Mavis’ leadership helped propel projects forward

While he played a large and pivotal role in the planning and execution of the projects, they would not have been possible without the help of others, such as Phil Samuell, former chairman and mastermind of the Kokosing Gap Trail. The trail was an idea that Samuell had after noticing that an abandoned railroad was accumulating trash, and he didn’t believe the space was being used to its full potential. He went to the Knox County Commissioners, where Mavis latched on to the idea.

“He quickly visualized what that would be, and what a great part of the community it would be for the people of Mount Vernon,” Samuell said. “He was always agreeable to my crazy ideas, he had the ability to visualize what I was talking about. He would embrace it, fight for it and work for it.”

The Kokosing Gap Trail has become an asset to the community, and gives pedestrians and bicyclists a safe a way to travel around the county and gives citizens a safe place to exercise and get outdoors. While it was Samuell’s initial idea, he credits Mavis for making the project happen.

“He provided the leadership at a political level to push that project through, and that was critical,” Samuell said. “I was young and not well educated on the way of getting things done, but Dick was.”

The leadership and knowledge that Mavis possesses are two attributes that are acknowledged by those who worked with him. Joel Daniels, safety-service director of Mount Vernon, credits Mavis’s stable and confident leadership to the success of the projects. One of the first projects that Daniels worked with Mavis on was the widening of Coshocton Avenue from Vernonview Drive to Radio Hill in 2001.

“That was the first big project we took on,” Daniels said.

Bruce Hawkins, Mount Vernon City Council president, said that the Coshocton Avenue project was done in order to improve traffic flow for the city, and to make it easier to get on and off of Coshocton Avenue. Hawkins said that Mavis played a big part in improving traffic flow and transportation in the city.

The widening of one of the most prominent and important roads in Mount Vernon was just the start to a slew of lofty ideas that turned into impressive projects that benefited the community. Daniels mentioned the construction of the new fire station and the water plant as a few other notable projects that Mavis was a part of.

Daniels notes that the water plant construction has been one of the largest projects that he has seen in his time in office. Daniels was appointed by Mavis in 1996 and left office in August of 2005 to pursue another opportunity, and came back into the position in 2016.

In his 13 years total as safety-service director, Daniels says that working with Mavis has been the highlight of his entire career.

“We think alike and we get along well, it has been an honor and a pleasure to work with Dick,” Daniels said. “I think he’s fair and I think he’s honest. He makes the people around him better, I know he has made me a better person in my time working here.”

One of the more recent projects that has been completed is Ariel-Foundation Park; a project that yet again showed Mavis’s ability to envision something out of nothing. What started as a gravel pit, became a 250-acre park full of hiking trails, lakes and even a museum. Daniels said that Mavis saw the potential to make it into something great.

“Having the foresight of what that area could become is a strength that Dick Mavis had that made that project successful,” Daniels said. “I was able to share his excitement that someday that would be a great park for the city.”

Mavis’s ability to visualize future projects is an ability that stands out, considering that Hawkins also mentioned that Mavis’s vision for what the park could be to the city is what in part made the project so successful.

“He saw what it could be made into, and what it could be for the city. He had a vision, and he did it,” Hawkins said. “He was the leader for that, and I respect that about him.”

Hawkins, who has known Mavis since the 1970s and has worked with him for the past two decades on city council, considers Mavis to be a visionary and a class act.

“He shows class all of the time, he soars above things,” Hawkins said. Hawkins has enjoyed working with Mavis, and believes he will be a tough act to follow.

“He’s a very positive person to work with. I’ve never heard him say a bad word about anyone, and that’s hard to do.”