MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — During the Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening, July 17, U.S. Senator JD Vance accepted the nomination to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate, bringing southwest Ohio into the spotlight.

His candidacy gives Preble County a connection to the November Presidential election. Vance was once a fourth grader, at the time called JD Hamel, at Preble Shawnee’s West Elkton Elementary School.

Vance, who lived in Middletown and graduated from Middletown High School, went on enlist in the Marines, served in the Iraq War, then graduated from The Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He wrote the book Hillbilly Elegy, which was turned into a Netflix movie.

Born James Donald Bowman, he was adopted by his mother’s third husband, and his named changed to James David Hamel. He eventually took the name of his grandparents, Vance, because he was mostly raised by them.

During the televised portion of the RNC on Wednesday evening, Vance was introduced to the country by his wife, Usha Chilukuri.

“When I was asked to introduce my husband, JD Vance, to all of you, I was at a loss. What can I say that hasn’t already been said before? After all, the man was already subject to the Ron Howard movie. Jimmy has shared much of his life through his own eloquent words in his book, Hillbilly Elegy during his Senate campaign, and now as a sitting United States Senator. It occurred to me that there was only one thing to do to explain from the heart. Why I love and admire JD and stand here beside him today and why he will make a great Vice President of the United States.”

She went on to share her history with Vance and some of his background before introducing him as the “next Vice President of the United States.”

“Tonight is a night of hope. A celebration of what America once was, and there with God’s grace what it will soon be again,” Vance noted.

“And it is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren. But as we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different. Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning,” he said, touching on the assassination attempt on former President Trump and the shootings of last Saturday, July 13.

He continued, “My message to you my fellow Republicans is we love this country, and we are united to win.

“Right now, I think our disagreements actually make us stronger,” he said. “That’s what I’ve learned in my time in the United States Senate, where sometimes I persuade my colleagues and sometimes, they persuade me. And my message to my fellow Americans, those watching from across the country, is shouldn’t we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution? That’s the Republican Party of the next four years. United in our love for this country and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas.”

Vance also shared some of his backstory, tales of his “Mamaw,” and growing up in southwestern Ohio. According to his official U.S. Senate bio, “turbulence was common at home and at school. His grandmother, called Mamaw, was his saving grace. Her tough love and discipline kept him on the straight and narrow. A ‘blue dog’ Democrat, she owned 19 handguns and nurtured a deep Christian faith in herself and her family. She died in 2005, shortly after JD enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.”

Vance introduced his mother, who was in attendance Wednesday, and celebrating “10 years clean and sober. I love you mom,” he said. “I was thinking, it’ll be 10 years officially in January of 2025 and if President Trump’s okay with it let’s have the celebration in the White House.”

“Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I’d be standing here tonight. I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds built with their hands and love their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts. But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington. When I was in fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA a bad trade deal that said countless good jobs to Mexico. When I was a sophomore in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden engaged China, a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good, American middle class manufacturing jobs. When I was a senior in high school that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq, and in it each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door and Pennsylvania or Michigan and states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war and somehow, a real estate developer from New York City by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. President Trump knew even then that we needed leaders who would put America first.”

“One of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea,” Vance said. “And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty, things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is in short, a nation. That is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms. That’s the way we preserve the continuity of this project from 250 years past to hopefully 250 years in the future.”

Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.