Butler comes home to wed

LIMA - Shawnee High School graduate and Ohio State basketball star Jamar Butler returned to town Saturday to get married.
Other than an Ohio State flag and carpet outside a red Hummer, and most of the Ohio State basketball team including now-NBA player Mike Conley Jr., there was no basketball theme. That was planned, said his mother, Nancy Butler.
"We tried not to do the basketball theme. More of a relaxed atmosphere and take him away from that," she said. "We didn't feel it was appropriate for a wedding."
Butler has been working hard at camps preparing for a possible career in the NBA. A normal wedding gives him a break from that grind, his mother said.
Butler wedded his girlfriend of one year, Ashley Milhoan, whom he met at a basketball open gym. She played basketball for Columbus State Community College. The wedding was held at Philippian Missionary Baptist Church, Nancy Butler said.
Butler still calls Lima home, but he probably never will live here again, his mother said. The wedding, with 600 guests, and the reception at Veterans Memorial Civic Center were held in Lima to accommodate all his friends and family, so many of whom are from Lima, Nancy Butler said.
Butler, who played four years at Ohio State and nearly won a national championship last year, is two classes from two degrees, one in African-American history and the other in sports management. He plans to return to school to finish his work after he finds out what his basketball future holds, his mother said.
Butler is living in Atlanta while at a basketball camp, but that is temporary, she said.
The past four years have been exciting and full of wonderful experiences, not just for Butler, but for his family, which shared the memories with him, his mother said.
"It flew by. It seems like yesterday we just dropped him off at college," she said.