Inside Pitch

Many of the nearly 500 Ohio delegates, alternates and guests were on the floor of the Tampa Bay Times Forum Tuesday night wearing special "Buckeye Badges,'' hand-made by Fran DeWine, the wife of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Fran DeWine has painstakingly made the hundreds of badges for each of the last six Republican conventions.

They feature real buckeye nuts that come from the trees on the DeWine family farm near Cedarville.

"It's a lot of work, drilling through all those buckeyes,'' her husband said. "They're tough nuts."

Many of the nearly 500 Ohio delegates, alternates and guests were on the floor of the Tampa Bay Times Forum Tuesday night wearing special "Buckeye Badges,'' hand-made by Fran DeWine, the wife of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Fran DeWine has painstakingly made the hundreds of badges for each of the last six Republican conventions.

They feature real buckeye nuts that come from the trees on the DeWine family farm near Cedarville.

"It's a lot of work, drilling through all those buckeyes,'' her husband said. "They're tough nuts."

Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus, of New Richmond in Clermont County, has been involved in Republican politics for 20 year, but this week's Republican National Convention in Tampa is not what he expected, with a tropical storm, canceled sessions and tornado warnings.

But, then again, he didn't know quite what to expect.

"This is all new to me,'' said Niehaus, before the Ohio delegation breakfast at the Mainsail Suites Hotel and Conference Center in Tampa.