21 WFMJ archives  / January  1954 | As Youngstown's new mayor, Frank X. Kryzan, center, took office 71 years ago, he bid farewell to two retiring councilmen, Harry Jacobs, left, and Stephen Olenick. 

January 6


2000: U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus fines a Taiwanese company $5 million for stealing trade secrets from Avery Dennison Corp. in the first case brought to trial under the 1996 Economic Espionage Act.  

Sales of the Lordstown-produced Chevrolet Cavalier increased by 6 percent in 1999 to 272,100, making it General Motors' best-selling vehicle. Sales of the Pontiac Sunfire increased 9 percent to 90,300.

Ollie Jones, 83, marks 50 years as a salesman for Youngstown Buick Pontiac GMC and says he now has customers who are the grandchildren of people he sold cars to. David Sweeney, president of the dealership, says Jones may have the longest tenure of any GM salesman in the country. 
 

1985: Gov. Richard F. Celeste urges Mahoning Valley communities to forge a unified economic recovery strategy.

The unemployment rate in Mahoning and Trumbull counties ranged from 11 to 13 percent during the first 10 months of 1984, which was high but improved over the previous two years when the rate reached 19.7.

David L. Engler and Mark Leskovec, two of the organizers of the Mahoning County Young Democrats Club, say they could not get a charter for the group in that name because one was already granted to Anthony Khoury. The club was organized as an opposition voice to the current Democratic Party leadership in the county. 


1975: William E. Bennett, a State Department envoy with family ties in Salem, is killed in an explosion in Tuy Hoa, South Vietnam. 

A strike by Communication Workers of America members that would have closed Youngstown Municipal Airport is averted. Don Hanni III, Mahoning County secretary of the CWA, said the men "grudgingly" accepted a six percent wage increase.

Trumbull County Sheriff's Deputy David Furie, who was shot during a New Year's Eve robbery of a Mineral Ridge service station where he was working off duty, dies in St. Elizabeth Hospital. 


1950: The Greater Youngstown Foundation will hire two engineering firms to thoroughly study a proposed parking project over the Erie Railroad tracks downtown.

Youngstown Police Chief Edward Allen says his motto for 1950 is "Be Good or Be Gone," aimed at ridding the department of goldbrickers, mediocre officers, and those who drink on duty.