Frank “Digger” Dawson shows an East Liverpool football game film at the Lou Holtz Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame in 2022. (Morning Journal/Michael Burich)

I’m not sure there is anyone in the state of Ohio who was more important to the community fabric of one specific city than Frank “Digger” Dawson.

The modern-day Renaissance man who guided citizens through grief as a funeral director, promoted the city of East Liverpool’s people relentlessly as if it were a religion and chronicled decades of history as an author, communicator and historian left behind an enormous legacy as he left this plane of existence on Friday afternoon at East Liverpool City Hospital. He was 90.

Like many in the Ohio Valley over the years, I had my personal moments with the man. And maybe that’s the best way to memorialize such a gigantic figure because if you knew him, everything about an interaction with Frank was personally tendered to you.

Back in 2022 I got a call at the sports desk from Frank Dawson inviting me down to the Lou Holtz Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame to have a chat about the transitional period the museum was going through at the time.

We decided on an afternoon one day in April and he said he would be there to open up the then closed museum.

Truth be told, and I never told him this, but I almost didn’t make it that day. My father who was suffering from dementia had a medical scare that day. It turned out to be nothing too serious, so I was able to rush down from Mahoning County to East Liverpool to make my appointment.

I am forever grateful I was able to go.

Digger, who I had known a little bit through phone calls and brief interludes over the years, showed me around the museum for a few hours and within that time the beginnings of a friendship formed.

Even though there was decades between us, I felt the warmth and openness in his heart. He wanted to share everything he had known with you as if it was his duty. And I was welcome to hearing all of it.

After a long time spent on the main floor going through a thorough lecture on Ohio Valley history, I recall going through some dark corridors to get to the basement of the former bank and him turning on the lights of the large area dedicated to East Liverpool High School sports. I had heard about the size of the collection before but it was so much more than one could process.

There were old programs. There were shoes from old players. Jerseys on the wall. A table of old programs. Film canisters of games going back decades.

At one point, I thought to myself, “There is no way this is not the most complete high school football collection of one team in the country.”

Then we wandered back into a vault and that thought was hammered home. There, in front of us, were boxes and boxes of Digger’s hand-written logs of East Liverpool football games from long before I was born. These were so detailed in scope that there would be entries regarding how much fuel cost or what restaurant he ate at along the way.

Of course those notes didn’t just sit there. He used them to compile the enormous East Liverpool football history tomes, “We Are The Potters” and “Blue & White Forever.”

As he opened boxes and showed me various entries, there was a sense of melancholy in that moment. He turned to me and said “I don’t know what’s going to happen to all of this stuff when I’m gone.” As a longtime funeral director he was very aware of mortality and the time he had left. I certainly didn’t have any answers but I think deep down if there was one thing he would want his friends, family and the East Liverpool community he so dearly cared about to do was to carry on his work.

I also realize that also might be impossible. Digger was one of a kind. He tackled his projects with passion and pride. He could be relentless too.

I remember talking to him about the East Liverpool football team playing NFL stars Travis and Jason Kelce’s Cleveland Heights in 2003 and 2004. He was set on getting Travis Kelce’s agent on the phone during Super Bowl week to get an answer about Travis’ level of participation in the game as a freshman. I think at one point he told me he was trying to get Donna Kelce, the mother of the brothers, on the phone too. Of course, when no one from those camps called him back, he was a little let down.

Frank had contacts all over the place, so pulling that off was not out of the question. He helped me out getting a few interviews in his final years and these would always be prefaced by a complete breakdown of the person’s past and a complete overview of the interview subjects personalities and unique quirks. He would really take you behind the curtain too because I do believe the truth and character (flaws and all) was important to him.

Dawson learned his writing trade via a sports writer at Baldwin-Wallace College and in the ’50s and later in the Navy. I could tell by talking to him he had a certain affinity for those working in print media and loved when I called him asking about some obscure Potter trivia or record from a long time ago.

During those calls you would never fail to get an update on how his beloved wife Gretchen was doing or what she was doing at that very moment. He’d also love to talk about his grandchildren, relatives, grandchildren of old coworkers and any youngster with roots or connections to East Liverpool. Sometimes even when they were doing something remarkable, his humble nature would say ‘Don’t put that in the paper’ out of respect for a young adult who he knew might not want the added attention.

Frank’s impact on East Liverpool will no doubt be everlasting. It would probably take a few more books to categorize everything he did in his life and everything he did for the city and its people. I’m sure the tributes will pour in across social media and at his service. I’m also sure Frank would be tickled if a few personal tributes made their way to The Review, too.

The last time I saw him was at East Liverpool’s home playoff game against West Holmes on Nov. 8. We had talked on the phone the previous two weeks and he was particularly excited about this group of young men led by coach Paul Cusick. Not getting around like he used to, he went to great lengths to work out the logistics to traveling to Columbus East the week before.

Having started going to Potter games in 1945, Dawson’s last game at Patterson Field probably was like a lot of them. Granted he was seated on the visitor’s sideline in the handicap section with his wife at his side, but he wandered on the field before the game and met with seemingly anybody he could talk to. He even had envelopes personally addressed to people he knew he would see at the game. There were a few close calls as he walked a little too near to the Potters who were warming up but he was very much in his element.

The Potters lost that day, but I could tell he was very happy he didn’t have to go on the road again that week.

Maybe it was a little miracle after all that the Potters became the first and only team in Ohio high school football team to host a game as a 12th seed.

It put Frank front and center with the community and team he adored one last time.