Hall of Fame Inductees

Vice Admiral Daniel L. Cooper (Ret.)

Images of our nation’s great naval fleets witnessed as a child during his father’s active service with the U.S. Navy burned themselves into the soul of East Liverpool native Daniel L. Cooper and propelled him forward to a distinguished military career.

Cooper has continued to distinguish himself through his nomination and subsequent confirmation as Under Secretary for Benefits in the Department of Veterans Affairs. His nomination for the post came on Feb. 6, 2002, and was followed by his confirmation by the Senate on March 22, 2002. He officially was sworn in and assumed the duties of Under Secretary on April 2, 2002.

As Undersecretary, he directs the Veterans Benefits Administration through regional offices in 30 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He is responsible for the administration of benefits provided by the Department to veterans and dependents including compensation, pension, education, home loan guaranty, vocational rehabilitation and life insurance.

When the Cooper family returned to East Liverpool from the Washington, D.C. area in 1946, Cooper re-entered the East Liverpool City School system. By 1951, he was a star performer on the Potter Football Team coached by Wade Watts. His high school athletic experience was capped off by earning the Bill Booth Award in 1951.
After graduating from high school in 1952, Cooper attended Washington & Jefferson College for a year before receiving an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1953.

A 1957 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he earned his Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University’s Littauer School, now the Kennedy School of Government, in 1963.

Following graduation from the academy, Cooper began what would become a 33-year Naval career in the amphibious force. His submarine services began aboard the diesel submarine, USS TRIGGER (SS 564) in 1959. Later he served on USS HADDO (SSN 604); was the Executive Officer on USS SIMON BOLIVAR (SSBN 641) (B); and, in 1972, became Commanding Officer of the USS PUFFER (SSN 652), operating out of Pearl Harbor.

From 1976 to 1979, he was Commander of Submarine Squadron TEN in New London, Conn., and from 1986 to 1988, he served as Commander of the Atlantic Fleet’s Submarine Force. In his last assignment, he was the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Undersea Warfare.

Following his retirement in 1991, Cooper served as vice president and general manager of the Nuclear Services Division of Gilbert Commonwealth in Reading, Pa. He also participated in several submarine and Navy-related study endeavors, serving on the submarine technical advisory group for the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University and as chairman of the advisory board of the Applied Research Laboratory at the Penn State University. He was a director on the Board of USAA, an insurance and financial services company serving primarily military personnel, for ten years.

In 1998 he joined the PECO Board of Directors (Philadelphia) and after a merger served on the Board of Directors of Exelon Corporation based in Chicago.

He and his wife, the former Betty Jane Oglivie, are the parents of two daughters.

Clark Gable

Born in the small town of Cadiz, Ohio, Feb. 1,1901, to an itinerant family, (William) Clark Gable became an American motion-picture actor, best known for his portrayal of Rhett Butler in the film Gone With the Wind.
Gable dropped out of school early and at age 21, after having held a variety of jobs, joined a traveling theatrical troupe. For several years he toured in stock theater productions and found work intermittently in silent films.

Despite a Broadway performance in the 1928 play, Machinal, Gable’s first “big break” came in 1930 when he achieved critical success in a Los Angeles production of the play The Last Mile in 1930. Screen tests soon followed, though none initially proved fruitful. In 1931, however, Gable was offered his first motion-picture role in a Western, The Painted Desert, where he was cast as a villain. Gable’s smile and magnetic personality staring out from the screen captured movie-goers almost instantly, and he immediately became in great demand, turning out 12 films that year. Among them was Sporting Blood in which he had his first lead role.

Once catapulted into movie stardom and under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Gable played opposite nearly every MGM female star including Greta Garbo, Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy.

In 1934, he was loaned to Columbia Pictures to star opposite Claudette Colbert in the romantic comedy It Happened One Night. His performance in the hit film earned him his only Academy Award and also launched a string of successful films that followed including Call of the Wild and Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935, San Francisco in 1936 and Saratoga in 1937 and Idiot’s Delight in 1939. By the end of the decade, he was Hollywood’s most popular actor and had been accorded the nickname “The King.”

His best-known and most-admired performance, however, was yet to come when he was cast in the role of Rhett Butler in David O. Selznick’s, Gone with the Wind. Ironically, Gable initially was uninterested in the role.
The year 1939 also was a memorable one for Gable personally for it was then that he married Carole Lombard, his occasional costar.

Throughout the early 1940s, Gable continued to make a number of successful pictures. In 1942, however, Lombard died in a plane crash that deeply affected Gable. Although he was beyond the draft age at the time the U.S. entered World War II, Gable enlisted as a private in the U.S. Air Corps on Aug. 12, 1942 in Los Angeles. He attended the Officers’ Candidate School at Miami Beach, Fla., and graduated a second lieutenant on Oct. 28, 1942.

He then attended aerial gunnery school and in Feb. 1943 on personal orders from Gen. Arnold went to England to make a motion picture of aerial gunners in action. He was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group at Polebrook and although neither ordered nor expected to do so, Gable flew operational missions over Europe in B-17s to obtain the combat film footage he believed was required for producing the movie entitled “Combat America.”

In 1945, having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal, he returned Hollywood and resumed his acting career, appearing in films throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Directed by John Huston, Gable gave a memorable performance in The Misfits, what would be his last motion picture. Within a few days of the film’s completion, Gable died of a heart attack on Nov. 16, 1960. Sadly enough, his son, John Clark Gable, whom he never got to see, was born March 20, 1961.

Gable also is the father of a daughter born to Loretta Young.

