy to find out.
Martin University is tucked into one of the elbows of Interstate 70 in a rough and tumble neighborhood on the city’s near north side. I knew the area pretty well, having lived within a mile of the campus many years ago.
The university, which dates from 1977, is named for Martin Luther King Jr. It has an open admissions policy, and its primary mission is to provide higher education for the city’s least-advantaged population.
My GPS led me to the right parking lot, and before I knew it I was sitting in a handsome boardroom, waiting to see if this unlikely story was true: That the president of a largely black, inner city university was from the largely white, rural and small town community back home.
Two minutes later, I knew the story was true.
“Jay County Hospital!” Dr. George E. Miller III boomed when he came into the room.
Sometimes an interview can be interesting. Sometimes an interview can be tedious. But sometimes an interview can be fun, and this one was a great time.
Dr. Miller, it turned out, was born in Portland but spent much of his childhood in Dunkirk where his grandmother, Edna Jones, lived. And we’re about the same age.
Some of his childhood buddies, in fact, like Gary Glogas, are friends of mine today.
For nearly an hour, we talked about his early years and his time in Dunkirk.
And I kept marveling at the incongruity of it all.
Here was a guy Jay County would be bragging about, but most of Jay County didn’t know he existed.
Astrophysicist for NASA, college professor and now university president, he had a resume that grabs your attention.
He was also, I believe, the first Jay County-born university president in the county’s history. And he’s African-American.
If a Las Vegas bookie had tried to set odds for that, they would have been astronomical.
As if that were not enough, there was the simple, undeniable fact that George Miller is one heck of a nice guy. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s unassuming.
And he’s the kind of person you’d be proud to claim as one of ours.
Word is, he and his wife Ingrid have found new opportunities in higher education in the South. We wish them well.
But we want George to know that Jay County’s still home.[[In-content Ad]]