Heimlich: Hut Two, Hut Three, Vote for me

UPDATE BELOW
Perhaps hoping to capitalize on the success of Colerain High's football team, Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich is hosting a Thursday night campaign function featuring popular Colerain football coach Kerry Coombs (left).

The event is from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Pebble Creek Golf Course Clubhouse, 9799 Prechtel Road, in Colerain Township. Heimlich, a Republican, is trying to hold on to his office, facing Democrat challenger David Pepper.

Coombs' Cardinals won the 2004 Ohio Division I football championship, the school's first state football title.

While he may not be active in politics, Coombs' relatives are.

Coombs' is the brother-in-law of assistant Hamilton County prosecutor Rick Gibson and son-in-law to Gibson's father, Harold Gibson, a retired bailiff for Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ruehlman.

Heimlich has known Coombs for years, Heimlich said, even speaking to the football team before games this year and in the past.

Perhaps juiciest of all, though, for Heimlich: His nemesis on the three-member board of commissioners is Democrat Todd Portune -- a proud graduate of Colerain High, who often attends Cardinals' football games.

UPDATE
Rick Gibson also is very familiar with Pepper.

Gibson was the assistant prosecutor who helped send to prison the two men convicted of kidnapping and robbing Pepper in a 2002 incident.

Michael Watkins and Mike Gray each were convicted of those and other charges stemming from a 2002 crime spree.

It included using a gun -- it later proved to be a BB gun -- to rob or try to rob two others as well as Pepper.

They confronted Pepper outside of his Mount Adams home in an Oct. 17, 2002, incident. They took $75 from Pepper's wallet and forced him to drive around with them as they used his ATM card to withdraw an additional $400.

Each was sentenced to eight years in prison by now-deceased Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Kraft.