Hite resigns 1st Ohio Senate District seat

Van Wert independent

COLUMBUS — Republican State Senator Cliff Hite unexpectedly tendered his resignation on Monday.

Hite, 63, represented Ohio’s 1st Senate District, which includes Van Wert County and several other northwest Ohio counties.

Hite’s resignation letter said he was planning on “focusing on my personal health and spending more time with family.”

“Senator Hite submitted his resignation to me on Monday evening, and I accepted it,” Senate President Larry Obhof said in a statement included in a number of Ohio publications. Republicans will be accepting applications prior to appointing a successor to Hite,

Hite gave no specific reason for his decision to resign in his letter.

Hite, a 1972 graduate of Findlay High School, earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary studies at the University of Kentucky in 1977, where he played on the football team. Hite first taught at Danville (Kentucky) High School and returned to his hometown in 1980, where he taught until 1983, when he was hired as a teacher and football coach at Bryan High School. After 13 years at Bryan, Hite returned to Findlay in 1996 and taught and coached there for a decade until he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2006.

After three terms in the Ohio House, Hite was appointed to the Ohio Senate in 2011 to replace Steve Buehrer, who was named director of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, and won election to Buehrer’s unexpired term in 2012. He was re-elected to a full term in 2014.

Prior to his resignation, Hite was chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and also had authored legislation seeking more reasonable setback restrictions for wind turbines.