Former two-term Ohio governor and author Richard Celeste has released his memoir, In the Heart of It All: An Unvarnished Account of My Life in Public Service. He describes his life from his early years near Cleveland, Ohio, to Yale, to a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford, and points beyond, including the Ohio State House and governor’s mansion. He will appear at the 2023 Ohioana Book Festival on Saturday, April 22.
Running a lightly funded campaign his first time angling for governor, Celeste employed guerrilla tactics such as having his name announced over airport public address systems so as to gain name recognition. He also “dropped political literature in the precincts of every political writer for one of the Ohio major newspapers on the same day, and … on the doorstep of Governor Gilligan, as well.”
Listen in to hear more about his illustrious career and then attend the Ohioana Book Festival to hear him speak in person.
I talk at the beginning [of the book] about the advice from my two grandmothers: one was to … always hold something in, keep things secret. And the other grandmother said .. “to whom much is given, much is expected.”
Richard Celeste
