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The Horace Young Beebe house was built in 1852 and stood until Monday

Portage County NAACP President Geraldine Hayes-Nelson and Rootstown Board of Education President Amanda Waesch speak to Rootstown residents during a community forum at Northeast Ohio Medical University on Sunday. Michael Indriolo/The Portager Rootstown begins conversations about racism, with second forum set for Sunday Residents discussed ways to build a more tolerant community, but some feared attendance was too low The Rootstown Board of Education is committed to making Rootstown more inclusive, Board President Amanda Waesch said during the first community forum after […]

Lorene McMahon and Rodney Fleshman prepare to vote after confirming their identities to a polling station worker inside the Portage County Board of Elections on Tuesday. Michael Indriolo/The Portager Portage County shipped 30,000 absentee ballots this week. We spoke with some who voted in person. A local addition recovery group has helped register voters, and local organizers of both parties convened on election headquarters in Ravenna The Portage County Democrats and Republicans took up posts near the polls Tuesday for Ohio’s first […]

Jordan Bedell, 28, of Kent, is a U.S. Marine, the founder of a community nonprofit and the first full-time Black firefighter in the history of the Kent Fire Department. Carter Eugene Adams/The Portager Marine, volunteer, firefighter — Jordan Bedell is breaking barriers and has just one wish for Kent children: that they have the same opportunities he did. On one of the first cold mornings of fall, Jordan Bedell performed morning chores and started his shift at Station 1 in the Kent Fire […]

Patrolman Chuck Kulig (left) and Patrolman J.D. Novak participate in a Racial Intelligent Training and Education (RITE) training, held by and for the Windham Police Department at the Windham Board of Education building Saturday. Carter Eugene Adams/The Portager Racial justice Windham police look inward to address officer wellness and racial policing Chief hopes to bring Racial Intelligence Training and Engagement to more public agencies throughout Portage County. Windham Police Chief Eric Brieding, addressing a classroom full of patrolmen, put it simply: “It’s […]

Photo by TravelKS, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deer archery season is fast approaching for Ohio hunters Here’s what you need to know Hunting is a staple of Portage County going back thousands of years. As temperatures begin to drop and leaves begin to change, residents prepare to head to the woods in an attempt to fill the freezer and, if all goes well, get a new mount for the mantelpiece. With archery season a little over a week away here are some […]

Community members gather in Rootstown High School’s cafeteria for a special Board of Education meeting on Monday, Sept. 14, 2020. (Michael Indriolo/The Portager) Rootstown board member pressured the superintendent to reinstate football player High school principal: ‘I felt in a position of, this person controls my livelihood’ At the urging of at least one school board member, Rootstown Superintendent Andrew Hawkins prevented disciplinary action against a football player who hurled racial slurs against teammates in violation of team rules, leading two […]

Kent State President Todd Diacon rests his hand on a railing while former Black United Students president Patrick Ferguson speaks to students and faculty gathered in Risman Plaza on Monday. (Michael Indriolo/The Portager) Racism Kent State will put cameras, lights around Rock, but can’t take disciplinary action President Todd Diacon joined students in an afternoon march responding to racist messages painted on the Rock on campus. After pressure from protesters last week, Kent State President Todd Diacon joined a march against […]

Carter Eugene Adams/The Portager Garrettsville supports rural development grant application, electric car charger installation Notes from the Garrettsville Village Council meeting of Sept. 9, 2020 Garrettsville will be among the Portage County communities applying for a USDA economic development grant, designed to support infrastructure and workforce development in rural areas. Garrettsville Village Council agreed to support the Portage County Regional Planning Commission in the application process at their meeting Wednesday. The USDA has allotted $1 million in grants to fund initiatives […]

A Black Lives Matter protester in Garrettsville raises a sign on Thursday. Michael Indriolo/The Portager Interview Portage County commissioners are preparing to declare racism a public health emergency A conversation with County Commission President Kathleen Clyde on what the board is doing to address racial inequality in Portage Throughout the summer, The Portager has been reaching out to local community leaders to hear their thoughts on addressing racism in Portage County, on the Black Lives Matter movement and on police reform. […]

