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It has long been the custom in Hiram each year to provide a program for the Memorial Day ceremony held at Fairview Cemetery. The program brochure includes a “Roll Call of Veterans.” The names of eight veterans have inadvertently been omitted from the roll call lists for 2020 and 2021.

Randolph trustees are weighing their options to provide recycling services, but they are reluctant to privatize the service and risk sticking township residents with increasing prices.

A motorcycle and a car crashed on Haymaker Parkway and Stow Street around 6:30 p.m. Sunday night, leaving the motorcyclist with “very serious injuries,” Kent Police said.

Michelle Ripley-Crombie, a 15-year veteran of Portage County government, will start as the county’s first full-time administrator on June 1, a position that places her at the helm of an operation that spends $120 million a year on public services.

There’s no arguing Ohio has good beer. Ranked fourth in craft beer production and home to 290 breweries, Ohioans seem to know what they’re doing.

A small group of influential sports leaders is hoping to revive and update the Portage County League, building on the tradition of the original PCL, which was founded in 1922 and slowly dismantled over the last two decades.

We spoke with Steve Sosebee, a Kent native and founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a humanitarian NGO that supports children in the Middle East. During the 11-day bombing of Gaza, the Israeli military killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed many soft targets, including the office of the PCRF.

Portage County Retired Teachers has granted four $2,000 scholarships to aspiring teachers.

Council members are “supposed to direct everyone to me. I’m the only one that’s supposed to be releasing a press release,” she said. “They should be telling you, ‘No comment, you need to speak with the mayor.’”

From the late 1950s and into the ‘90s, Edinburg Township had a gas station in the center of town. Then it was abandoned and eventually condemned, demolished and spent two decades as a vacant lot, too contaminated for redevelopment. Now the property has a chance to take on a new commercial tenant, thanks to the Portage County Land Bank and a state cleanup grant.

The Portage County NAACP held its 2021 scholarship celebration May 15 at Ravenna High School. Brianna Boykin was the keynote speaker. Scholarship recipients included Joitashe Miller, Tyonna Caples, Zakya Jones and Breanna Larkin of Ravenna High School; Jade Coates of Windham High School; and Olivia Gallardo of Theodore Roosevelt High School.

Suffield trustees are set to host the first Suffield Community Cruise-in car show from noon to 6 p.m. June 13 at the Suffield Town Hall and Fire Station.

County commissioners selected Stow resident Michelle Crombie as the new Portage County administrator at a salary of $98,696. Crombie is a 15-year veteran in Portage County government, where she currently is the procurement, contract and risk manager in the Internal Services department.

The Portage Foundation’s Grants and Scholarships Committee awarded a total of $79,150 to 14 area organizations.

I don’t do public speaking.
I’m a writer, not David Letterman. I have a galaxies-better chance of entertaining someone through the written word rather than the spoken word.

Mantua’s downtown community came together Saturday to celebrate new local businesses in the village and those that were remodeled before or during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kent’s top health official said merging the city’s health department with its Portage County counterpart would be detrimental to residents, possibly leading to more work for fewer staffers and higher costs and fees for services.

The Village of Mantua is hoping to raise over $200,000 more a year from taxpayers starting in 2022 through an income tax hike meant to offset the potential loss of a dispatching contract with Garrettsville that expires in December.

Rather than setting an end date for Covid restrictions in county offices, commissioners decided on Thursday to follow CDC guidelines while anticipating Governor DeWine’s June 2 Covid announcement ending Ohio health orders.
As of now, in accordance with the Ohio Department of Health’s May 17 orders, employees and people visiting various county offices may or may not mask up, according to their preference. Previously, employees and the public were asked to wear masks and to social distance “even though we couldn’t make them do it,” Commissioner Vicki Kline said.

One dreams of becoming a high school band director. The second plans to study neuroscience, especially how the brain and memory work. The third wants to be an astronomer and continue his ongoing research into dark matter. All three — Madison Walker, Claire Laux and Alexander Green — also are winners of the Lions Club of Kent’s John Ferlito Memorial Scholarship.