Harrisville remembers Mayor Gary Hughes
HARRISVILLE — For decades, the driving force and familiar face behind the borough’s famed Ice Cream Factory, which is the unofficial name for Hughes Penn Gold Ice Cream shop on South Main Street, was Gary Hughes — mayor of Harrisville.
After his sudden death Saturday, a vigil in the community park Tuesday evening, June 4, brought dozens of locals from Harrisville and nearby towns together to share their memories of the late mayor.
Hughes, 72, was remembered not only for doling out generous scoops of ice cream to children and adults alike free of charge — and jokingly telling customers who insisted on paying that they were threatening his shop’s nonprofit status — but for his involvement in projects across Harrisville, Slippery Rock, Marion Township, Boyers and Grove City, and his connections to the residents he served.
He had served ice cream to some community members since they were in kindergarten. Others remembered the parlor’s older days, when it was Hughes’ grandfather serving up ice cream cones.
Hughes was Harrisville’s ice cream man, everyone seemed to agree on Tuesday, but in their stories he was also a neighbor, fellow churchgoer, volunteer, husband and father.
Residents recalled how Hughes would take time out of his day to personally clean and paint the community park, and personally invested in or volunteered for communitywide projects. Residents talked about times that Hughes had visited them when they were ill or homebound, driven ice cream to their child’s school or been their bus driver.
Butler County Commissioner Kevin Boozel recalled going for ice cream at Hughes’ shop when he was 5 years old. On road trips, making a detour for a frozen treat at the Ice Cream Factory, or “The Gut,” has become a mandatory stop ever since.
Boozel also shared that Hughes officiated the weddings of his two sons.
“My dad would actually say it’s anti-American to go through Harrisville and not stop and get an ice cream,” Harrisville resident Dave Smith said to chuckles around the pavilion.
“Wasn’t it simpler back then?” Smith said. “When the biggest joy of your day or week was an ice cream cone at the Ice Cream Factory?”
Years later, when his parents lost the ability to walk, Smith said Hughes’ wife, Mary Ann, would bring them their ice cream. Hughes would not charge them.
Mary Ann Hughes, Hughes’ two children, their spouses and the late mayor’s 6-year-old grandson, Jackson, also attended the vigil.
Hughes’ daughter, Nicole Hughes-Shaffer, remembered helping her father in the ice cream shop as a child, and going for dessert together when they would close up shop. Her husband, Matt, recalled his firm handshake, work ethic and care for “the little things in life.” Hughes’ daughter-in-law, Megan Hughes, expressed his gift for being an empathetic listener.
“He went above and beyond to make sure this town was spic and span for every event, and he took so much pride in that,” said Hughes’ son Jacob, a welding teacher at Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School.
“I think about just how to carry on that legacy, and there’s a lot of things up in the air right now,” Jacob Hughes said. “Do I want to take over the store? Do I ever want to be the mayor of a town? I don’t know. I feel like right now, being a teacher, that is one avenue I can carry on his legacy.”
The vigil was led by Michelle Dillaman Marlowe, a friend of Hughes’ and a fellow Rotarian, and it was followed by an opportunity for community members to share memories of Hughes. His wife, Mary Ann, shared that Marlowe has known Hughes since the ’70s, when she worked as a server at Perkins in Grove City. Like many others, Marlowe said she frequented the ice cream shop as a regular. The shop was where her son held his first job.
After Hughes’ death, Marlowe said she had begun writing him a letter.
“I will miss the smiles, the conversation while I waited at the ice cream counter,” Marlowe said. “I will smile every time I pass the Penn Gold sign on Route 8, because your face is the vision that’s associated with it.”
At the vigil, each person received a sticker of an ice cream scoop, which Marlowe explained was an illustrated reminder of Hughes’ presence in Harrisville and in the lives of the town’s residents.
Afterward, residents sang “Amazing Grace.” Following more stories, they held up lit candles in memory of the mayor.
“I want you to sing and I want you to sing loud, because I want it so loud that Gary hears it today,” Marlowe said.