Carter Eugene Adams/The Portager Garrettsville Water shutoffs, road repairs and skateboard shenanigans Highlights from the Aug. 12 Garrettsville Village Council meeting Garrettsville Village Council discussed Covid-19 funds for schools, progress on street maintenance, water shutoffs, skateboarding and trees during their meeting Wednesday. Here’s a roundup of what they talked about. Public utilities and public shutoffs Council member Larry Beatty questioned the morality of shutting off people’s water in light of continually high unemployment numbers caused by the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re still in […]

Stock image by Annie Spratt Randolph Fair The Portage County Fair is closed to the public, leaving Confederate flag question hanging ‘Nothing is the same and this has been like planning for an event for the first time ever.’ The Portage County Fair Board recently announced the fair will be closed to the public this year, taking a more cautious approach than neighboring Summit County and putting off a decision on whether Confederate flags should be allowed for sale on the grounds. […]

Solomon Interview KSU criminal justice prof: Cops use force because that’s what they’re trained to do Starr Solomon: ‘Total, we’re looking at roughly 150 hours of use of force training versus 24 hours of something like crisis intervention’ After the murder of George Floyd and calls for police reform went mainstream, we wanted to learn more about how modern American policing came to be and why it is the way it is. To do that, we reached out to Kent State […]

Feature Twin Lakes Tavern sees new life under new ownership during the pandemic When Shannon Zemba revived the Tavern, she brought inspiration from her mother. ‘This was really a way of us kind of bringing her spirit back to life early with this building.’ This week the Twin Lakes Tavern reopened its doors to patrons under new ownership. Shannon Zemba, owner of Kent’s Over Easy Morning Cafe, purchased the shuttered restaurant in January with hopes of reopening in March. Because of […]

I long for a book I can wrap myself up in like a blanket. Happily, I found one in The Daughters of Erietown by Connie Schultz.
Schultz, of course, is the popular columnist formerly of the Cleveland Plain Dealer who has won a Pulitzer Prize and has written two previous nonfiction books, Life Happens and …And His Lovely Wife (the “his” referring to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown). This is her first novel.

Members of the Ohio National and Ohio Air Guard perform Covid-19 tests at a popup testing center at NEOMED in Rootstown on Saturday. Carter Eugene Adams/The Portager Covid-19 Over 2,000 people got tested for Covid-19 last week at a Portage County popup site Over three days last week, residents of Portage and surrounding counties drove through an arrangement of orange traffic cones and volunteer stations to receive Covid-19 tests administered by medics and lab technicians from the Air and National Guard. […]

Interview Commissioner Christian-Bennett would ‘absolutely’ consider declaring racism a public health crisis Portage County Commissioner Sabrina Christian-Bennett also said she would prioritize funding for training in a conversation with The Portager about race and policing Christian-Bennett The murder of George Floyd sent shock waves throughout the country and sparked uprisings in several major cities. In its aftermath, conversations on police violence and our country’s ugly history of racism are now more prominent than ever. Portage County has its own long history of […]

Doria Daniels, a resident of Kent’s South End, christens the district’s new historic marker with a mini bottle of sparkling wine provided by Kent Mayor Jerry Fiala on Friday. “This has been 150 years in the making,” said Daniels, a key organizer of the dedication. “This is heritage that we’ve wanted known for 150 years.” Kent Photos: Kent honors the cultural heritage of the South End A new sign marks the district as the ‘first in diversity’ because it has been historically […]

Ricky Wise, a Ravenna Township resident, had a cookout and pool party at his house for July 4. Wise describes himself as fiercely moderate and independent. “I don’t care [about partisanship] man, Black lives matter, white lives matter — smoke weed and buy a gun.” Photo essay Fourth of July in Ravenna Township Residents mark Independence Day with backyard fireworks, target practice and barbecue. In Ravenna Township, two groups of friends and neighbors celebrated Independence day in two very different ways: One with a […]

ATWATER — Meaghan McIntosh is a lifelong resident of the Randolph-Atwater area. She’s a K-12 alumna of Waterloo Local School District, and so are her mom and her aunts, one of whom teaches seventh grade in the district. McIntosh has fond memories from her time at Waterloo and is happy her son, now in second grade, attends the same school she did. “This is home, and when I started my own family, I wanted them to have a similar school […]