BREAKING NeWs

12.20.11- Councilman Hankins Honored Nationally

Rap Hankins has been an advocate for entire region's development.

By Marc Katz, Staff Writer

(the following article appeared in the Dayton Daily News Neighbors section on Thursday, December 15, 2011)

TROTWOOD – Some would say Rap Hankins wears Trotwood on his sleeves.

Amend that. He wears the Dayton region on his sleeves.

“We have not done what’s best for the entire region,” Hankins said. “Even in the best shopping malls, there are empty spaces. If we keep doing things the way we’re doing them, we’re all going to lose.”

“How do rebuild, not just Trotwood and Dayton, but Miamisburg and Huber Heights? We’ve got to stand up and learn how to build a region.”

“We cannot continue to compete against each other. We have to work together.”

That type of thinking earned Hankins the Executive Board Member of the Year award from National League of Cities at its recent national meeting in Phoenix.

“Rap bleeds NLC,” said James Mitchell, the organization’s president and a city council member in Charlotte, N.C. “He’s like a walking billboard for NLC.”

“He is passionate. It’s about providing services. He will be on the Wall of Fame at our headquarters at 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.,” Mitchell said.

Hankins, 59 this week, and retired from his computer business, attended Chaminade and Colonel White High Schools and later Central State and Antioch McGregor. He has two college degrees and “never had a desire to enter local government.”

“I considered myself an activist in the community. It was a lot more fun to throw bricks and break windows than actually being in government,” he said. 

He attended council meetings, prodding the city to improve, and when a council seat was vacated, he was asked to fill it.

He didn’t want to, but his wife, Jan, told him, “You will do what is best for Trotwood.”

Elected three times since, Hankins is on the board of the First Tier Suburbs Consortium of Dayton, and, of course, involved with NLC.

“If we live in the past and only glimpse what is possible in the present, the future seems impossible,” Hankins said. “What people with vision do is understand the past, they pass through the present and they have vision for the future. For hundreds of years, we had visionaries in this community. We have to begin to re-create our region together.”

Hankins became involved with NLC because it involves advocacy and education.

“If we can work together as a region, we can build a community I can believe in. Trotwood is connected to the Miami Valley. If you only look at Trotwood as Trotwood, you fail. You have to get people to work together.” 

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