Vinton County graduate, former Wellston director dies after cancer battle

Wellston lost one of the people who kept its day-to-day public services moving when Stacy L. Camp died Thursday morning, May 21, after a battle with glioblastoma. For Vinton County readers, the loss reaches back to a familiar name from the Class of 1993, a native son whose career carried him from school in Vinton County to the U.S. Marine Corps and later into a key city post in neighboring Jackson County.

Camp had served as Wellston’s Service/Safety Director, the position that heads the Department of Public Service and Safety and oversees police, fire, street work and water infrastructure. He officially took the job on May 8, 2023, and served in the role until stepping down on March 18, 2025, because of health reasons. Mayor Anthony Brenner later named David Walton as his successor, effective May 1, 2025.

Before entering city government, Camp spent 27 years at Malone Warehouse Tire in Athens. That long stretch of work, followed by municipal service in Wellston, marked a public career that moved through the practical needs of the region rather than the spotlight. Brenner described him as a servant who carried strength, integrity and commitment into the office, and the city lowered the flags at the Wellston City Building in his honor.

Camp’s life also stayed rooted in the institutions that shape small-town Southern Ohio. He was a member of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Wellston, served as quartermaster with VFW Post 9092 in Wellston and belonged to VFW Post 8402 in Jackson. Born April 19, 1974, in Bowling Green, he was survived by his wife, Melissa D. Radcliff Camp, and daughters Madison E. Camp and Allison P. Camp.

Burial with military honors was planned at Radcliff Cemetery. For the communities that knew him from Vinton County to Wellston and Jackson, Camp’s death closes the story of a Marine, a public official and a neighbor whose work sat at the center of local service and safety operations.