21 WFMJ archives / June 7, 1959 | The familiar First Presbyterian Church sign remained intact at Wick Avenue and Wood Street 64 years ago, even though the old sanctuary had been demolished in the spring to make way for the construction of a new $818,000 edifice that would seat 650.
 
June 7
 
1998: East High School, a stalwart presence on Youngstown's East Side since 1926, is closing with the end of the school year. When it opened, the steel mills were booming, Youngstown had 170,000 residents, and the new school had students from 35 different ethnic groups. 
 
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding its outpatient services and says it will open clinics in Mercer and Lawrence counties in Western Pennsylvania. 
 
Mahoning County commissioners tell Sheriff Phil Chance that he must curb his overspending, which they say is attributable to poor management. 
 
1983: Chantail Greggs, the Vindicator's spelling bee champion, along with 136 other spellers in the 56th Scripps Howard spelling bee, meets President Ronald Reagan during a visit to the White House.
 
Mahoning County Sheriff James A. Traficant Jr. rests his defense in his bribery and tax evasion trial in Cleveland without calling himself a witness.
 
Helen Barillaire, 68, whose teaching career began in 1933, is retiring from Madison School after nearly half a century in education. 
 
1973: Warren police confiscate several mini-movie machines at Bantam Theater in the Austin Plaza in what Mayor Arthur Richards says is a crackdown on pornography in the city. 
 
A flagman, Donald M. Possage Jr., 33, of Lisbon, is struck and killed while directing traffic at a construction site on Route 45 north of Salem.
 
The wholesale price index jumped 2.1 percent in May, a massive increase equivalent to 25 percent a year. 
 
1948: Frank DeBartolo of Poland, assistant to the vice president of the Lombard Corp., returns from a business trip to India, which he says is the world's fastest-moving spot.
 
Some 50,000 bus riders in East Liverpool are hitching rides as a strike by AFL-affiliated bus drivers shuts down Valley Motor Transit Co. 
 
Campbell Police Chief John Putko, who led a raid that netted five slot machines and three track-time machines, says his town is closed to gamblers and will stay closed.