One ultimate corporate insider and one who has spent his career bringing an entire race inside the halls of power will receive the ultimate honor from Cincinnati's business community.

Bill Keating (left) and Milton Hinton were named Thursday as Great Living Cincinnatians, the highest honor bestowed by the city's business community (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        Milton Hinton, the retiring president of the Cincinnati NAACP, and Bill Keating, the former congressman and publisher of the Enquirer, will join 88 other Great Living Cincinnatians in a ceremony Feb. 9.

        Both 73-year-olds joked that the award simply means that they are getting old.

        “I always say, "Give folks their roses while they can still smell them,'” Mr. Hinton said. “After I'm dead, you can say whatever you want to about me then.”

        On the surface, the two men share little other than their age.

MILTON HINTON

• Born: June 11, 1927.    • Education: Bachelor's and master's degrees from Glassboro State College in New Jersey, doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1969.    • Career: Moved to Cincinnati in 1970 to teach at the University of Cincinnati. He retired in 1992 as vice provost. Elected in 1994 as president of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He will retire from the NAACP Dec. 31.    • Personal: Lives in North Avondale with his wife, Betti. They have one son, one daughter and two grandchildren.

WILLIAM KEATING

• Born: March 30, 1927.    • Education: Bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Cincinnati.    • Career: A Cincinnati native, he served as a Cincinnati City Council member and a Hamilton County Common Pleas judge before representing Ohio's First District in Congress from 1970 to 1973. He was a founding member of what is now Keating, Muething & Klekamp. He became chairman of the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1973 and served in that position until 1992. During that tenure, he was alternately publisher of the Enquirer, CEO of the Detroit Newspaper Agency, president of the newspaper division of Gannett Co. Inc. and Gannett's executive vice president and general counsel. Currently, Mr. Keating is chairman of bid development for Cincinnati 2012 Inc.    • Personal: Lives in Mount Lookout with his wife, Nancy. They have five sons, two daughters and 27 grandchildren.

GREATEST CINCINNATIANS

Previous winners of the Great Living Cincinnatians Award:     1967: Charles Sawyer, John J. Emery, Dr. Albert B. Sabin     1968: G. Carlton Hill, Neil McElroy, Harold LeBlond     1969: Frederick V. Geier, Fred Lazarus Jr.     1970: William Mitchell, J. Ralph Corbett, William Zimmer     1971: Joseph Hall, Mark Upson     1972: Dr. Walter Langsam, Stanley Rowe Sr.     1973: Irvin Westheimer, Rev. Paul O'Connor     1974: Willis Gradison Sr., William McGrath, John Murphy     1975: Louis Nippert, Fletcher Nyce, Murray Seasongood     1976: Marion Becker, John Bullock, Charles P. Taft     1977: Bishop Henry W. Hobson, Howard Morgens, William Whittaker     1978: Jacob Davis, Walter Lingle Jr., William Safford     1979: Frederick Hauck, Rev. Wilber Page     1980: William Anderson, Philip O. Geier, Frank Mayfield     1981: Eslie Asbury, T. Spencer Shore     1982: Edward Harness, Ralph Lazarus     1983: William Altemeier, William Liggett     1984: Theodore Berry, Richard Dugan     1985: William Rowe     1986: Neil Armstrong, John Strubbe     1987: Ruth Lyons, Charles Barrett     1988: William Atteberry, Owen Butler     1989: Lawrence Hawkins, Joseph Stern     1990: Paul Christensen, Daniel Ransohoff, George Rieveschl     1991: Nelson Schwab Jr., David Joseph, Sanford Brooks     1992: Frances Jones Poetker, Henry Hobson Jr., Dean Fite     1993: Virginia Coffey, Helen Glueck, West Shell Jr.     1994: Clement Buenger, Patricia Corbett, Carl Lindner     1995: Joseph Hall, Louise Nippert, William J. Williams     1996: James A.D. Geier, Sr. Jean Patrice Harrington, Robert Westheimer     1997: Nathaniel Jones, John Schiff Jr., John Smale     1998: Marjorie Hiatt, Eugene Ruehlmann, Marian Spencer     1999: William Bowen, William Friedlander, Mary Jeanne Klyn, John Ruthven     2000: Bobbie Sterne, Charles Mechem, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

        Mr. Hinton, a New Jersey native, came here in 1970 to teach at the University of Cincinnati. In the three decades since, he has earned the respect of the business establishment with a steady hand on the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People.

        Mr. Keating is a charter member of that establishment. The Cincinnati native has been a City Council member, a Hamilton County judge and a trustee of both UC and Xavier University, and still is called on to help with civic projects.

        Mr. Keating recalls an early 1990s lunch with three other business leaders that eventually produced the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, a coalition of several local hospitals.

        “This is how things happen,” he said. “You look at yourself and you look at your community, and you say, "Something's going to pass us by if we don't do something.' So you step up to the mark, and you do something.”

        That service to the community is the common ground between the two 2000 inductees, said John Williams, president of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, which presents the awards.

        “They are part of a group who all believed in, who took as a given the responsibility you had as a business leader, to give back,” Mr. Williams said.

        Last year's inductees were civil-rights leader the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, former Cincinnati City Council member Bobbie Sterne and corporate leader Charlie Mechem.

        Mr. Hinton called the Great Living Cincinnatians award No. 2 on his list of accomplishments, after a recent honor from the NAACP's Youth Council.

        Colleagues call civic successes like the formation of a Citizens Review Panel for the Cincinnati Police Division his greatest accomplishment. And under his watch, local NAACP membership has increased from 700 to about 3,500.

        But schools clearly remain the passion for the lifetime educator. Minority students are the focus of the Dr. Milton W. Hinton Scholar ship at the University of Cincinnati.

        “His work in the educational arena should not be lost,” said Sheila Adams, president of the Cincinnati Urban League. “Part of his legacy is about fairness and equity for all people — white and black — and the attaining of a quality education and a quality of life.”

        Mr. Hinton's daughter Milbeth, who also became a teacher, said her father never wanted to be known as head of a protest organization.

        “He's not a man who wants just to get things started,” she said. “He's able to articulate things in a way that gets people's attention. He always told me, "The biggest thing is, you can't do it by yourself.'”

        Mr. Hinton acknowledged pride that the establishment Chamber award would go to the longtime leader of the NAACP.

        For the understated Mr. Keating, the same devotion to quality of life comes from an almost lifelong belief in public service, friends and family said — whether in politics, the courts, volunteer work or through newspapers.

        “I still find out today about things that he did years ago,” said Bill Keating Jr., a partner at Keating, Muething & Klekamp and one of Mr. Keating's five sons.

        “He's the kind of person that when you're talking to him, he's focusing on you,” the younger Keating said. “So you find yourself not talking about him.”

        U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, who appointed Mr. Keating to the UC Board of Trustees during his tenure as Ohio governor, said Mr. Keating has pushed Cincinnati projects ranging from the Health Alliance to the Aronoff Center for the Arts.

        “I'd say he was the leading advocate for Cincinnati,” Mr. Voinovich said.
       

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