21 WFMJ archives / June 1,  1985 | A propane storage tank, one of several tanks at the Ashland Oil & Refining Co. site in Weathersfield Township destroyed by the tornado 40 years ago, was lifted and deposited on Warren Avenue. 

June 2

2000: The Vindicator's Spelling Bee champion, Ryan Shaffer, is one of 63 of 248 students to survive into round five of the national bee, but falls on the word "supererogation," meaning performing above what duty requires. 

Youngstown State University trustees approve a budget anticipating a fall enrollment of 11,700, a 4 percent drop from 12,223 in fall 1999. Enrollment has declined in 10 of the last 11 years. 

The Gabriel Brothers chain opens its newest store at 850 Boardman-Poland Road. 

 

1985: Ohio and Pennsylvania begin burrowing out from the devastation of tornadoes that claimed 16 lives in Ohio, 55 in Pennsylvania, and 12 in southern Canada. 

More than 75,000 homes and businesses in northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania were without power, but utility crews from far and near are at work, and Ohio Edison says that 99 percent will have power restored within 48 hours of the storm striking on Friday evening. 

Obituaries of people who died when tornadoes swept through the area begin to be published, including one for Elaine Dixon Italiano, 39, a decorated teacher at Taft School in Youngstown who died when a tornado struck her car on Youngstown-Warren Road en route to a dinner for Taft teachers at Chieffo's restaurant. 

 

1975: Heavy weekend rains close Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School in Niles for the day, canceling the eighth grade graduation banquet but doing little permanent damage. 

Jay and Donna Schnorrenberg Sprout are visiting her parents in Salem before leaving for a lighthouse island off the coast of Maine, where he will be the minister of a nondenominational church, and both will teach in the one-room schoolhouse. 

Federal Energy Administrator Frank Zarb says President Ford's energy conservation program would push gasoline prices to about 70 cents per gallon. 

 

1950: Youngstown Police Chief Edward Allen Jr. is preparing to testify before Sen. Estes Kefauver's U.S. Senate committee on organized crime. He will give the committee the names of Youngstown's racketeers.  

Police conducting the first of Youngstown's impromptu safety checks find these defects with Lavergne Benzenhoffer's pickup truck: bad brakes, no horn, no windshield wiper, no headlights or taillights, no glass in the doors, no pumper, fenders wired to the body, and bald tires. He has been fined $50 and ordered to make the necessary repairs. 

Ensign David H. Arter of Lisbon is one of nine men killed when a twin-engine Navy patrol plane crashes at Quonset Point, R.I.