Archive for January, 2010
Sheffield Lake mayor battling cancer
SHEFFIELD LAKE — Mayor John Piskura said Thursday that he is battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Piskura, 40, got his diagnosis in October when he discovered enlarged lymph nodes in his groin area. His doctor initially suspected an infection and gave Piskura antibiotics. They didn’t work. “The littlest thing, even with a splinter, the lymph nodes enlarge [...]
Elyria rules dual meet with North Royalton
ELYRIA — After dropping five matches in a row in the early portion of its Northeast Ohio Conference dual meet with North Royalton on Thursday night, Elyria trailed by 15 points and needed a spark. Thanks to some reshuffling of his middleweights, which resulted in four pins and a major decision, Pioneers coach Erik Burnett [...]
School closings for January 8th
School closings for January 8th;
Amherst
Berlin-Milan
Black River
Brunswick
Buckeye
Clearview
Cloverleaf
Columbia
Elyria
Elyria Catholic
Firelands
Highland
Keystone
Lake Ridge Academy
Lorain
Lorain County Early Learning
Lorain County JVS
Medina
Medina County MRDD
Midview
Murray Ridge School (staff should report)
North Olmsted
North Ridgeville
North Royalton
Oberlin
Olmsted Falls
Open Door
St. Anthony of Padua in Lorain
St. Paul Lutheran Pre-school in Amherst
St. Paul Lutheran School in Westlake
Sheffield/Sheffield Lake
Vermilion
Wadsworth
Wellington
Ruptured gas line ignites house fire, man injured
PITTSFIELD TWP. — A man working on a gas line in his home with his son suffered serious burns and lost his home Thursday when the house filled with propane and started a fire, Wellington fire officials reported. Herbert DeChant, age unknown, was sent to Allen Memorial Hospital with what looked to fire department officials [...]
Student working to accomplish his dream of becoming a culinary artist
LAGRANGE — Ryan Valentik is a chef in the making. The 18-year-old began cooking only six years ago, and his passion has astounded his teachers at Lorain County JVS. In December, Ryan, a culinary arts student from Keystone, and his culinary instructor Tim Michitsch, prepared green chili during the WVIZ/PBS broadcast of “C is for [...]
Police find dead dog, skinned with paws cut off in dumpster
ELYRIA — Police are looking for whoever skinned a small dog, cut off its paws and threw it in a garbage bin. Police were called at 12:54 p.m. Wednesday to a bin behind Rent-A-Center at 409 Cleveland St., where the dog’s corpse was found. A police report said the dog’s body was covered in snow [...]
Mangini will return for 2010 season
CLEVELAND — Browns coach Eric Mangini will return for the 2010 season, a Browns spokeman confirmed Thursday afternoon. ESPN’s Adam Schefter was the first to report the news Thursday afternoon, adding that new president Mike Holmgren told the coaching staff it would return, too. Mangini met with Holmgren briefly Tuesday and again Wednesday and Thursday. [...]
Winter storm warning in effect; nearly a foot of snow possible by Saturday
The National Weather Service in Cleveland has issued a winter storm warning for Lorain County until 10 a.m. Saturday. Most locations will see 3 to 5 inches of snow by Friday morning and another 4 to 6 inches of snow by Saturday morning. A winter weather advisory and a lake effect snow watch are no [...]
Elyria’s No. 1 Buffett raises Chinese cuisine to new levels
ELYRIA — Christopher Chen is confident that after one visit to his restaurant, No. 1 Buffet, customers will come back. “We know customers will come back, because we do best,” Chen said. Chen said the buffet, which opened Nov. 3 in a plaza across from Midway Mall in the space where HomeTown Buffet resided for [...]
Ohio executes man in second use of one-drug method
LUCASVILLE — Ohio executed a man Thursday for the shooting death of a shopkeeper during a 1993 robbery, successfully using its new one-drug lethal injection method for the second time. Vernon Smith, 37, was pronounced dead at 10:28 a.m., eight minutes after the single dose of sodium thiopental began flowing at the Southern Ohio Correctional [...]
Plea deal for second police chief in Parker-Broderick case
ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The second Ohio police charged with snooping on the woman who bore twins for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick has pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor. In exchange for Chad Dojack’s plea Thursday to dereliction of duty, prosecutors have dropped earlier charges of complicity to burglary and complicity to receiving stolen [...]
Teens have raised nearly $6,000 in quest for exercise trail
NORTH RIDGVILLE — This week’s cold and steady snowfall don’t have anyone thinking about running and exercising outdoors, but wintry weather isn’t stopping a pair of local teens in their tenacious campaign to make a two-mile exercise trail a reality at South Central Park. Since starting their venture last summer, Morgan Rogers and Caitlyn Tipple [...]
