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North Korea says it’s ‘biggest victim’ in Otto Warmbier’s death

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SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea on Friday called itself the “biggest victim” in the death of an American student who was detained for more than a year and died days after being released in a coma.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency denied that North Korea cruelly treated or tortured Otto Warmbier of Wyoming, Ohio, and accused the United States and South Korea of a smear campaign that insulted what it called its “humanitarian” treatment of him.

The comments published by KCNA were North Korea’s first reaction to Warmbier’s death in a U.S. hospital Monday after it released him for what it called humanitarian reasons.

Doctors at the hospital said Warmbier had suffered a severe neurological injury from an unknown cause. Relatives say they were told the 22-year-old University of Virginia student had been in a coma since shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea in March 2016.

His family and others have blamed North Korea for his condition.

Warmbier was accused of stealing a propaganda poster. Through statements on KCNA, North Korea said it dealt with him according to its domestic laws and international standards.

“Although we had no reason at all to show mercy to such a criminal of the enemy state, we provided him with medical treatments and care with all sincerity on humanitarian basis until his return to the U.S., considering that his health got worse,” the agency quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

The spokesman said “groundless” speculation of torture and beatings could be refuted by American doctors who came to North Korea at the time of Warmbier’s repatriation and “recognized that his health indicators like pulse, temperature, respiration and the examination result of the heart and lung were all normal.” The report did not mention Warmbier’s neurological status.

“The fact that Warmbier died suddenly in less than a week just after his return to the U.S. in his normal state of health indicators is a mystery to us as well,” the spokesman said.

“To make it clear, we are the biggest victim of this incident and there would be no more foolish judgment than to think we do not know how to calculate gains and losses,” he said.

“The smear campaign against [North Korea] staged in the U.S. compels us to make firm determination that humanitarianism and benevolence for the enemy are a taboo and we should further sharpen the blade of law,” the spokesman added.

A separate KCNA article published hours earlier criticized South Korea for using Warmbier’s case to seek the release of other detainees, including six South Korean citizens. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in an interview with CBS television earlier this week that it was clear North Korea bears a heavy responsibility for Warmbier’s death.

The article said South Korea was tarnishing North Korea’s image with “slanderous talk about cruel treatment and torture.”

It demanded that South Korea return 12 restaurant workers who defected to the South last year. South Korea said the women defected on their own, while North Korea claimed they were deceived and abducted to the South.


Fundraiser planned Sunday for Coventry students who were hit by car

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Stephen Thrall and Taylor Galloway knew one another most of their lives, but it wasn’t until last year that the two became friends during band class at Coventry Middle School. They often laughed and shared nicknames, and she called him Margaret as one of their many inside jokes.

At the end of the school year last summer, she signed his yearbook, “Taylor Galloway, your best friend, love you Margaret.”

But it was the last time the two would ever exchange yearbooks.

Taylor and Amber Thoma, both 14-year-olds at Coventry Middle School, were hit by a car and killed Memorial Day weekend when they were walking on the side of the road with two other seventh-grade boys. One was hospitalized from his injuries, while the other walked away physically unscathed. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating the incident, which involved a 24-year-old female driver.

The accident left the community in shock, but few felt it more than the victims’ fellow classmates in Coventry schools.

“Taylor was my best friend,” Stephen, 14, said looking down, the accident still raw in his mind. “I was really hurt when she died.”

Even through the pain of the incident, Stephen felt the need to do something.

In less than a month, Stephen and other Coventry students spearheaded planning a fundraiser called “Walking on for You” for the victims’ families, getting nearly every faction of the community involved along the way. All proceeds from Sunday evening’s event at Coventry Middle School will go to the victims’ families.

Stephen first approached his mom, Beth Thrall, with the idea just days after the accident, and she asked her boss at the Towpath Credit Union if she could get scheduling flexibility to help with planning.

The company did one better, granting Thrall not only flexibility, but also monetary donations, an area to store raffle baskets and a direct account for people to call in and donate to, among other assistance.

