Richard Hetherington - 1998
MHS 1953 Graduate
Richard Hetherington, Class of 1953, was nominated by his brother Robert Hetherington and Tom Kishman. In their nomination they stated, "The Minerva High Alumni Hall of Fame is composed of men and women who have set their goals and aspiration in life to the highest standards. Dick Hetherington has done this and has excelled in leadership, business, family and life. Dick truly deserves a spot on the Wall in the lobby of Minerva High School."
Hetherington started in the food business working for the Lippincott Dairy and the Minerva Food Market (Jake's Market) during his junior high and high school years. He spent eight years with the A & P Company and six years as owner of a Piggly Wiggly Supermarket in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
In 1971 he became the president of East Central Ohio Food Dealers and in 1975, while still serving ECO, became president of the Ohio Grocer’s Association. When he took over this leadership, the association was nearly bankrupt and had a very non-active membership. Twenty-six years later it has snowballed into a proactive organization with many services for its members, which holds almost a million dollars worth of real estate, and started a coupon-clearing agency to generate profits. He transformed the OGA's fledgling annual convention and trade show into one of the largest of its kind.
Hetherington was instrumental in developing the two-year accredited supermarket food program at OSU's Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, and started a grass-roots effort in the early 1970s evolving ECO and OGA members meeting directly with their congressmen and senators on both the state and federal level. This program was so successful that it became the prototype for other state food associations and eventually the National Grocer’s Association adopted it.
He received several awards including: The Grocers Spotlight Award in 1978; The Charles T. Barnum Award in 1984, which was the highest honor awarded to an individual in the food industry in the state of Ohio; the Spirit of America Award in 1985 (a national award); and was inducted into the National Grocer’s Association Hall of Fame.
Hetherington served with the U. S. Air Force from 1954 to 1957. He was active in service clubs and his church in the North Canton area. We are saddened by the fact that he did not live to receive this latest honor.