Years Ago | February 14th

Vindicator file photo / Feb. 14, 1996 | Radio station WBBG celebrated Valentine's Day 1996 with an on-air wedding. Rick Mitchell places a wedding ring on the finger of Jean Cracium while disc jockey Johnny B holds the microphone and Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Patrick Kerrigan presides.
February 14
1995: General Motors Corp announces the recall of 34,000 Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cavaliers and Pontiac Sunfires to inspect a suspension part that might have missing welds that would cause the loss of steering if it fails.
In a move that could foretell General Motors' plan to spin off its parts subsidiaries, GM renames the divisions, which include Packard Electric, Delco and Saginaw, "Delphi."
Ernest Hawkins, a Youngstown schools bus driver, is honored for his quick thinking in pulling his bus loaded with children out of the path of a car containing two murder suspects who were being chased by police in McGuffey Road.
1980: Robert DeCerbo, 36, who survived a car bombing in October 1968, is killed when two shotgun blasts were fired through the living room window of his home on New Buffalo Road in Beaver Township while he was watching television.
Because of the high level of unemployment, the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services is increasing the ceiling on jobless benefits from 26 weeks to 39 weeks.
Some 300 members of eight Rotary Clubs meet at the Embassy Room in Boardman to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Rotary International. Youngstown, the area's "mother club" was founded in 1915; just ten years after Paul Harris founded the first club in Chicago.
1970: Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, tells 2,000 people at Powers Auditorium in downtown Youngstown that the three "violent enemies" of public health and safety are the automobile industry, food processors and environmental polluters.
The Youngstown Hospital Association plans to expand in the '70s in anticipation that people who are living longer and have higher incomes will demand more services.
Spec. 4 John Kos of Canfield is killed by enemy fire in Vietnam while on a combat operation. He was attached to the 199th Infantry Brigade.
1945: First Lt. Ernest M. Hixon, 27, of Meadowbrook Ave., Youngstown is reported killed when his Liberator bomber crashed at Biak Island in the Dutch New Guinea area.
Winter weather that has gripped the district for two months claims another life. Charles Greenfield, 50, dies of a heart attack while pushing his car in deep snow on Sherwood Avenue.
Republic Steel, Thomas Steel and Brainard Steel may be forced to curtail operations as a result of a dam breaking at Copperweld Steel and flooding the Mahoning River with acid-laden water.