Many current residents may not be aware that we used to be able to renew drivers’ licenses and purchase license plates here in Yellow Springs where the Yellow Springs News now has its offices.
An article from the Dayton Daily News issue of January 5, 1971 describes the rather unusual setup.
FLUKES DON’T CARE
Republican or Democrat, It’s Still in the Family
By BRUCE ELLISON
Daily News Staff Writer
YELLOW SPRINGS — For more than 20 years, F. Faye Fluke and his wife, Edna, haven’t discussed politics. It’s the only way they can keep their jobs.
In 1950, when the Democrats captured the statehouse, Fluke [was] the man who sells license plates and issues drivers’ licenses. He’s a registered Democrat.
His wife, however, is a rock-ribbed Republican—and when the GOP took over in Columbus, it’s Mrs. Fluke who got the nod to sell license plates.
The two have alternated jobs for 20 years, and have survived, Mrs. Fluke says, only by not talking politics at all.
In the ordinary course of things, F. (for Franklin) Faye Fluke would return to the deputy registrar’s job when John Gilligan takes the governor’s office.
Fluke, however, has been ailing lately. He spent some time in the hospital, and over the holidays entered a nursing home.
So Yellow Springs Democrats, led by committeewoman Mrs. Berger Mayne, have decided to reappoint Mrs. Fluke to the post—even though she’s a Republican.
“Some of the Democrats thught we ought to give the job to one of the party,” Mrs. Mayne explained this week “but the Flukes have had it so long, and have done such a good job, in a convenient place, that I can’t see any reason to change, especially with Faye sick the way he is;.”
Mrs. Fluke is obviously pleased with the Democrats’ decision. “After the election people came in and asked me what I’d do,” she said: ”I figured I’d have to give it up, and really I would have if a Democrat wanted it, but I’m glad to be able to stay on.”
The cluttered deputy registrar’s office on Xenia Ave., this village’s main street, doesn’t have a picture of Gov. Rhodes on the wall, and, says Mrs. Fluke there won’t be one of Jack Gilligan, either.
“In 20 years we’ve never put up the governor’s picture,” Mrs. Fluke explains.
“No room,” she adds, pointing to the old license plates, papergback book exchange, 1958 calendar, notary public commissions and schedule of fees for licenses which covers the walls.
Mrs. Fluke says her job is more than just selling license plates. ‘I have a mailing list of about 300 people,” she says, “who want special initial plates. We get SS and ST numbers here, and people in Cincinnati, Columbus, Fostoria and other places write in for them.
“One company in Cincinnati, whose initials are SS, has been getting SS plates for its salesmen from me for years,” she added.”
Some people, though, Mrs. Fluke notes, are particular about numbers in another way. “They won’t take the same one twice.
“They say they don’t want people to be able to recognize their car or know too much about them—especially the police.”
