21 WFMJ archives  / March  6, 1969 | U.S. Rep. Michael J. Kirwan, D-Youngstown, invited Robert Pondillo for lunch in the House dining room 56 years ago after the Youngstown student was honored for his second-place showing in the VFW and Broadcasters Association 1969 script-writing competition. Pondillo was awarded a $3,500 scholarship. 

March 7


2000: Youngstown has a rejuvenated city records commission that is studying what to do with records dating to 1881 stored in the basement of City Hall, in hallways, and at the city hall annex. 

The Ohio Underground Railroad Association recognizes the former home of Daniel Howell Hise on Franklin Avenue in Salem for Hise's role in sheltering escaped slaves beginning in 1849.

Microsoft Corp. unveils its new video gaming system, Xbox, that is designed to compete with the Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, and Sony PlayStation2,


1985: City Council approves an application to make the northwest section of the city, which includes the former Hunt Energy mill, an enterprise zone, but how much of a tax incentive it might offer a new plant owner is up in the air. 

A group hoping to save and renovate the Columbia Theater in downtown Sharon has raised $13,000 toward a new roof goal of $30,000.

U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. introduces a bill in the House that would direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to update its 20-year-old feasibility study on the Lake Erie-Ohio River canal. 


1975: Buddy Lambert, a mustachioed steelworker from Newton Falls, wins the Ohio Lottery's biggest prize of the week, $300,000.

Custom cars worth thousands of dollars are displayed at the fourth annual Custom Autorama at Idora Park.

Erma Bombeck, a favorite Vindicator columnist, appears in Youngstown for the Junior League's Town Hall series. Several relatives are on hand to greet her: Sister Phyllis Weaver, a nun from Erie, Pa.; Nicholas Libertin of Campbell; Mrs. Edward Cattron of Sharon, all cousins; and an aunt, Mrs. Teresa Weaver of Sharon. 


1950: Reappraisal of Mahoning County's real estate, valued at $324 million for tax purposes, will begin in the spring. 

When Arthur W. Hann and John S. Williamson, now employees of Ohio Edison Co., were students in 1916 caddying at the Youngstown Country Club, they put a note in a bottle and put it in Crab Creek. Thirty-four years later and 350 miles away, it is plucked out of the Ohio River near Huntington, W. Va. 

The state highway department says it will install a traffic light at Route 224 and Southern Blvd., just west of the Youngstown & Southern Railway Co. tracks, where several serious accidents have occurred.