New home for Ohio man's pencil sharpener 'museum'

[May 17, 2011]  LOGAN, Ohio (AP) -- Tourism officials have made a point of displaying the hundreds of pencil sharpeners collected by an Ohio minister who died last summer.

The Rev. Paul Johnson had kept his collection in a small shed he called his museum, outside his home in Carbon Hill in southeast Ohio. A new home for his more than 3,400 sharpeners was dedicated Friday inside a regional welcome center.

The Logan Daily News reports Johnson started collecting after his wife gave him a few pencil sharpeners as a gift in the late 1980s. He kept them organized in categories, including cats, Christmas and Disneyland. The oldest is 105 years old.

An Ohio Senate proclamation calls the new display "a fitting tribute" to Johnson, a World War II veteran.

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Information from: Logan Daily News, http://www.logandaily.com/

[Associated Press]

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