WFMJ archives / March 9, 1962 | During the dedication of the new $1.5 million Arts and Science Building at Westminster College in New Wilmington 61 years ago, some members of the basketball team were called onto the stage.  The team was ranked first in the UPI poll of small college teams. From left, Dr. Harold Burry, director of athletics,  Jim Riggans, Dave Schrecengost, Ron Galbreath, Bob Oravetz, Jack Lockwood, Robert Douds, Warren Sallade, and William Douds.  
 
March 9
 
1998: Coach Kenneth Carano's Austintown Fitch High speech team edges out the Cardinal Mooney team by one point to win the Ohio High School Speech League title at Berea.  Nile McKinley came in fifth, and Boardman eighth in the state. In the last ten years, Fitch has won the state title seven times and Mooney twice.  
 
The Cafaro Co. agrees to build a 6000-seat minor league stadium adjacent to the Eastwood Mall, and Niles agrees to make $1 million in infrastructure improvements, apparently clearing the way for bringing a Class A baseball team to the area. 
 
Youngstown Councilman Walter Sweirz wants to use tax breaks to save the housing stock in Buckeye Plat off Midlothian Boulevard, a middle-class neighborhood built in 1918 by Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. with houses selling for $5,000 to $8,000 to middle managers who were born in the United States and were white. Lower-scale company housing was available to foreign-born and black workers. 
 
1983: Motorists visiting Greenville, Pa, will find that parking in all seven downtown lots is free for up to three hours. About 2000 parking meters will be removed in an effort to encourage downtown shopping. 
 
The Warren Board of Education passes a resolution prohibiting the tape-recording of the board's executive sessions. Board member Willard Rubin, who cast the lone dissenting vote, says he had recorded meetings because other board members are violating the state's Sunshine Law by discussing subjects that should be aired in open session. 
 
U.S. Rep. Lyle Williams, R-Lordstown, says he will break with the Reagan administration and vote for a nuclear freeze between the United States and the Soviet Union. A similar resolution failed by two votes in the last Congress, with Williams then voting against it. 
 
1973: Youngstown district steel operations are at 90 percent of capacity, almost 5 percent higher than at any time since 1968.
 
Three Sheridan School boys, ages 9 and 10, admit to setting a fire that destroyed a one-car garage at 4020 Erie St. 
 
William P. Fergus of Poland is appointed the first executive director of the new Eastgate Development and Transportation Agency. 
 
1948: Three Republicans and a Democrat join forces to pass legislation adding four lieutenants to the Youngstown Police Department and reducing the number of patrolmen from 151 to 147.
 
Girard City Council approves a 1948 operating budget of $93,016.
 
In a decision that could affect religion classes held in Youngstown schools, eight U.S. Supreme Court justices agree that religious sects may not use American public schools to teach their religious beliefs. Only justice Stanley Reed dissented. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote that "in the relation between church and state, good fences make good neighbors."