Dr. Eugene John Valentine passed away on February 15, 2026, at the Southern Ohio Medical Center Hospice Center in Portsmouth, OH. He was born on May 12, 1940, in Detroit, MI, the son of Ruth Emma Townsend and Eugene John Valentine, Sr.
He is survived by his wife of forty years, Anne Ellen Nickerson; his brother and sister-in-law, Fred Townsend Valentine and Carol Valentine; two sons, Daniel Valentine and Michael Valentine; a niece and nephew, Catherine Valentine and Mark Valentine; and five grandchildren, Legend Valentine, Ty Lewis, Tyreke Lewis, Dayla Valentine, and Malakyii Russell.
In 1985, John and Anne welcomed to their home Kuba Zielinski, the son of dear friends in Poland. He remains part of their American family to this day.
After graduating from Harvard University in 1962 (A.B. Degree in Philosophy and Government), John taught English and rowing at a high school in Germany for one year and then worked briefly with the Office of Economic Opportunity in Clay County, KY, teaching English and Mathematics to educationally disadvantaged youth. Wanting to learn why they did not regularly attend school, and to understand the social structure, at times he lived with them in the absence of material conditions associated with most U.S. families. To experience as much as possible about what a miner and his family dealt with, he learned the basics of how to mine coal in a “dog hole” mine.
In 1964, he volunteered to join the U.S. Marine Corps. He was wounded in Vietnam and spent 4 months in hospital recovering. He returned to active duty, was made Training Officer for the Counter Guerrilla Warfare Center, and was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain in 1967.
He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Philosophy from Michigan State University in 1975. Over the years, he taught in a variety of settings, including Dickinson College and St. Lawrence University.
In 1990, he was hired by Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH, in a dual appointment as Community Involvement Course Coordinator and as a teacher of standard philosophy classes. The Community Involvement Course was required of all 4-year graduates. He designed the course so that the students not only would have the experience of helping the community in some way but also would reflect and write about it from a philosophical point of view.
John was asked to join the Board of the Fourteenth Street Community Center, a center serving the youth and adults of Portsmouth’s inner city. He was on the Board for a number of years, including participating in the successful efforts to secure funding for the Center’s new $ 1.2 million building.
For John, possibly the best parts of teaching were being in the classroom and the face-to-face
interaction with students there. The many courses he taught included Ethics in Public and Private Life, Philosophy of Sport, and Social and Political Philosophy. In conjunction with a course on East Asian Philosophy, he took students to China and Japan. His students and friends loved to discuss with him the state of affairs in our town, state, country, and the world in general, as well as possible solutions to problems. A wide variety of friends treasured John as a kind person, a “true servant to others,” who would think first about the needs of others rather than his own. One friend noted that it was “wonderful to have a conversation with John because he was more interested in learning from you than in making his own points.”
John retired from Shawnee State University as a Professor of Philosophy in 2012. Surely, his life and his work were blessings to his family and to so many others.
A Memorial Service with Facebook Live Stream will be held at a later date under the direction of the Ralph F. Scott Funeral Home in Portsmouth.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests consideration of donations in John’s memory to the Fourteenth Street Community Center, 1222-14th St., Portsmouth, OH 45662, or to a charity of your choice.
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