The remarkable life of John Glenn

Over the long arc of John Glenn’s life, it proved impossible to ever ask him to do something for his country. No matter the mission, no matter the risk, he had already stepped forward, his hand raised, his jaw set, ready to go.

Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, a four-term U.S. senator and a man who called his childhood in New Concord idyllic, has died. He was 95.

He was born July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, the son of John Sr. and Clara. Two years later, the family moved to New Concord, where his father opened a plumbing business. Glenn would graduate from a high school that would eventually be named after him before earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering from what is now Muskingum University. Glenn also took flying lessons during that time, eventually getting his pilot’s license.

A Democrat, he would launch two unsuccessful bids before winning a U.S. Senate seat and ultimately representing Ohio for 24 years. In 1984, Glenn ran for president, but his campaign never gained much traction and he dropped out. And, early this year, state lawmakers renamed Ohio's capital city airport the John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

At the point of his death, he was both the fifth person and oldest person in history to fly in space, during two trips that occurred decades apart.

His first space trip came at the age of 40, when he was selected to pilot Friendship 7. At that time, he told the Times Recorder people had written him letters stating he was too old to fly.

'Ultimate hometown hero': Reaction to the death of John Glenn

But all of America was watching at 9:47 in the morning on Feb. 20, 1962. Sitting in the cramped quarters of the  Friendship 7 spacecraft, Glenn took off from Cape Canaveral. Scott Carpenter, the backup astronaut for the mission, famously said: “Godspeed, John Glenn.”

Glenn climbed into space, circled the globe three times, and then dropped down into the Atlantic Ocean. The flight took all of 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds, but it changed the space race and restored American pride at a time the United States was losing it to the Soviet Union.

Nearly 40 years later, Glenn would return to space as part of a program to study how space travel affects aging.

But before Glenn was the oldest person in space, before he served as a U.S. senator, before he even joined NASA, Glenn had already accomplished more than most.

He flew an astounding 149 combat missions in two conflicts. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross on six occasions and an Air Medal with 18 clusters. In Korea, he downed three Russian MIGs in air-to-air combat during the last nine days of that war. Ted Williams, later called the best baseball hitter of all time, was sometimes his wing man. He completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight in 3 hours and 23 minutes. He was a contestant on the show "Name That Tune" with child actor Eddie Hodges, who is best known for originating the character of Winthrop Paroo in the 1957 Broadway musical “The Music Man."

And, of course, he married his childhood best friend and sweetheart, Annie Castor.

“You really can’t talk about John Glenn without talking about Annie,” Andy Alexander  told the Times Recorder in 2015.

Alexander was a reporter who covered Glenn’s political career in Washington.

After Glenn made his orbital flight, during all of the attention he received when he landed, he’d told his family he didn’t want to embarrass anyone by telling them he loved them, so he would tug on his ear. That habit stuck, during speeches, for much of his life.

“This became a sort of thing he would do with Annie,” Alexander said.

In 1997, Glenn returned to Muskingum University, his alma mater, to announce his retirement from the U.S. Senate.

That same year, he spoke to students at Maysville Middle School, and said: “I’ve been saying for 25 years that I’d like to go up (to space) again. ... They say they’d like to go do experiments on the elderly. ... Well, do them on me.”

Months later, it was announced that Glenn would return to space as part of a way to study the effects of space on aging. At age 77, Glenn completed his second mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery. The flight involved 134 orbits of the earth, instead of three trips around he took back in 1962. But he said the same thing to his wife he used to tell her every time he would embark on a dangerous mission in war or in space.

“I’m just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum,” Glenn would say. And she responded: “Don’t be long.” Before he took his flight on the space shuttle, Glenn actually gave his wife a pack of gum to keep while he was away.

The mission took place Oct. 29, 1998, and lasted nine days.

After the announcement that Glenn would be returning to space, the media that descended on New Concord was unprecedented. Every major news outlet wanted to know the story of Glenn’s hometown. Readers and viewers cared about where Glenn came from and how he started.

They still do.

The John and Annie Glenn Historic Site in New Concord sees visitors frequently, from across the state.

The museum is located in Glenn’s childhood home, which Glenn and his wife donated to Muskingum County in 1999. Since then, it has been moved to Main Street, and its operations are dedicated to telling the life story of Glenn.

Stan and Pat Sherman made a point of stopping by the site for a tour one weekend in 2014 and talked with the Times Recorder. They did not grow up in New Concord — Pat Sherman did not even grow up in Ohio — but they both remember Glenn’s first orbital flight in 1962.

“When he made that flight, for me, it was just excitement,” Pat Sherman said. “It was exhilarating. It was his whole career.”

The Shermans are from Dover, which is about an hour away from Zanesville, but only minutes from another city significant in Glenn’s life.

“You know New Philadelphia, where (Glenn) took his flying lessons?” Stan Sherman said. “New Philadelphia is a sister city to Dover.”

They followed his career closely, from his first orbital flight through his political service to his second and final flight in 1998.

“There’s nobody I respect more than an astronaut,” Pat Sherman said.

To go into space, when there is no guarantee of a safe return, simply to try and contribute to the progression of human history, she said, is pretty remarkable.

Ryan and Janet Lane and their three sons also stopped by the museum that day before attending a wedding in New Concord. Their middle son, Troy, was fascinated with space exploration and astronauts.

Troy was inspired in part by Glenn after previously visiting the John Glenn Research Institute in Cleveland.

“It was really fun and cool,” he said. “I want to be an engineer and do space walks.”

Part of what was great about Glenn, Janet Lane said, beyond his historic space flights and political service, was that he came from New Concord, a small town in Ohio.

The Lanes live in Kensington, an unincorporated community right on the border of Carroll and Columbiana counties in Ohio.

Twenty-five astronauts have been from Ohio, and most of them were from major cities such as Cleveland or Dayton. Not Glenn, though.

“It gives hope, anyone can be an astronaut,” she said. “If you’ve got a dream, you can live it.”