COLUMBIAVILLE — This Columbiaville neighbor is known around town as the Placemat Guy. And although he does have a lot of experience as a columnist, LA View hasn’t yet considered running Placemat Guy alongside the Fat Guy — too much competition.

Having recently distributed his 10-millionth placemat, Ric Marion has come a long way from his days at Sharpsville School in Brown City. At only age 55 now, he’s proud to say he attended one of the last functioning Michigan one-room schoolhouses.

“I went to a one-room schoolhouse with nine grades and an outhouse,” Marion explains. Oddly enough, when he began the “town school” in the eighth grade, he was ahead because he knew math, while the other students didn’t. “New math,” explains Marion.

His diverse resume makes for interesting reading. “I’ve been thrown out of General Motors four times. They’d hire me for awhile then say, ‘Go away,’ and hire me again and then say, ‘Go away,’ again,” Marion says. On his final trip back into General Motors, they told him, “We’ll call you,” rather than “go away,” he chuckles.

Marion was the former associate editor of Thumb Farm News before becoming a columnist. With that writing experience under his belt, he then began writing in Lapeer Plus, a subsidiary of the Flint Journal.

“Then I wrote a column for the Flint Journal,” says Marion. “It was called ‘Behind the Plow,’ because I grew up on a farm.”

Along the way he has coordinated the Parade of Homes for a few years, and produced Lapeer County Business, a Chamber of Commerce magazine.

He’s also been chairman of the Family Life committee for the past 18 years, involved in training teachers to educate youth in sexual education.

And he’s also a romance novelist, currently working to get his book snapped up by a New York publisher.

“It’s pure Nicholas Sparks,” says Marion of his book, which he feels might be why it hasn’t been published yet — a hard niche to crack for a male romance novelist.

Oh yes, and Marion has been chairman and vice-chairman of the Oregon Township Planning Commission, a member of the Lapeer United Vision securing growth and farmland preservation, scouting, 4-H, and was publisher and editor of Rob Trott’s Great Lakes Outdoors hunting and fishing newspaper.

But forever and foremost, this married father of four, with children ranging from 15 to 35, will be known as the Placemat Guy. Providing paper placemats to area restaurants has been his passion for the past 18 years.

And his business is just as much about the service he provides to communities around the county. “In the summertime, during Spring into Spring, Garden Days, North Branch Days, the Blueberry Festival and Lapeer Days, I offer a special placemat to every restaurant in Lapeer County that will take them,” says the enthusiastic entrepreneur. — Michelle L. Rasnick

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