21 WFMJ archives / July 3, 1987 | A dance troupe from Linda Diamond's Academy of Dance in Canfield took top honors in the Spotlight Dance Competition in Columbus 38 years ago. From left, Sherirenee Woods, Pam Baker, Amanda Metts, Jennifer Thomas, Michelle Anderson, Denise Anderson, Lisa Bires, Shannon Woods, Tricia Bires, Amy Stamp, Erin Riser, and Tara Hodge.

July 2

2000: Columbiana County officials are seeking a grant to renovate the Centennial Bridge in Salem Township, which is in sad shape. The 67-foot-long covered bridge was built in 1876 by Jeremiah Mountz over Little Beaver Creek. 

Attendance is reported as strong in the opening days of the Niles Fourth of July Festival.  

A terrace collapses at the historic Lonz Winery on Middle Bass Island under the weight of 100 people there on a holiday weekend, killing one person and injuring 30.

 

1985: Weston O. Johnstone, president of the Youngstown Area Chamber of Commerce for 13 years, announces that he will retire at the end of the year. 

Mahoning County Prosecutor Gary Van Brocklin says he will crack down on fireworks stores if he finds them making retail sales in violation of Ohio law that allows sales only to wholesalers or out-of-state residents. 

The U.S. General Services Administration has promised local and state officials that a decision will be made soon on which of the three downtown sites will be chosen for a $10 million federal building and courthouse. 1975:

 

1975: Community Corporation's executive committee approves a United Appeal of Youngstown fall campaign for $2 million, a 5 percent increase over the 1974 goal. 

Joey Naples, Youngstown's racket kingpin, will be at his Carlotta Drive home for the Fourth of July and maybe many holidays to come after winning a stay of execution from his five-year prison term for probation violations. 

Columbiana County Common Pleas Judges J. Warren Bettis and Richard D. Kennedy are pursuing state and federal grants to air-condition the courthouse, allowing trials to continue through the summer. 

 

1950: The Shenango Pottery Co. in New Castle, Pa., founded in 1909, produces 5,000 styles and 12,000 different patterns of cooking and dinnerware. It recently completed a gold-embossed set for Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia, and state dinnerware for Israel. 

Dusting by airplanes, machine spraying, and broadcast mixtures are being used in a battle against millions of small gray worms attacking corn, wheat, and alfalfa fields in Mahoning County.

A 45-year-old Williams Street man survives a suicide dive from the Market Street  Bridge into the Mahoning River.