It was Stephen, his friend Kyler Barnett and other Coventry students, though, who did the bulk of the legwork in acquiring donations and spreading the word, Thrall said.

“This is such a close-knit class … they’re always there for each other,” said Tina Barnett, Kyler’s mom, who is also involved with planning.

Students went knocking door-to-door at businesses from local to corporate asking for donations, sometimes stopping at up to 20 a day. They acquired more than 100 baskets that will be auctioned off Sunday evening, containing prizes that run the gamut from gift cards to tickets to the Bridgestone Invitational.

“This started as a 14-year-old kid’s idea, and the entire community has gotten behind us and said, ‘What do you need?’ ” Thrall said. “We haven’t had a business tell us no.”

In addition to the silent auction, the event will feature two 50/50 raffles, a spaghetti dinner, live performances and a bake sale. The kids got food donations, too — “enough pasta to feed an army,” Thrall said.

The students involved agree that in light of the tragedy, working together has eased the pain as they’ve realized “everybody cared and wants to help,” Kyler said.

“It’s helped me feel better,” Stephen said.

Organizers are planning on more than 1,000 attendees to come together and see the result of an effort nearly everyone in the community had a piece of.

“We are prepared to show the world what it means to be Coventry strong,” Thrall said.

Theresa Cottom can be reached at 330-996-3216 or tcottom@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @Theresa_Cottom .

Things to Do, June 24: Purple martins, Ukrainian Festival, cat show and concerts

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High-flying purple martins

Fans of purple martins can celebrate the birds from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the State Mill launch ramp, 809 State Mill Road, Coventry Township. The event will celebrate the birds’ amazing intercontinental journey and can feed scrambled eggs to the martins. Crafts for children and adults will be available. Thousands of purple martins gather and roost at night on the waters of Nimisila Reservoir Metro Park. The Portage Lakes area is considered the Purple Martin Capital of Ohio.

Ukrainian Festival in Akron

The 14th annual Ukrainian Festival will be from 1 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church, 1866 Brown St., just north of East Waterloo Road, in Akron. Traditional Ukrainian foods, such as pierogies, kielbasa and sauerkraut, stuffed cabbage rolls, cabbage and noodles and kolachi rolls, will be offered. Entertainment will include music by the Walter Wolansky and Friends Polka Band. The Kyiv Ukrainian Dance Ensemble from Pittsburgh will perform at 3 p.m. Church tours will be available throughout the day, as well as Ukrainian items for sale, cash prizes and raffle baskets. Admission is free.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty

The Cat Fanciers’ Association All Breed Cat Show is at the John S. Knight Center on Saturday and Sunday at 77 E. Mill St. in downtown Akron. Check out the variety of cats and vendors set up for the show. Admission is $6 for adults and $3 for kids.

Artfest at Boston Mills

The Boston Mills Artfest is Saturday and Sunday in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Fine art and fine craft items including ceramics, paintings, glass, mixed media, fiber and jewelry will be at Boston Mills Ski Resort at 7100 Riverview Road, Boston Township.

Two concerts tonight

• George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic — 7 p.m. Saturday, with Jan Marie & AZ1 Band, $10. Lock 3 Park, Akron. The show is sold out. www.lock3live.com.

• Train — 7 p.m. Saturday, with O.A.R. and Natasha Bedingfield, starting at $18. Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls. www.ticketmaster.com

Twins 5, Indians 0: Indians’ hot streak dampened by Twins, misting rain

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CLEVELAND: Nothing like a persistent mist to cool down what was one of the hottest teams and offenses in baseball.

After going 7-1 on a just-completed road trip in which they scored at least five runs in every game, the Indians were stopped in their tracks in a 5-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Friday night in a game played in a misting rain for much of the night.

The Indians (39-33) mustered only four hits, two of them coming against Twins starting pitcher Adalberto Mejia (2-3), who threw five scoreless innings in his best start of the season. They had previously totaled at least 10 hits in nine consecutive games, the longest streak for the franchise since 2001.

