John Glenn’s former chief of staff now wields a paintbrush
Kathy Prosser WOOSTER —
Bovard has worked on Capitol Hill and in the Ivy League and has led the way on environment issues from Indiana to Florida.
But in retirement, she traded the travel and the hustle and bustle of her career for a paintbrush.
The former chief of staff to the late Sen. John Glenn, Bovard said it may seem strange that she “chose to do something that is pretty isolating.”
And while painting is a rather solitary endeavor, Bovard said delving into it appealed to her need for a challenge and because “Miss Type-A likes to compete.”
Now, after a decade of classes, workshops, home study and practice, practice, practice, Bovard’s work is getting a gallery show, sharing space with local artist Michael Jackson in the Gault and Looney galleries at the Wayne Center for the Arts in an exhibit that opens Friday.
Glenn, who died more than two years ago at the age of 95, had a profound influence on Bovard’s life and even managed to figure into her work being displayed in Wooster. The Canton native, who attended Timken Vocational High School with Gayle Noble, remains friends with her and her husband, David, both Wooster residents.
Invited to come to Wooster to make a presentation about Glenn, Bovard met former WCA executive director Josh Coy, who asked her about her painting and then arranged for her to be part of the exhibit.
Years ago, it didn’t seem art would figure largely in life for Bovard, who completed Timken’s secretarial program and took a job with Canton attorney Bill Blair, who later left for a job in Columbus with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, convincing Bovard to come along.
But when Blair decided to return to Canton to run for prosecutor, Bovard decided to stay behind in the state capital, at which point Blair introduced her to Glenn and his wife, Annie.
“He was a fabulous human being,” Bovard said of the one-time astronaut and eventual U.S. senator and Presidential candidate, “and so was his wife. He was generous, kind, patriotic.” He hired her as a secretary and she went on to work on his 1974 Senate campaign, then became his executive assistant in Washington, D.C., and took over as his chief of staff when Glenn ran for President in 1984.
And although she left Glenn’s office after his defeat, Bovard stayed in touch with the couple and when she married, it was the senator who walked her down the aisle.
After that, Bovard worked for Harvard and went through the school’s master’s program in public administration - even though she had no undergraduate degree. She had taken about a year’s worth of college classes while working for Glenn and worked for the university before taking advantage of an opportunity to get into the master’s program based more on life experience that credit hours.
Facing an entrance essay, Bovard recalled her mother telling her, “if you don’t apply, you’ll never know” if you’d be accepted. Bovard decided, “I’m just going to answer the way I feel.” And she was accepted. “It was scary and it was a fabulous experience,” said Bovard, who continued working for Harvard until deciding to get into what was then the evolving field of environmental work. And after serving more time in the public sector, she retired as the president and CEO of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
She met her husband on a blind date set up by her brother and lived in Colorado and North Carolina before returning to Canton just a few years ago. After years living all over the U.S., Bovard said, “I just said to my husband, ‘I want to go home.’”
Her initial foray into painting came when she and her husband with still living down south. “We had been playing golf, lots of golf,” she said, “and that wasn’t going anywhere.” So, on a whim, she signed up for a six-week beginner’s course in watercolors.
So unschooled was she, Bovard said, that she bought supplies, only to be told by the instructor they were for oils, not watercolors.
No matter. “I really love watercolor,” she said, “there’s something light about them. I found oils to be heavy.”
Her work has evolved over time, mainly, she said, because she practices - a lot.
In addition to workshops and classes, Bovard has acquired a library’s worth of instructional DVDs and still watches online videos in hopes of picking up a new tip or technique. She credits her husband for handling the culinary side of the household, not to mention being her biggest fan and framer of her work.
That gives her time to paint, which she does every day. “I’m very competitive,” said Bovard. “I paint because I love it and it’s still very challenging for me to improve.”
To satisfy her zest for competition, Bovard enters juried competitions.
If her work is selected, great.
If not, it just increases her desire to get better. But for her, “better” doesn’t mean creating a canvas with a photographic-quality image. “That’s what makes it art,” she said, “is your interpretation of it.”