21 WFMJ archives / January 21, 1984 | Mishleen Abi Ghanem Earle, widow of Navy Corpsman Bryan L. Earle, a Painesville native, accepted her husband’s Purple Heart, awarded posthumously, from Lt. William J. Ferenczy, commanding officer of the Youngstown Navy Reserve Center 40 years ago. Corpsman Earle was one of 241 U.S. military personnel killed in the Oct. 23, 1983, bombing of a Marine base in Beirut, Lebanon.

January 26

1999: Delphi Packard Electric Systems 9,100 Mahoning Valley workers will be receiving free stock and the chance to buy more as the company is spun off from General Motors Corp.

Modern Builders Supply of Boardman is buying the Delphi Packard Electric plant on Victoria Road in Austintown for $2.4 million and intends to employ 100 people to build vinyl sunrooms there. 

Two Warren councilmen, Doug Franklin and Dan Polivka, say the process used to fill an open seat in the state House should be changed after they were frozen out in their bids to take the seat left open by Rep. Michael Verich's resignation. Verich's younger brother, Chris, got the appointment from House Democrats. 

1984: A U.S. Senate staff report says that Youngstown is on the verge of becoming a city held captive to mobsters, with prominent citizens afraid to complain and public officials threatened if they refuse to compromise their honesty. 

Bruce Neilsen, president of East Liverpool City Hospital, says the hospital will provide free primary health care for the unemployed beginning Feb. 8.

Warren Fire Chief Roger Hernon promises a crackdown on apartment owners who have not installed smoke detectors. He said seven people have died in fires over the last six years; six of the seven were in apartments, and only one had a smoke detector. 

1974: A Salem driver is slightly wounded when fired on in Poland Avenue near Stop 5 as the protest by independent truckers over rising fuel prices continues. 

GM, Ford, and Chrysler ask the Treasury Department to approve a waiver on the trade embargo with Cuba that would allow the Big Three's Argentinian subsidiaries to sell thousands of vehicles in Cuba. 

Six people are killed when a private plane crashes into a house near the Cuyahoga County Airport. Killed were four people on the plane and an elderly couple in the house. 

1949: Briggs Manufacturing Co., the big Detroit auto body concern, has bought the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp.'s Upper Mill in Youngstown and will operate it as a parts-stamping plant employing 1,000 men. 

Judge John W. Ford is elected to his tenth term as president of the Community Corporation. Other officers elected or re-elected were Walter Watson, William B. Pollock II, David E. Jones, E. Perry Beatty and L.A. Stewart.  

Dr. Clarence Gould, head of the history department at Youngstown College, speaks on WKBN radio in support of the $10,000 drive for the college library.