Zane State official ID’D as victim of plane crash

The president emeritus of Zane State College has been identified as the pilot who was killed Tuesday afternoon when he crashed a single-engine airplane into a wooded area near Heath in Licking County.

Paul R. Brown, 74, of Zanesville, was the pilot and sole person aboard the 2005 Cessna Skylane 182-T plane that crashed within minutes after departing Newark-heath Airport at 1:37 p.m., according to a news release from the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Troopers and the Heath Fire Department were called around 1:40 p.m. to a reported plane crash in the 400 block of Linnville Road, just east of Route 13.

Brown was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, troopers said.

A former Air Force pilot, Brown was president emeritus of Zane State College, a community college with campuses in Zanesville and Cambridge that offers some 40 associate degree programs and certificates, workshops, and occupational skills training, according to its website.

Zane State College posted notice of Brown’s death on its Facebook page Tuesday night.

“Dr. Paul R. Brown … leader, mentor, friend. Through his vision of what this community could be and his belief in shaping a better future, he touched so many lives throughout Southeastern Ohio,” the tribute stated.

“Our College mourns this loss, and our hearts are with his wife Linda and family.”

In January 2004, Brown became the fifth president of what was then-muskingum Area Technical College.

Within a year, he led its rebranding to Zane State College and turned around a decade of declining enrollment by boosting student numbers higher than the previous two years combined.

Brown is credited with increasing part-time class offerings for working students with families and working with administrators to design a curriculum with opportunities for hands-on learning. He retired from the university in 2015.

The Paul R. Brown EPIC Center, a state-of-the-art classroom space, laboratories, community space and academic office space, and an enclosed 200-foot-long predestrian bridge over Brick Church Road that connects the EPIC Center with the Willett-pratt Training Center at the Zane State campus were named in honor of Brown. who retired from the university in 2014.

Initial reports were that the aircraft was a federal government plane, but it was later determined to be a private craft, said Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Sean Grady.

The National Transportation Safety Board had said Tuesday in a Tweet that it was investigating the crash of a Cessna 182T airplane near Newark. The highway patrol said in its release that the Federal Aviation Administration would also be involved in the investigation.

Linnville Road was closed for several hours between Blackfoot Trail and Old Linnville Road because of the crash and investigation. The road has since reopened. msumner@gannett.com @michaelasumner_ elagatta@dispatch.com @Ericlagatta