Erik Gonzalez started at third base in place of Jose Ramirez. Ramirez had been the Indians’ hottest hitter — as well as one of the hottest hitters in baseball — over the past two weeks but was in need of a day of rest after remaining in the lineup through his torrid streak.

As fate would have it, Gonzalez — hitting in the No. 2 spot — came up to bat with the bases loaded twice in the first four innings. Mejia struck out Gonzalez both times, as the Indians came up empty in their only two scoring chances of the night.

The first opportunity, in the second inning, came with two outs and after Mejia had walked the bases loaded. The second bases-loaded situation came as a result of the Indians’ only two hits off Mejia and an error. Gonzalez struck out for the second out of the inning and was followed by Francisco Lindor, who lined a ball to left field but right at outfielder Eddie Rosario.

In all, the Indians left 10 men on base, most of them coming in the second and fourth innings.

The Twins (37-34), meanwhile, had little trouble hitting Indians starting pitcher Trevor Bauer, who in the second inning began missing his intended spot and found too much of the plate too often. The Twins in that inning scored four runs on four hits, three of them for extra bases. Two of the outs recorded in the inning included a fly-out to the wall in right field and a line drive to deep left field.

The one softly hit ball was a broken-bat infield single by Eddie Rosario that made it 1-0. Jorge Polanco then crushed a two-run home run on a pitch down the middle of the plate, making it 3-0. After a walk, Brian Dozier extended the lead to 4-0 with an RBI double to center field.

Dozier made it 5-0 in the seventh, scoring Byron Buxton with a bloop single to end Bauer’s night. Bauer (6-6) allowed five runs, four earned (one scored after an error on Bauer), on eight hits and one walk. He struck out four.

Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Indians blog at www.ohio.com/indians. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RyanLewisABJ.

Versatile Browns rookie Jabrill Peppers has special teams coordinator Chris Tabor thinking about Josh Cribbs

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When the Browns drafted strong safety Jabrill Peppers the night of April 27, special teams coordinator Chris Tabor reacted as if he had just hit the Mega Millions jackpot.

In a video produced by the Browns and published on their website, coach Hue Jackson walked down a hallway and yelled for Tabor after the pick had been made. When Jackson found Tabor, the assistant’s jubilation couldn’t be contained.

Tabor playfully pushed Jackson, hugged assistant defensive backs coach Jerod Kruse, clapped, fist-pumped and exclaimed, “That’s a big one. Wow!”

After the Browns let Travis Benjamin leave in free agency in 2016, they had no return game to speak of last season until Mario Alford breathed some life into it in the final three games.

But Tabor believes Peppers, 5-foot-10⅞ and 213 pounds, can change the way the Browns play special teams. He sees a returner who reminds him of Browns legend Josh Cribbs, a three-time Pro Bowler whose eight kickoff return touchdowns are tied for the most in NFL history.

“The way [Peppers is] built, he kind of reminds me a little bit in the Cribbsy mold,” Tabor said last week as mandatory minicamp wrapped up. “He has some thickness to him. If you look at our past returners, even when I was in Chicago with Devin [Hester], Devin was a little slighter guy. Travis was a really slight guy.

“[Peppers is] a mix of more of a Cribbsy and can go north-south. But I thought he had good vision coming out, and you could see it on a lot of plays where he could just create on his own, and I think those are good traits in a returner.”

The Browns ranked 26th in yards per punt return (6.7) and tied for 28th in yards per kickoff return (18.6) last season when they went 1-15.

At the University of Michigan, Peppers had 39 punt returns for 510 yards (13.1 average) and a touchdown, plus 18 kickoff returns for 483 yards (26.8 average).

Peppers, the 25th overall selection, worked as a punt and kickoff returner throughout the Browns’ spring practices.

“I’m excited about Jabrill returning,” said Tabor, who’s been in charge of Browns special teams since 2011. “Obviously, I thought he was electric in college as a playmaker. It’s a matter of helping us get our return game to where it’s supposed to be, where the Cleveland Browns are supposed to be returning the ball, and hopefully we can get to that. We still have a lot of work to do, but I think we can get there.”