2009 traffic deaths fall to historic low in Ohio
CLEVELAND — Early numbers from the State Highway Patrol suggest traffic deaths fell to a historic low in Ohio during 2009 as people cut back on driving amid the recession. Spokeswoman Lindsay Komlanc says the patrol knows of at least 1,014 Ohio road fatalities in 2009, though she cautions the figures are very preliminary. Still, [...]
Obituaries for Jan. 7, 2009
Alinda Elaine Hand Elsie V. Scakacs Kathleen J. Kelley William E. Ody, Jr. Lillian “Maxine” Sheaves Donald A. Zocchi Paul Michael Bachnika Mary Florence Taylor Mary J. Culhane Julie Browand Read the full obituaries on The Chronicle E-edition at: http://www.chroniclet.com/ChroniclEdition/
Girls basketball: Keystone cops win behind defense
LAGRANGE — Sometimes when it rains, it pours. In the midst of four-game losing skid coming into Wednesday’s night’s game with Keystone, Buckeye’s girls had been struggling to take care of the ball. Unfortunately, that trend continued as the Wildcats took advantage of a host of miscues and won 53-36 in a pivotal Patriot Athletic [...]
Girls basketball: Avon Lake swamps North Olmsted at Q
CLEVELAND — As soon as plans were revealed to move Avon Lake’s Southwestern Conference game with North Olmsted to Quicken Loans Arena, the girls on both teams were very excited. Judging by the results, it was the Shoregals who got over their nerves first. Thanks to a 16-percent shooting effort by North Olmsted (9-for-54), along [...]
Mangini leaves Browns headquarters without word
Eric Mangini drove away from Browns headquarters Wednesday night as Browns coach. If he holds the job through today or beyond remains to be seen. Mangini didn’t stop to talk to reporters when he left the team facility in Berea around 5:35 p.m. He met with new president Mike Holmgren in the afternoon, reportedly for [...]
Vermilion Schools considers massive changes
VERMILION — After voters shot down two separate requests for more money for the city schools, officials got the message. “They thought we needed to do things differently, and the time has come to change the way we do them,” Superintendent Phil Pempin said this week of the most dramatic overhaul ever proposed for the [...]
Fires stretch Red Cross: Lorain family latest to be helped
AMHERST — Eleven-year-old Shane Henderson is a hero in the eyes of his parents, Twania and Curtis Henderson, and his sisters Maya, 13, and Asia, 21, for waking them up when a pre-dawn fire broke out in their Lorain duplex on Wednesday. But the Hendersons have other heroes in their saga: The volunteers and staff [...]
One high school in Lorain? Planning gets go-ahead
LORAIN — Lorain Schools Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson got the go-ahead from the school board Wednesday night to continue setting up a plan for school consolidation. It’s going to be a very busy January for Atkinson and her office, as they’re up against a deadline of submitting a draft of the recovery plan to the Ohio [...]
Amherst Library seeks bond issue to fund expansion project
AMHERST — The Amherst Public Library rightfully can boast that it’s a popular place. The library registered more than 235,000 visits, circulated nearly 300,000 items and hosted almost 23,000 people for its adult and youth programs. “Granted, that figure (235,000) may have included one person who came in 20 times, but that’s pretty good, considering [...]
Police log for Jan. 7, 2010
Lorain police Monday, Jan. 4 8:07 a.m. – 1800 block E. 42nd St., car stolen from residence. 9:13 a.m. – 1400 block Oberlin Ave.. T-shirt stolen from Dairy Mart. 11:11 a.m. – West 22nd Street, man reports being menaced by another man over a property issue. 11:24 a.m. – 1000 block Washington Ave., cash and [...]
Former Club 57 building sold for $10 in settlement
ELYRIA — The former home of the Club 57 strip club has been sold to a California-based property company for $10 as part of a settlement in a foreclosure lawsuit, according to county records. The controversial strip club, housed in the old Mountain Jack’s restaurant next to the Elyria Holiday Inn, closed in August following [...]
County gets $4.8 million to help autoworks transition to green jobs
Lorain County is among 44 Ohio counties that will benefit from a $4.8 million federal grant that will help auto industry workers transition to working in green jobs. The grant, which focuses on electrical workers, is part of a package of grants totaling nearly $100 million announced Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. [...]
Cavaliers 121, Wizards 98: Cavs control first half, get easy win over weak Wizards
CLEVELAND — About to head west for five games, the Cavaliers made sure they weren’t also heading south. Cleveland dominated the first half and cruised to a 121-98 victory over the Gilbert Arenas-less Washington Wizards on Wednesday night at Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavaliers, who led 65-43 at intermission, didn’t trail the entire night and [...]