Jack Craig Share

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Suc­cess­ful busi­ness own­er and civic ser­vant, Jack Craig, is a life­long res­i­dent of Mar­i­on. Born on Novem­ber 6^th, 1930, Craig was raised in Mar­i­on, and grad­u­at­ed from Mar­i­on High School. He joined the U.S. Navy and was sta­tioned in Cal­i­for­nia and Hawaii, serv­ing both active-duty and reserve for a total of 7 years of mil­i­tary service.

After mov­ing back to Mar­i­on, he met his wife, and was inspired to invest in his own busi­ness while stay­ing loy­al to his home­town and fam­i­ly. With a gen­er­ous busi­ness loan, he became the own­er of Milton’s Depart­ment Store, down­town, Mar­i­on. In his 23 years of own­er­ship, he served as pres­i­dent of the Indi­ana Retail Asso­ci­a­tion and achieved an Out­stand­ing Retail­er Award through the association.

Craig was an avid phil­an­thropist hav­ing served with numer­ous non­prof­its includ­ing the Unit­ed Way of Grant Coun­ty (then called the Unit­ed Fund of Grant Coun­ty), Riverview Ele­men­tary School as com­mis­sion­er, and the Mar­i­on-Grant Coun­ty Cham­ber of Com­merce includ­ing the Junior Cham­ber (or Jaycees).

Craig recalled answer­ing phone calls through the Cham­ber dur­ing a time of civ­il unrest. He rec­ol­lect­ed help­ing a trou­bled black female res­i­dent, who had claimed her life was being threat­ened, by vol­un­teer­ing to per­son­al­ly come to her home to help her feel safe.

Craig was rec­og­nized by var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions for his dis­tin­guished ser­vice, but when asked what his great­est accom­plish­ment was, he sim­ply stat­ed he ​“enjoyed civic work to help his fel­low man.”

Con­sid­er­ing his vast com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, Craig expressed the most pas­sion for help­ing the local Unit­ed Way. Craig stat­ed, ​“That’s prob­a­bly the most impor­tant thing. The ​‘Unit­ed Fund’ monies stay in Grant County.”

Craig is also a true patri­ot. He received the ​“Proud­ly We Hail” award in 1987 from the Mar­i­on Exchange Club for his lead­er­ship through exam­ple of prop­er­ly and proud­ly dis­play­ing the Amer­i­can flag in front of his home. To this day, he dis­plays loy­al patriotism.

Craig and his late wife, Opal, have three chil­dren and sev­er­al grand­chil­dren. Many of his fam­i­ly mem­bers reside locally.