21 WFMJ archives  / May  4, 1970 | About 1,000 Youngstown city school teachers were on strike 55 years ago, closing the district's 44 schools as they sought higher pay and improved fringe benefits. Common Pleas Judge Sidney Rigelhaupt quickly ordered the teachers to return to the classroom. These picketing teachers at Princeton Junior High declined to give the photographer their names.  

May 7 

2000: Baumgardner Funeral Home is leading a fundraising effort in Northern Trumbull County to build a national World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. President Clinton has designated a spot between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument for the $100 million project.  

Courts handling civil suits across Ohio are returning to "normal" a year after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the tort reform bill passed by the General Assembly unconstitutional. The law capped the amount plaintiffs could win for personal injury and medical malpractice. 

Local athletes who took first place in events at the Optimist Invitational Track Meet at Austintown were John Densevich, an Austintown shot putter; David Steele of Jackson Milton, boys' high jump; Tony Villanueva, Poland, 400; Mike Harris of Leetonia, 1600; George Evans of Boardman, 100; and Alex Casi of East Palestine, girls' long jump.

   

1985: Mahoning County commissioners are looking for ways to reduce the county's share of mandated welfare costs, for which the county paid $3.9 million in 1984. Commissioner Thomas J. Carney says  Lorain County, a similar community, spent only $1.3 million. 

Two New Castle residents, Bobby Dudek and Jeanne Bucker, are among eight Pennsylvania residents who will split the Pennsylvania Lottery jackpot. Each will receive $867,000  spaced out over 21 years. 

John DeMain, the Boardman native who has received critical acclaim as principal conductor of the Houston Grand Opera, will be music adviser and principal guest conductor of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra in 1986-87, while the orchestra searches for a successor to former conductor Peter Leonard. 

 

1975: The Ohio House votes to establish a permanent 55 mph speed limit, reversing on the same day an earlier refusal to go along with a bill that members said amounted to federal blackmail because federal funds would be withheld if the 55 mph limit weren't approved. 

What started as a joy ride for two East Side youths in a stolen car ended after a high-speed chase from New Castle to the Lincoln Knolls Plaza, in which five cars were demolished, including a Youngstown police car and a Pennsylvania State Police cruiser. 

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that would have allowed the Erie Lackawanna Railroad to discontinue daily passenger rail service between Youngstown and Cleveland. 

 

1950: Mail deliveries in Youngstown are cut from twice to once a day, business routes are reduced to three daily, and office window hours are reshuffled. 

Prof. Frank M. Ellis is appointed acting dean of the William Rayen School of Engineering at Youngstown College, succeeding Dean Louis A. Deesz, who died suddenly. 

Five Mahoning County students are top winners in the Ohio poetry contest: Beverly Neff, Don Swaney, Thomas Humphries, Darlene Arkwright, and Geraldine Bardon.