Peppers, 21, is confident he can make a major difference. He did some returning in youth and high school football before turning heads at Michigan.

“When [coach Jim] Harbaugh got [to Michigan], he didn’t know us from a can of paint,” Peppers said last month. “Basically, all of the skill position guys, we had racing events. The fastest guys, he put back there [as returners]. He then saw who looked natural doing it. I’m a competitor. I didn’t really care who was back there before me or anything like that. I’m just going to try to do what I got to do to compete.”

Peppers proved to be a dynamic playmaker capable of doing just about anything on the football field. He played 15 positions for the Wolverines, and Jackson has said he’ll eventually moonlight on offense for the Browns.

“The unique thing is all the positions he plays,” Harbaugh said last year, per MLive.com. “You start counting them — safety, corner, nickel, outside linebacker, slot receiver, Wildcat quarterback, running back, kick returner, punt returner, gunner, hold up — that’s 11 or 12 right there. And I know there’s others he could do, and do well.”

Entering the draft, the Browns were intrigued by all of the possibilities, including the creative ways defensive coordinator Gregg Williams could use Peppers as a strong safety who can fill a linebacker role in certain packages.

In 2015, Peppers primarily played safety and compiled 45 tackles, including 5.5 for loss, and a career-high 10 passes defensed. He switched to linebacker in 2016 to fill a team need and racked up 72 tackles, including 16 for loss, to go along with an interception. He earned first-team All-Big Ten honors both seasons.

Last year, he also became the first player in Big Ten history to win three individual awards: the conference’s defensive player, linebacker and return specialist of the year honors.

“He’s one of the best overall football players that I saw in this year’s draft,” Kruse, who guides the Browns’ safeties, said last week. “I mean we’re talking about football players. Roll the ball out. ‘What position to you want me to play, coach? I’ll go do it.’

“If it involves a ball, everything he’s done growing up in his life, he’s been good at. Anything. I mean you name it. From rugby to soccer to baseball to football to basketball, you just name it. That kid’s excelled at anything he’s ever done. He’s just one of those that has naturally instinctive ability to understand space and movement.”

That’s why Tabor was gleeful when the Browns picked Peppers after trading down from No. 12 overall to No. 25.

“I was excited about it,” Tabor said. “I’m excited and I’m passionate about the Cleveland Browns and special teams. When I feel like we acquire a player — all the players that we acquire can help us in some way — I get excited about that. It got videoed. I didn’t know it was getting videoed. But when players get picked, I get excited.

“He was a good player and we’re hoping that translates to this level. This is a different deal for him, but [I] have great confidence in how he approaches things and how he works at things that he has a chance to be a good one.”

Peppers has talked to Tabor and Kruse about celebrating when he was drafted and hopes to reward them for their faith.

“Those were the two guys who were really vying for me and wanted me to be picked,” Peppers said. “I guess when I was picked, they were excited. Coach Tabor said he thinks he was more excited than I was, but I was like, ‘I don’t think so.’

“It definitely feels good to know you have coaches that believe in you that much and are that excited about what you can bring to the team. I’m definitely excited about getting to work and bringing those thoughts and those ideas into fruition.”

Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/abj.sports.

Robin Swoboda remembers her brother who passed away last week

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The phone call came last Monday afternoon about 3:30.

For some reason, my heart skipped a beat and I caught my breath when I saw the number was from my hometown, St. Joseph, Missouri.

“Hello?”

“Is this Robin Swoboda?” asked a friendly voice.

“Yes, it is,” I answered.

“Did you go to Central High School?”

“Yes, I did,” I said.

Thinking maybe it was someone calling about a class reunion, I added: “But I transferred to Benton High School after my freshman year because that’s where my best friend went to school.”

I quickly found out he wasn’t calling about reunions and my heart didn’t just skip a beat. It seemed to stop completely as he spoke the next words.

