December 15

2000: Mahoning County applies for a $550,000  state grant to finance the extension of water lines to parts of Canfield, Boardman, and Beaver townships. 

The new Girard Intermediate School on East Prospect Street is dedicated.

Reporting from Palermo, Sicily, Vindicator police reporter Patricia Meade writes that Mayor Leoluca Orlando says his city has slowly built respect by confronting the Mafia head-on. 

 

1985: The Youngstown Board of Trade voted 8-2 to move the county welfare office out of the business district, but at least two commissioners,  John Palermo and Tom Carney,  favor finding a downtown site.  Mrs. Ralph Barron, an organizer and charter member of the Mahoning Valley Rose Society, is recognized with a commemorative plaque by the American Rose Society. 

Home run king Roger Maris, who hit 61 homers in 1961 to set major league baseball's single-season record, dies of cancer at 51. 

 

1975: United Airlines, stung by a mechanics strike, extends its cancellation of flights through Jan. 5, the busiest travel season of the year.  Many Ohio State fans who had planned to fly to the Rose Bowl are scrambling for alternate plans. 

A Mahoning County deputy sheriff is indicted by a Mahoning County grand jury on charges of aggravated assault for beating a prisoner with a club. He is the second deputy to be indicted on such a charge. 

 

1950:  Police Chief Edwards J. Allen's handling of police personnel is bitterly criticized by Youngstown city council members during an emergency midnight meeting in the mayor's office. Third Ward Councilman Anthony Flask said two vice squad men sat in a business place for seven hours on successive days to arrest a bug runner. They should have been out looking for pickpockets, Flask said. 

Chester Bailey, chairman of the Mahoning County Republican Party, receives a bronze plaque from the state GOP in recognition of Mahoning County's showing for U.S. Sen Robert Taft in the November election. Mahoning County exceeded its quota by the widest margin of any county in the state.