I'm still a farmer at heart.”

Bob Rotty

Bob Rotty still remembers the first time someone asked him to take on a township role. He was young, unsure, and not especially interested in stepping forward.
“Well, I'm going to go back to probably 1966 maybe,” Rotty recalled in a recent conversation about his long connection to Nininger Township government.
That moment marked the beginning of what would become more than six decades of involvement with the township and roughly half a century of service on the township board, including many years as chairman. Now, at nearly 88 years old, Rotty has stepped away from his position, closing one of the longest public service chapters in the township’s recent history.
Rotty’s connection to local government began even before he formally joined the board. His father served on the township board, and as a teenager he attended meetings simply to see how things worked. At one early annual meeting, he was asked if he wanted to serve as moderator.
“I said, Oh, hell no. I didn't have a clue what went on,” Rotty said.
The role paid five dollars. He declined that year, then reconsidered the next time the opportunity came around.
“So, the next year, I went down there again, and they asked me if I wanted to be moderator, I said, Sure. And I got five dollars; I was a happy camper.”
Not long after, he took on his first hands-on township job, mowing ditches along township roads as a teenager. He borrowed his father’s tractor and went to work.
“At that time, I got $6.50 an hour. That included the tractor, the gas, the mower, my help, and any repairs,” he said.
That early job turned into decades of seasonal work maintaining township rights of way. In fact, Rotty kept mowing ditches for several years, until a close call convinced him it was time to stop.
He recalled striking a propane tank hidden in a ditch while mowing along a hill.
“I sliced about a three-inch cut in the side of that tank. And that tank was full, and that came up over the tractor,” he said. “One spark and it could have blew the whole works up.”
That night, he made a decision.
“I says, I'm done. I'm not cutting weeds anymore.”
By then, he was already serving on the township board, a role he joined after several years on the planning commission. A board member had moved away, creating an opening. Rotty was asked to step in.
“I did. And I had that up till a month ago,” he said.
Looking back across decades of meetings, road projects, and permit decisions, Rotty points to the construction of the current town hall as one of the accomplishments he is most proud of.
“Well, I guess we got a new town hall probably 25, 26 years ago, somewhere in there. That was the kind of a major deal,” he said.
Other changes over the years were more complicated. Annexation of township land into nearby city limits stood out as one example he viewed less favorably.
“The city would like to have what we got,” he said. “Once a house is built on it, the land is, I'll say, destroyed as far as agriculture goes.”
Preserving farmland remained a consistent priority throughout his time in office. Raised on a farm and still living just across the road from where he grew up, Rotty said agriculture shaped both his life and his outlook on township planning decisions.
“If it wasn't for agriculture, it'd be more development,” he said. “More development is not what this township wants, in my opinion.”
Rotty also witnessed major changes in how township government operates. Early in his career, meetings were short and informal.
“When I first started meetings, there was no agenda,” he said. “We just took it as people come in.”
Those meetings often wrapped up quickly.
“Sometimes a half hour was all it would take,” he said.
Today, meetings can stretch two hours or more.
“And we probably don't accomplish much more,” he added.
Despite the added structure and complexity, Rotty said relationships among board members and residents once made the work especially enjoyable.
“Say, 45 years ago, it was a lot simpler, a lot more fun,” he said. “You kind of made fun out of the job, right? You made it worthwhile.”
In more recent years, he began to feel it was time to step aside.
“The last year, it was getting to me asking myself, ‘what am I doing here?’,” he said. “Time to hang it up.”
As chairman, Rotty spent much of his time overseeing township roads, one of the board’s central responsibilities. Maintaining gravel and blacktop roads required steady coordination with contractors and long-term planning.
“You got a good contractor. He knows what he's doing. Give him the job to do. You let him do it, and they're happy and we're happy,” he said.
He also worked closely with the planning commission on building permit decisions, which often came before the board for final approval.
Outside of government service, Rotty’s ties to the township run deep through family. He and his wife raised nine children, most of whom still live nearby.
“Five of them here within a half a mile,” he said.
The family has grown to include 23 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. Seeing relatives regularly remains one of the rewards of staying rooted in the same place for nearly a lifetime.
“Pretty much every day, I get to see grandkids, get to see family members,” he said. “That's kind of what it's about.”
Even in retirement, Rotty does not plan to stray far from the routines that shaped his life. He still checks crops and drives around the farm in his utility vehicle.
“I still like to drive around on the farm,” he said. “I'm still a farmer at heart.”
As for what comes next, he is taking a simple approach.
“I kind of do what I want, take each day at a time.”
After decades of public service, thousands of meetings, and a lifetime spent working on the same stretch of land, Rotty leaves behind a record defined less by headline moments and more by steady commitment to the township he has called home all his life.