21 WFMJ  archives / January 1978 | The blizzard of 1978 covered a period stretching from mid-January into early February. This shot by The Vindicator’s Bob Yosay was taken on Evergreen Avenue in mid-January on a day when temperatures dropped, and snow fell on Youngstown’s South Side.

January 18

 

2001: Jim Tressel, 48, receives a phone call from Ohio State University athletic director Andy Geiger telling him that he will be the 22 nd head coach of the OSU football team. It was a childhood dream of the Youngstown State University coach to someday lead the Buckeyes. 

Tressel compares his jobs: "At Youngstown State we're supposed to win 15 games in a row and keep 20,000 people happy in the stands ... At Ohio State  you're supposed to win 12 straight games and keep 98,000 people happy ... Both are pretty hard."

Ohio's Public Employee Retirement System rejects a claim by former Mahoning County Judge Martin Emrich for disability retirement benefits. Emrich is serving a 30-month federal prison term after pleading guilty to accepting bribes. 

 

1986: Youngstown Police Chief Randall Wellington says three city police officers were justified when they opened fire on a 19-year-old man who robbed a Mahoning Avenue auto parts store and shot first when cornered by police. Russell Hixson Jr. was pronounced dead at St. Elizabeth Hospital. 

From a list of 1,000 applicants, U.S. Sen. John Glenn releases the names of 47 Ohioans to the U.S. Military, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard academies.

Two people die, and 18 are injured in an explosion of ammonium dichromate at a Diamond Shamrock chemical plant in Ashtabula. 

 

1976: The government's International Trade Commission decides that imports of stainless and other specialty steels are harming the domestic industry. 

Voter registration in Mahoning County has fallen to about 140,000, but election officials expect it to rebound in the months ahead, likely reaching a record high for the county. 

Brookfield businesswoman Geri Taczak organizes the Trumbull County Taxpayers Information Organization because she says landowners "are losing their constitutional rights by not getting to vote on tax increases."

 

1951: Youngstown and 12 district towns have horse race bookmakers served by Mickey McBride's Continental Press, a gambling wire service that provides information to 200 bookie joints, a Senate committee is told. 

Struthers City Council votes unanimously to withhold the salary of Police Chief Neil Gorden until he answers charges that nationally syndicated rackets are operating in the city.