Vindicator file photo / December 27,  1957 | Joseph M. LeLauro, an art professor at Marymount College in Detroit, worked on an 11-foot plaster statue of St. Columba 65 years ago. The statue would subsequently be carved from Mankato stone from a Minnesota quarry and be installed in front of the St. Columba Cathedral, which was under construction in Youngstown.
 
December 26
 
1997: Canfield Mayor-elect Scott Hunter asks outgoing Mayor Francis "Spike" McLaughlin to swear him in. He says the request is a sign of his respect for McLaughlin, who held the position for 26 years. 
 
Ohio Gov. George Voinovich says Ohio's economic outlook is bleak unless the state's urban school districts do a better job of producing skilled graduates. 
 
With term limits scheduled to go into effect in 2000, 17 of the state Senate's 33 members have won or are facing their final re-election campaign.  
 
1982: It was anything but a white Christmas in Youngstown as temperatures reached a record high of 66 degrees. New bicycles, footballs, and basketballs got a workout. 
 
Mahoning County's first Christmas Day baby of 1982 was Nicholas Hovanic, son of Kenneth and Catherine Hovanic of Youngstown, born at St. Elizabeth Hospital at 4:23 a.m.  
 
Delmar Tolson, 63, dies in a fire that caused $1.5 million in damage to the Pepper Tree Apartments on Robbins Avenue in Niles. Two other people were hospitalized. 
 
1972: John Budzko, 77, of New Castle, Pa., is bludgeoned to death during a robbery at his home. 
 
There's high local interest in North Carolina State's game against West Virginia in the Peach Bowl. N.C. State Head Coach Lou Holtz is a former East Liverpool resident, and one of his top aides is Bo Rein, who starred at Niles McKinley High and Ohio State. 
 
Installation of a 45-stop Holloway pipe organ has been completed at Central Christian Church in Warren, a gift from Mrs. Mabel Stroud. 
 
1947: Niles police respond to reports of a bear wandering the streets by arming themselves with high-powered rifles and tracking footprints in the snow to a shed on Third Street, where they found -- a pony.
 
The large deer population is becoming a menace to both air and highway traffic at Youngstown Municipal Airport. A Christmas Day Capitol Airlines flight was forced to use a different runway after a herd of deer took over the scheduled runway. 
 
Sharon Steel Corp. buys a 65-oven coke by-products plant at Fairmont, W. Va., from Standard Oil Co.