Ohio Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance records

The Ohio Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (OAHPERD) was formed on March 30, 1895. First dubbed the Ohio Physical Education Association (OPEA), the organization was the first state-wide physical education association created in the country. The birth of the OPEA was a result of H.R. 457, passed on 13 April 1892, wherein the bill made physical culture in schools compulsory. Ohio was also the first state to pass a physical education law. However, three years after its creation, the OPEA disbanded due to the difficulty for a state-wide association to meet regularly.

Though the association was disbanded, there was still continual interest in physical education standards in schools. Owing mostly to the deplorable physical condition of raw recruits upon entering the World War I United States Army, many citizens sought to reform the OPEA. Groups such as the National Physical Education Service, Ohio Collegiate Physical Education Society, and the American Legion all played a role in the passing of the Sullivan-McCreary Bill in 1923. The bill called for mandatory physical education in all schools across the state.

Following the Sullivan-McCreary Bill, the State of Ohio hired Dr. Clifford Brownell as the Supervisor of Physical Education. In 1929, with the efforts of Dr. Brownell, the OPEA was reinstated as the School Health and Physical Education Association of Ohio (SHPHAO). World War II initiated an interest in funding the SHPHAO as the federal government feared a repeat of what occurred during WWI. Physical educators throughout the state organized fitness programs, and worked closely with civilian defense programs. in 1942, the U.S. Department of Education assumed control of the fitness programs.

On 12 February 1944, The SHPHAO was renamed Ohio Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (OAHPER). Due to funding by the Kellogg Foundation, physical education made great leaps in the 1940s: establishing health instructions in Ohio schools, and creating workshops at Ohio State University to train teachers.

The Student Organization Committee, the OAHPER's first student group within the association, was founded in February 1959. Formed to study and develop more active participation of students in OAHPER, the Student Organization Committee also attempted to form student representation in the Representative Assembly, which was passed in 1960. Aside from allowing students their own division within the OAHPER, girls' and women's sports was also granted full and permanent status as a division in the association.

The 1960s marked a period where OAHPER took on a larger role within the state. In January 1960, OAHPER president Chalmer Hixson sent out a letter of invitation to all teach-training institutions throughout Ohio. Hixson proposed all leaders meet at the Ohio State University on February 19, 1960 to discuss normalizing physical education teaching standards. Throughout the next several years, that committee met to discuss all angles of physical education in Ohio. On February 20, 1966, the committee completed its the "Green Meadows Report," and sent it to the Ohio State Department of Education for consideration of revised standards. Other states adopted the recommendations in this report for their own physical education standards. From the report came two handbooks that were used by educators decades: Evaluative Criteria for Health Education , and Evaluative Criteria for Physical Education .

The Dance Division of the OAHPER had been part of the association since the early 1960s. In December 1979, the OAHPER elevated dance division to a higher status within the association. This effected another name change: Ohio Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

As of 2009, the organization's main role is physical education is to suggest curriculum and exercises for schools across the state.