Two Ottawa Hills artisans, the creator of the comedy film Arthur, a prominent songwriter, and an accomplished architect who was the village mayor for six years all were inducted last week into the Ottawa Hills Foundation's Community Hall of Fame.

Three of the inductions were posthumous: world-renowned sculptor Joe Ann Cousino, who died in 2007; movie writer and director Steve Gordon, who died in 1982, and John Noble Richards, who designed many local buildings and died in 1978.

Also inducted were Edith Franklin, an Ottawa Hills resident since 1952 celebrated for her work in ceramics, and Jamie O'Hara, a star athlete at Ottawa Hills High School whose music career has included writing hit songs performed by others as well as his own recordings and performances.

Ms. Cousino's free-standing bronzes and wall reliefs are installed in libraries, banks, churches, and parks and are parts of many private and corporate collections throughout the United States and Europe. Locally, her work is at Toledo Hospital, the Toledo Botanical Garden, Ottawa Hills High School, the University of Toledo Health Science Campus, and Bowling Green State University.

She showed her work in countless juried and invitational exhibitions and won numerous awards. She taught graduate-level workshops, was a guest sculptor at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a sculptor-in-residence at Ottawa Hills High in 2000 - the latter inspiring her "Student Reading" bronze figure at the school's courtyard. She taught adults at the Toledo Museum of Art until her passing.

Ms. Franklin, sometimes called "La Grande Dame of the Arts" or "The Godmother of Ceramics" in Toledo, began working with clay during studies at the Boston Museum of Fine Art in 1943 and 1944 and later studied under Harvey Littleton at the Toledo Museum of Art. Known for commissioned commemorative pieces, her works often carry printed messages and have been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the Midwest, including the Toledo art museum, the Columbus Museum of Art, and area universities.

From 1987 through 1997, Ms. Franklin taught adult ceramics classes at the Pottery Studio at the Perrysburg estate of Virginia Secor Stranahan. She received the Ohio Designer Craftsmen's Outstanding Achievement Award in 1983 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Toledo Federation of Art Societies in 1999.

Ms. Franklin is an honorary trustee of the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo, having been a member of that group's board for several decades. Her work has been the subject of several local television documentaries.

Arthur, released in 1981, was the pinnacle of Mr. Gordon's writing career, which started with writing advertising copy for agencies in San Francisco and New York while he also created stage plays he hoped would make it to Broadway. One such play, Tough to Get Help, caught the attention of Rob Reiner and Mel Brooks and proved to be his entree to writing television scripts for shows including The Dick Van Dyke Show, Barney Miller, and Chico and the Man.

He created his own series, The Practice, which starred Toledo native Danny Thomas. Arthur, starring Dudley Moore as a spoiled playboy who stands to lose a huge inheritance if he does not go through with an arranged marriage, won two Academy Awards and Mr. Gordon was nominated, but not chosen, for the Best Writing, Screenplay Oscar.

Mr. Gordon had moved to Ottawa Hills in 1952 to be raised by an aunt and uncle after his parents' deaths, and graduated from Ottawa Hills High in 1957 and Ohio State University in 1961.

Mr. O'Hara took up guitar after an injury ended his college football career at the University of Indiana, and in 1975 he moved to Nashville to pursue a music career. He worked a variety of jobs for the first five years before his song-writing efforts supported him, and in 1986 his "Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Old Days)" won the Grammy award for Best Country Song.

In 1985, he and friend Kieran Kane formed The O'Kanes, a front-runner of the Alternative Country/Americana movement that brought such performers as Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, Foster & Lloyd, Lyle Lovett, and Mary Chapin Carpenter to prominence. The O'Kanes released three albums, with several hit songs, before disbanding, after which Mr. O'Hara released several solo albums.

Mr. Richards' architectural designs included many Ottawa Hills homes as well as Edison Plaza, the Stranahan Theatre, University Hall and Ritter Planetarium at the University of Toledo, and the original Owens-Illinois world headquarters at 405 Madison Ave., Toledo, now occupied by PNC Bank. In 1958 and 1959, he was president of the American Institute of Architects.

Mr. Richards was Ottawa Hills' mayor from 1966 to 1972, having previously served on the Maumee Board of Education during the 1940s. His hall-of-fame induction is to the Century Circle, a special section recognizing community members whose lives guided the village during its formative years.

First Published November 17, 2010, 2:49 a.m.