Lamborn relative to headline Carnation Festival luncheon

The Greater Alliance Carnation Festival will have a very special guest as keynote speaker for its Community Luncheon on Aug. 3.

Mike Lamborn, the great-great nephew of Levi Lamborn, will speak at the ticketed event on the first weekend of the annual Alliance festival.

Levi Lamborn is a crucial part of the history of the City of Alliance. A politician, physician and horticulturist, Levi Lamborn was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Alliance to set up his medical practice.

Lamborn liked to experiment with flowers – especially carnations. In fact, he’s credited with growing some of the first carnations in the United States.

After a career in medicine, he retired and decided to seek political office, first running in 1858 for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives. He then sought a seat in the Ohio Senate in 1874.

He ran again, this time in 1876, and lost in a bid for Ohio’s 17 ^th Congressional District seat in Washington to William McKinley. Before debates during the race, Lamborn gave McKinley scarlet carnations. When McKinley won the race, he adopted the scarlet carnation as a good luck token and wore them for the rest of his political career.

A few years after McKinley’s 1901 death, the scarlet carnation was declared Ohio’s state flower. This year marks the 120 ^th anniversary of that declaration.

Alliance City Schools Board of Education member Bill Koch, a self-proclaimed collector of all things Alliance, found a picture at his home and donated it to the Mabel Hartzell Historical Home, an act that helped located Mike Lamborn.

Mike Lamborn is from Lamborn Family Vineyards, located in California’s Napa Valley region. He and his family have operated a wine vineyard for four generations.

Tickets for the festival Community Luncheon are on sale now. Tickets are $15 and are available at CompuTek Computers, 703 S. Union Ave. in Alliance.

The luncheon will be 11:30 a.m. Aug. 3 at a new location this year – Alliance Area Senior Center, 602 W. Vine St.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Lamborn relative to headline Carnation Festival luncheon