Vindicator file photo / January 14,  1997 | Jason Clark, left, and Khaled Tabbara, senior members of the Fitch High speech and debate team, were hamming it up while rehearsing a version of Shakespeare’s ”Romeo and Juliet”  26 years ago.

January 11

1998: George M. McKelvey, who resigned as Mahoning County treasurer, is sworn in as mayor of Youngstown, and John Reardon is selected by Mahoning County Democratic precinct committeemen to fill out McKelvey's term. 

A reduction of overtime at the General Motors Lordstown complex, coupled with a lack of construction work at the plant, resulted in less income tax revenue for Lordstown Village than had been expected. The GM complex produces about 90 percent of the income tax revenue, which was $3.52 million in 1997.

The building that housed Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.'s metallurgical laboratories for more than half a century falls to the wrecking ball. 

1983: After Michael Del Bane, the only Democrat on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, follows his two Republican colleagues by submitting his resignation to Gov. Richard Celeste, Celeste responds by appointing Del Bane chairman of the PUCO. 

Sgt. Ronald S. Shimko, 24, a 1976 graduate of Chaney High School, is named the first "Marine of the Year" at the U.S. Marine Corps Development and Education Command at Quantico, Va. 

William S. Leonelli  Jr., 40, of Crestwood Drive, Union Township, Pa., dies in a fire in his garage that was set off by the fumes from a pickup truck's gas tank reaching a lighted kerosene heater. 

1973: Youngstown City Council adopts a $1 head tax for passengers boarding flights at the Youngstown Municipal Airport. 

Police and Ohio Bell Telephone Co. officials are checking all underground cable rooms in Youngstown after five sticks of dynamite were found in a cable room under Belmont Avenue.

Thieves who hid in a Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn took two diamond-encrusted gold crowns valued at $350,000 from a shrine. The crowns had been stolen 20 years earlier but miraculously reappeared after a parishioner, mobster Carlo Gambino, expressed his displeasure. 

1948: A Farrell motorist who ignored four parking tickets he received in Youngstown is arrested during a visit to the city and fined $50 by Municipal Court Judge Robert B. Nevin. 

Tom, John, and Tom Fleaka Jr. open the new Emerald Inn at 2719 Market Street, near Indianola.

An overflow crowd of 3,500 people jams Stambaugh Auditorium for a presentation of the original Professor Quiz show, which was broadcast coast-to-coast by the American Broadcast Network through the facilities of WFMJ radio.