John C. Thompson

Born in East Liverpool, the son of the late Malcolm Thompson and Mildred Taylor Thompson, John C. Thompson attended East Liverpool City Schools until departing for the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., from which he was graduated as was his father before him, and his son, Douglas, in 1988.

He then was admitted to Yale University but enlisted in the Navy V-12 officer-training program before entering the university.

Following military discharge, he was matriculated to Yale, where he enrolled in the Navy ROTC. Graduating with honors in 1948, he was immediately commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve.

He continued his education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance before applying for active duty during the Korean Conflict in 1951. Upon completing active duty, Thompson returned to East Liverpool. It was here that his father, known affectionately as “Mac” had taken over the general management of the Hall China Company. Mac Thompson, a member of one of the town’s earliest pottery families, was a brother to Millicent Thompson Hall, whose husband Robert Taggart Hall was the son of company founder, Robert Hall. Together, the family urged a young John Thompson to become part of the firm’s management team.

Millicent and Robert Hall had three sons, one of which, John “Jack” Hall served as Chief Executive Officer of the company for a number of years. In 1981 John Thompson succeeded Hall in the top spot at the company’s east end headquarters.

In 2003, the Hall China Co. celebrated its 100th anniversary and continues to thrive today as an industry leader with Thompson serving as chairman of the board. John Sayle, Jack Hall’s son-in-law, is the current president and CEO.

On May 31, 1963, Thompson married the former Margaret “Peggy” Penn of Eastchester, N.Y. The couple resides on Park Boulevard where they are active members of the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church. Their children are William Penn Plummer of Waynesboro, Va., Thomas E. Plummer of Nyack, N.Y., Mrs. Robert (Julia) Gorman of Redding, Conn., and Douglas M. Thompson of Danbury, Conn. There are four grandchildren, twins Abigail and Ian Gorman, Luci Gorman and Madeleine Thompson.

Thompson serves as a member of the Thompson Park Board, East Liverpool’s city park donated to the community by his famous ancestor and hymnist Will Thompson. He also has served as a member of an Industry Sector Advisory Committee for the Office of U.S. Trade Representatives and Department of Commerce. He is a longtime director of the Ohio Manufacturers Association.

A lifelong booster of the Republican Party stemming from his great grandfather, John Taylor’s enduring friendship with President William McKinley, Thompson has filled a variety of capacities on both the state and local level with the GOP.
Active for years with the Columbiana Council, Boy Scouts of America, he was president and recipient of the Silver Beaver Award. He has played a major role in both the 1952 and the 1989 capital fund drives for East Liverpool City Hospital, where he also served as a director and chairman of the board over the years. Thompson has had involvement with the United Way, Rotary International, Theta Xi Fraternity, the University Club of Pittsburgh as well as both the Lake Placid Club and East Liverpool Country Club.

He also has been a director of three local banks, the First national Bank of East Liverpool, the First National Bank of Chester, W.Va. and currently, the First National Community Bank.

Frank B. Fuhrer Jr.
‘ Distinguished American’

Frank B. Fuhrer Jr., founder and owner of Frank B. Fuhrer Holdings, Inc., was born 78 years ago in East Brady, Pa. A 1943 graduate of East Brady High School, he participated in football during his high school years dating from 1939 to 1943.

Following graduation from high school, he enrolled at Allegheny College, where he participated and lettered in the varsity sports of football, basketball, baseball and soccer. His college career was interrupted by a two-year stint with the U.S. Air Force from 1945 through 1946. After fulfilling his military obligation, he returned to Allegheny College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1948.

In 1951, he received his master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951.

Fuhrer began building his business from scratch in 1966. At one time it consisted of the Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Co., which served as Anheuser-Busch and Coors Brewing Company Master distributorship; Frank Fuhrer International Inc., manufacturer and importer of Roffler, Sorbie and Framesi professional hair care products; Columbia Lincoln-Mercury, an automobile dealership located in Columbia, South Carolina; Ridgeway Chemicals, Inc., manufacturer of TekTor products located in Charlotte, N.C.; and F.B.F. Distributors, Inc., Pennsylvania and West Virginia distributor of TekTor products, which provided interior and exterior protection for automobiles.

Presently, the only company still owned is Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Co.

From 1974 to 1976, Fuhrer was the owner of the Pittsburgh Triangles Professional Tennis Team, which made the playoffs each of three years and won the league championship in 1975. The Triangles had the best overall win/loss record in the league with 92 wins and 40 losses for a .697 percentage.

From 1979 to 1981, he was the owner of the Pittsburgh Spirit Indoor Soccer Team. A 13-game win streak led the Spirit to the championship playoffs. The Spirit ended its season in third place.

Also the sponsor and founder of the Pittsburgh Family House Invitational Golf Tournament, one of the leading golf events in the Western Pennsylvania area, it featured top pros each year.

In February 1996, he also was a major investor in the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club.
Married and the father of four children and 17 grandchildren, Fuhrer is a resident of Pittsburgh and holds membership in the Oakmont Country Club, the Pittsburgh Field Club, the Duquesne Club and the Allegheny Club, all in Pennsylvania, and the Loxahatchee Club in Jupiter, Fla.


120 East Fifth St. East Liverpool, Ohio 43920		Phone: (330)-386-5443 Fax: (330)-382-0244

Vice Admiral Daniel L. Cooper (Ret.)

Clark Gable

John C. Thompson

Frank B. Fuhrer Jr. ‘ Distinguished American’

Frank B. Fuhrer Jr.
‘ Distinguished American’