“Robin, my name is Detective Richard Shelton and I’m with the St. Joseph Police Department. I am sorry to have to tell you that your brother Shawn was found dead last night.”

When I could finally catch my breath again and get the words out of my mouth, they came in a flurry.

“What???”

“When? Where? How?” I gasped as I tried to fight back the tears.

He explained that a 911 call came in at 10:27 p.m. the night before from a friend Shawn had been staying with who had found him unresponsive in his bed.

“Most likely, alcohol played a role.” The St. Joseph Police Department was very familiar with my brother.

My sisters and I later found out that he had passed away sometime after 1 a.m. Father’s Day morning. He was found lying on his side, clutching a pillow. The cause of death was determined to be cardiac arrest.

But, no doubt, alcohol played a role.

I’ve lost both of my parents but never a sibling. There is a different kind of processing that takes place, especially when that sibling was an alcoholic.

My brother would have given you the shirt off his back. It would probably have reeked of cigarette smoke but he would have gladly given it to you if you needed it. Sadly, that’s about all he had when he died. A few articles of clothing and a cellphone. But there is so much more to know about Shawn Kennedy Swoboda.

He had the bluest eyes, the biggest dimples and curly blond hair that started graying in his 20s.

He was tall, handsome, kind, good-hearted and a bold defender of his family and friends.

While living his troubled life and fighting his demons, my baby brother always made sure no one knew his own sadness but made everyone around him laugh until their sides ached. But Shawn was also his own worst enemy, never purposefully hurting anyone but himself.

Shawn was 10 years my junior, the last of four children born to John and Tamara Swoboda, who bore three children in the 31 months after I turned 7.

Life in our house wasn’t easy. Our dad was a steelworker, a hard worker who pulled 12-hour shifts and always stopped at the bar on his way home from work.

I remember the first time he fell out of his car and crawled across the yard to the front door, pretending to play with our dog. I was 8 years old and so embarrassed I pushed my friend into our backyard. It was the last time I ever had a friend over to my house.

As the years passed, his alcoholism was the elephant in the room, especially on holidays because that’s when he got the drunkest. No matter the day, though, we were always his victims. My mom first, then me because I was the oldest and Shawn, because he was the only boy.

I’ve relived the scenarios over and over through the years, at least the parts I can remember.

Much of my childhood is not even a distant memory, as I have no recollection of most it.

But I do remember a drunken, critical father who was hard on my brother and me. A father we could never please because we couldn’t do anything right. If we did, he found something else we were or weren’t doing to criticize.

I used his “you’re no good” mantra to propel me in life. I wanted to be successful to prove my dad wrong, that this “damn dummy” could make something of herself.

It’s hard on a kid when your father calls you a “damn dummy.”

Sadly, Shawn allowed the ghostly voices of our dad’s criticism to keep him down and he believed in his heart that he wasn’t worthy of a good life.

Like our father, alcohol became his closest confidant and while it may not have been the cause of death, it was the cause of a hundred deaths in his lifetime.

The deaths of hopes and dreams, relationships and the intimacy we all crave. Not just for the alcoholic but for those who love them, too.

My brother had so much to offer but he never saw it in himself.

I don’t think he ever saw how much his daughter idolized him, how much his friends and sisters loved him and how much is kind heart was needed in this world.

Years ago, he accepted Christ as his Savior. I believe he’s finally found the peace that eluded him here on earth and he’s with our mother, who never gave up on him.

Rest in peace, baby brother. Until we meet again.

Contact Robin Swoboda at Robinswoboda@outlook.com.

Zima is back for the zummer; readers ready for nostalgia in a bottle

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Jolly Ranchers. Grenadine. Chambord. Or just straight up.

Pick your poison.

Zima is back for the summer, and if you’re of, um, a certain age (ahem), so are the memories.

And if you’re not, it’s time to make some new ones. But hurry. It’s only around until Labor Day.

