Topic: Jim Rhodes

James Allen Rhodes (September 13, 1909 – March 4, 2001) was an American Republican politician from Ohio, and as of 2006 one of only five U.S. state governors to serve four four-year terms in office. As governor in 1970, he decided to send National Guard troops onto the Kent State University campus, resulting in the shooting of students on May 4. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Rhodes was born in Coalton, Jackson County, Ohio,to James and Susan Howe Rhodes, who were of Welsh descent. Rhodes has commented that the reason he and his family were Republicans was because of the respect his father, a mine superintendent, had for John L. Lewis, a prominent Republican union activist. When Rhodes was nine his father died and the family moved to north Springfield where Rhodes graduated from high school, after which the family moved again, this time to Columbus, because Rhodes earned a modest basketball scholarship to Ohio State University. Although Rhodes dropped out after his first quarter he is often described as a "student" or "alumnus" of Ohio State. After dropping out of college Rhodes opened a business called Jim's Place across from the university on North High Street. Jim's Place has been described as a place where one could buy everything from doughnuts and hamburgers to stag films or place bets on numbers games.

Beginning in 1934 Rhodes used his position as a local businessman to climb up the Columbus political ladder, first as a ward committeeman, the Columbus school-board, city auditor and eventually becoming the mayor of Columbus (1944-1952). It is during this time that he married Helen Rawlins. Rhodes' time as mayor is primarily marked by two achievements, the first being is ability to convince 67% of Columbus voters to approve the city's first income tax with the second being Rhodes' ability to use water gun diplomacy to annex much of the surrounding suburbs into Columbus. As surrounding communities grew or were constructed they required access to waterlines, which were under the sole control of the municipal water system, Rhodes told these communities that if they wanted water they would have to submit to annexation into Columbus. As a result of this Columbus, Ohio currently has the largest land area of any Ohio city.