But the significant difference wasn't that Mingo is black.

It was this: When the teacher leaped atop his desk, pointed to the children and challenged them to become governor someday, Mingo believed he could.

And Rick Mancini says he believed Mingo would.

This week marks the first full month for Mingo, 37, as Franklin County auditor. Chosen by the Republican Central Committee after Joe Testa retired, Mingo now runs a complicated office that values property, issues dog licenses, manages county payroll and checks store scales for accuracy.

To keep the job, he will have to win election next year in a county that has tipped Democratic.

"Yes, I will run hard," he told Republicans who chose him last month. "And I promise you will have dignified conduct. You will have servant leadership."

Though fairly new to politics, Mingo set his mind early on public service and pursued the necessary schooling and jobs. As for being governor, he said his dream simply was to serve in government, calling the auditor's office "a privilege, not a prize."

As a child, he devoured history books and is still a student of World War II and the Holocaust. He played toy soldiers on his bedroom floor, but his parents preached peace when they found a burned cross on their porch one morning when he was 8.

"My family had moved from a housing project to a middle-class, white suburb," said Mingo, the fourth of six children. "We endured hostility from the homeowners association, which met weekly to discuss how to move the Mingos out of the neighborhood.

"Our parents told us, 'You still need to love your neighbor.' And here's the funny thing: Our neighbors grew to love us."

In that house on 25th Street in Canton, the Mingos taught their children to serve God, their country and the Republican Party.

Ruth Mingo was a school-parent liaison. Her husband, also named Clarence Mingo, was a steelworker.

"Right after he started middle school," Mrs. Mingo said, "Clarence seemed to have a plan: He had a desire to serve his country. So I don't think any of this has surprised us."

Mingo joined the Army after high school in 1990. He recalls days as dark as night from the smoke of burning oil fields in Kuwait.

The summer he returned from war, he phoned his high-school sweetheart, Angela, at college. "I convinced her that it was inevitable that we should plan to spend the rest of our lives together," he said.

Married 17 years, the couple has two daughters, Annalise, 4, and Ava, 3.

A month after the wedding, Gulf War syndrome struck hard. Mingo struggled to walk and battled exhaustion, slurred speech and blackouts. Physical therapy and medications helped, though he still has occasional hand tremors.

And he's kept the slight limp that friend Staska Keefer calls "Clarence's swagger."

Keefer, a Democrat and supervising attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Columbus, met Mingo in 2000 "when we were both brand-new, baby attorneys."

"He was always looking out for the underdog," she said, recalling Mingo's later work as a court-appointed guardian ad litem to protect children in divorce and abuse cases. "There were instances where someone would get really angry. He always kept his cool under pressure. I think it was his military background."

Mingo said such calm is hard-won.

"I am absolutely convinced I would not have the life perspective I have today without the Persian Gulf war," he said. "I learned I could persevere during difficult circumstances. It gave me confidence."

He'll need that confidence, said William A. Anthony Jr., chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party, who vows to recapture an office Republicans have held for decades: "We're going to get somebody with some good name recognition."

Mingo made his first run for office last year against Maryellen O'Shaughnessy for Franklin County clerk of courts. He lost but learned, said county GOP Chairman Douglas J. Preisse.

Mingo impressed a party screening committee by "laying out a pretty detailed campaign plan" for keeping the auditor's office in the 2010 election, Preisse said. "He had a financial plan, and he had names and numbers on it, and it was real. He had learned how to put together a campaign team. And he had learned how big and complicated this county is."

County Treasurer Ed Leonard understands the challenges Mingo faces.

"We both had hard acts to follow," said Leonard, a Democrat who was appointed, then elected in 2008 to follow Richard Cordray, now attorney general. "And there are challenges to learning such a diverse office."

Leonard describes Mingo as "earnest. I think he is genuinely interested in understanding and finding ways to do a good job."

Mingo hasn't yet reached his potential, Mr. Mancini said: "Tell him I expect him to go higher. I expect him to be president."

bcarmen@dispatch.com