The popular clear malt beverage was launched by Coors — now MillerCoors — in 1994 and discontinued in the United States in 2008. One of the nation’s first “alcopops,” a sugary alternative to beer, it is still available in Japan.

Zima’s place in history is clear — cemented in the same decade that brought us Crystal Pepsi and Miller’s Clear Beer. It came after the wine coolers of the ’80s (everyone remember Bartles & Jaymes?) and ushered in sweeter beverages such as Mike’s Hard Lemonade in the later ’90s and Not Your Father’s Root Beer and Henry’s Hard Orange (and other flavors) today.

Those drinking the citrus-flavored Zima, which is 5 percent alcohol by volume, would add their own twist, such as dropping in Jolly Ranchers or Skittles, to improve the taste. Or if they had champagne tastes on a malt-beverage budget, they might add grenadine with lime or a shot of Chambord raspberry liqueur.

Locally, Zima was re-released June 12, said Katie Swartz, director of marketing for Acme Fresh Markets. It’s been selling fast, and Swartz expects to be sold out by the Fourth of July.

Who’s buying it? Minivan moms? Millennials?

“Everyone,” Swartz said. “Zima has been selling well in all of our stores.”

Buehler Food Market just started the promotion, said Lynne Frye, administrative assistant to Ron James, director of beer, wine and liquor.

“We were kind of surprised it started up again,” she said. “I think it’s going to fly off the shelves. We preordered cases.”

“People are buying it,” said Alex Fisher, director of store operations, strategic marketing and beer buyer at Fishers Foods. “It’s definitely a nostalgic kind of item. People are buying it just to buy it.”

Many customers are buying the candy to go with it, he said.

“Why not have that be a part of your life again?” he said. “I’ve seen it’s blowing up on social media. I’m just happy it’s selling well and happy people are happy about it.”

Apparently, Zimi drinkers will be consuming the bubbly beverage at home.

Anthony Piscazzi, owner of the Merchant Tavern in Akron’s Merriman Valley, said he does not plan on serving it and no one has asked for it.

“We haven’t jumped on the Zima bandwagon yet,” said Dick Kanatzar, owner of craft cocktail bar Chop & Swizzle in Akron’s West Hill. “I think it’s gonna be a flash in the pan. I am carrying it at Howie’s on the Lake [in New Franklin]. But we are gonna have a big Zima party.” The ’90s-themed Zima fest with DJ Stevie C will be 8 p.m. July 8.

Is anyone drinking it?

The Beacon Journal asked on Facebook whether readers were in line with their candy at the ready or asking, “Z-what?!”

Some people are snapping up the nostalgia in a bottle right away.

“Put mine in the shopping cart as soon as I saw the display at Giant Eagle!” wrote Patti Eickhoff of Akron in response to the Beacon Journal post. “Reminds me of carefree college days!!!”

“Bought some last week and enjoyed it over the weekend jolly ranchers and all!” wrote Nicole Renee. “Tastes exactly like 1995, alternative music and flannels.”

“This was the Highschool go to lmao,” wrote Tim Lunsford.

“I Got Mine...#PoolDay,” wrote Gina Marie Ciancio. “Brings back Memories.. Back in the 90s.. Wow... Summer.. .. Boys..and Parties when the Parents were Away.. Good Times with Great friends..”

Two local residents already had the drink in hand at a recent family gathering. Janet Morrison posted a photo on Facebook with the comment: “This is Matt Zeiner and Kim Pettit drinking Zima at the family reunion in Milford, DE. They’re bringing some back to Akron!!!” Morrison pointed out the Jolly Ranchers at the bottom of their bottles — grape for Pettit and cherry for Zeiner.

And it’s even drawing some new tasters.

“Born in ’88 so first time Zima buyer this past weekend!,” wrote Kathleen Hrovatich of Akron. “Reminded me of a less sugary Smirnoff ice. Refreshing and not terrible but I didn’t even finish one and was already done with it. My boyfriend though (typically a bourbon or beer drinker) said it ‘got him to a weird place.’ And then had a headache the next morning!”

