Photos Provided A military honoree joins St. Clairsville native Leo Welsh on ice has he sings the National Anthem at a Columbus Blue Jackets home game.

Welsh spent the past 22 years singing the national anthem at Nationwide Arena at Columbus Bluejackets home games.

COLUMBUS — St. Clairsville native Leo Welsh recently celebrated 22 years as the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team’s national anthem singer.

The 1997 St. Clairsville High School graduate said that his wife Lisa Welsh originally convinced him to audition after hearing about a radio contest where the Blue Jackets were looking for a new voice.

“The first 50 people to email in got an on-ice audition, and she thought I’d be interested because she knows that I love sports and that I love to sing,” Welsh said. “I got one of the spots, and they had us do the preseason games that year, and had us go to a recording studio to make our versions so they could have fans go online and vote on who they wanted to be. That’s how I got the job.”

Welsh has an extensive musical background, studying music at Ohio University with the goal of being an opera singer. His senior year in college, he was approached by conductor Bill Boggs about his plans after graduating. Welsh said he wasn’t sure what those plans would be. Boggs asked him if he’d be interested in singing at Opera Columbus until he figured out his next steps, which led to Welsh and his wife moving to Columbus in 2002.

He and his wife met at a summer lifeguard job at the aquatic center at Ohio University.

“She was my boss then and she’s still my boss, so it’s still working out,” Welsh joked.

He said that he ended up working for Boggs for several years.

“It was not a full-time position by any stretch of the imagination,” Welsh said. They’d do a couple of shows a year, so during that time, I was waiting tables in restaurants and was a section leader at a church.

“That’s how I met Tom Stewart who invited me to come work for him in his nursing home,” he continued.

Welsh told Stewart that he didn’t know anything about nursing homes.

“He said, ‘Neither did I until I bought one.’ So I came to work for him and started working for Tom in 2003,” Welsh said.

Now, Welsh is a nursing home administrator.

“He taught me a lot and then helped me get my nursing home administrator’s license. And I’ve been doing that ever since,” he said.

Although singing the national anthem isn’t a full time job, Welsh is incredibly passionate about it.

“There’ve been a lot of great nights in my time there. I’ve met a lot of amazing people,” Welsh said. “We have a military honoree on the ice with me almost every night.”

He added that the tradition of adding a different military honoree started in 2008.

“Some nights I’ll have active military on the ice with me and it’s people that are my age and I just think how brave they are and they’re standing there right next to me and how honored I am,” he said. “And then, sometimes, I’ll have a World War II veteran on the ice with me, and that’s just amazing too.”

He added that he’s met many famous athletes during his time as the national anthem singer.

“I met Jack Nicklaus and Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Jackets now have some sort of promotion with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so last year I met (former Cincinnati Bengals offensive lineman) Anthony Munoz. (Former heavyweight boxing champion) Buster Douglas comes to a lot of the Jackets games,” he said. “He’s really nice. And he’s a giant person, so thank God he’s nice.”

Welsh said it has been a humbling and flattering experience to get to be the Blue Jackets’ national anthem singer for the past 22 years.

“I’m just really lucky to get to do it and glad I’m still able to do it,” he said. “There’s this funny thing, like a rumor that goes around every year that I’m retiring. I have no plans on stopping doing this until they tell me to stop coming,”

He then joked that whoever starts the rumor each year is probably someone who’s gunning for his job.

Welsh said that he’s only had to call off singing the national anthem once in his 22 years.

“Knock on wood, but I don’t really get sick,” he said.

To ensure that nothing gets in the way of him being able to perform his duties, whenever the hockey season’s schedule gets released in July, he makes sure to add it to his personal calendar to make sure he’s in Nationwide Arena on those nights, no matter what.

Despite his rigorous schedule, Welsh still makes time to return to St. Clairsville to visit his family.

His mother Cassie Welsh, father Michael Welsh, sister Katie Steele and brother-in-law Brian Steele are all still St. Clairsville residents.