Not everyone is a fan.

“It was nasty when it first came out and most likely still is,” wrote Keith Price of North Canton.

Zima drinkers doctored the beverage in a variety of ways.

“It was best with a shot of Chambord!” wrote John J. Greer of Akron. “I remember loading up the trunk and taking cases of it on our first spring break trip in college! #memories 

And some did not doctor it at all.

“I’m a purist,” wrote Dawn Henderson. “No candy added. I must say I was surprised that it tasted exactly the same as it did when I drank a six pack and got a tattoo.”

Zima grows up

West Akron sommelier Brian Lamoda, 35, who also went to culinary school, remembers the drink well.

“I was in college in 2000-2001,” he said during a recent interview. “We used to drink that. We used to put Jolly Ranchers in it. It tasted so good back then. I would drink two and be done for the night.”

To him, the taste has changed.

“Now when I taste it, it’s very sweet,” he said. “My palate’s changed. I remember it more like a tonic or quinine. Now it’s more like a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. It’s like a Sprite.”

Lamoda did some tasting notes and smelled a candied flower, lemon lime and yeast.

“It almost smelled like a beer bottle,” he said.

Its palate is golden delicious apple, lemon-lime, honeysuckle and tropical fruit.

“I was surprised to pull that much out of it,” he said. “I expected to be drinking Sprite, but it was good. I would compare it with a low-end fruit wine, a prosecco with flaws, like maybe it was corked, exposed to sunlight.”

Plan to serve some at dinner?

The sweet drink pairs well with spicy foods and summer’s light dishes, Lamoda said.

The first thing that came to his mind was fish. Cooks could do a beer batter but substitute Zima for the beer or do half Zima and half club soda. The drink also would go well with chicken, possibly pork but not burgers or red meat, or a “nice light” salad with a vinaigrette. Don’t use ranch dressing because the Zima is acidic, he said.

And, of course, you can use the drink to make other drinks. Lamoda offered a recipe inspired by mimosas: Instead of sparkling wine or champagne, mix Zima with orange juice and add a quarter-ounce of vodka “to give it a little kick.” Lamoda also switched to grapefruit juice because the Zima is so sweet, “so it balanced well,” he said.

He also poured it in a glass and added frozen cherries.

“It was really good, very sweet, like a really fast sangria,” he said. “The frozen fruit makes it a little healthier.”

That’s certainly a step up from those Jolly Ranchers.

Monica L. Thomas is of a certain age and may have had a Zima or two in her day. No Jolly Ranchers, though. She can be reached at 330-996-3827 or mthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @MLThomasABJ  and www.facebook.com/MLThomasABJ.

Walgreens to open niche pharmacy in downtown Akron

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Drugstore chain giant Walgreens is opening a niche pharmacy in downtown Akron.

The “Community, A Walgreens Pharmacy” is expected to open next month — a specific date has not yet been set — on South Main Street at Cedar Street.

The business is near Jimmy John’s sandwich shop, a new hair salon and across the street from popular downtown spots that include the Diamond Deli.

The small pharmacy-only store will focus on people with complex health needs — initially HIV/AIDS, chronic inflammatory disease, and cancer, a Walgreens spokesman said.

The Community pharmacy will be one of about 260 specialty pharmacies Walgreens now has in the United States. Walgreens (the corporate parent is Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.), as of 2016 had 8,175 stores in the U.S.; about 250 in Ohio.

A typical full-service Walgreens drugstore is about 14,400 square feet in size. The Akron pharmacy will be much smaller — 1,900 square feet.

The Akron store will have four employees: Two pharmacists and two pharmacy technicians. The larger Walgreens stores typically have 27 employees.

The nearest full-service, 24-hour pharmacy Walgreens site to the upcoming Akron store is on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls.

Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ  on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ


High school soccer: Walsh Jesuit graduate Sofia Rossi earns Ohio Player of the Year honor from Gatorade

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Sofia Rossi, a 2017 Walsh Jesuit graduate, has been named the Gatorade Ohio Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

Rossi scored 29 goals and had 14 assists as a senior. She was named to the NSCAA All-American first team, and was also selected as Ohio’s Ms. Soccer and Ohio’s Division I Player of the Year, according to the state coaches.

Walsh won four Division I state titles with Rossi in the lineup.

“Being named Ohio Gatorade Player of the Year is the perfect closure to one of the greatest individual high school careers in Ohio sports history,” Walsh coach Dino McIntyre said. “Sofia accomplished all of this by being very humble and by putting the team first for all four years at Walsh Jesuit. She is now the standard by which all future WJ soccer players will be measured.”

McIntyre said Rossi, a Wake Forest recruit, totaled 81 goals and 57 assists in four years at Walsh. The Warriors posted a record of 85-1-5 during Rossi’s career. She scored in all four state final matches, and had either a goal or an assist in 77 of the 91 matches she played.

Michael Beaven can be reached at 330-996-3829 or mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the #ABJVarsity  high school blog at www.ohio.com/preps. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MBeavenABJ.

Akron unleashes its problem-solvers

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When the United Way of Summit County announced its four Bold Goals for 2025, I cringed. The scars remain, from the collapse of the University Park Alliance, the fumbling of the BioInnovation Institute, even failing to secure the nut of the good ideas of Scott Scarborough, including the platform for entrepreneurship.

Now the Akron Public Schools will increase third grade reading proficiency rates from 38 percent to 65 percent? The graduation rate for the city schools will jump from 75 percent to 90?

The city will see one-quarter of its 42,000 working poor reach a better financial place? Emergency room visits due to drug overdoses will decline from 2,400 a year to 1,000?

Are we falling into the ambition trap, applauding ourselves for shooting high yet inevitably missing?

Two years have passed since the highly successful Don Plusquellic made his foolish exit from the mayor’s office. Much has been made of the subsequent turnover in leadership across the city. Scarborough deservedly received the boot a year ago, just two years after replacing Luis Proenza as the president of the University of Akron.

FirstEnergy has new leadership. So do Summa Health System, Akron General and Summit County. Huntington bought FirstMerit.

Bob Kulinski gave way to Jim Mullen at the United Way as the organization began to reshape its mission. United Way has changed — from essentially a fund-raiser to a problem-solver. Now it organizes and deploys resources to that purpose, driven by data from the likes of the Summit Education Initiative about what works.

The executives aren’t alone in changing. So are the organizations.

Problem-solvers are surfacing elsewhere. Look at Leadership Akron and its Civic Solutions Lab, tapping talent across the city, the group devoting a year to addressing a challenge.

Perhaps most notable is the revamped strategy of the GAR Foundation, with Christine Mayer at the lead. She also is the new chairwoman of the United Way board. The foundation is narrowing and deepening its focus to three leading priorities, early childhood education, K-16 education and economic and workforce development. Along with its partners, it sees these as areas of strength, or where GAR is more equipped to make a difference.

The foundation will remain active where it long has been a leader, in arts and culture, basic needs, such as food assistance and emergency shelter, and nonprofit leadership building. At the same time, it is following the research, say, about the link between early education and positive outcomes later in life. It is challenging itself and the community to show a better result than the current one-third of students who enter kindergarten unprepared to learn.

Not long ago, the GAR Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched a survey of arts and culture in the Akron area. The result is ArtsNow, led by Nicole Mullet. If the problem was a lack of cohesion, the arts and culture community missing the clout to enhance its vitality and reach, that now is being addressed. Mullet points, for instance, to the website SummitLive365.com as proving successful as a place for artists and others to connect.

The result echoes what famously has happened in St. Louis for entrepreneurs, the city jumping ahead because it found a mechanism for building a cluster, vibrant, creative and reinforcing.

I may never enter the VE Poetry Cafe on Romig Road near Rolling Acres, let alone in the early morning. I like that others are there.

Summit County has pulled together an online catalogue of all 28,000 businesses. This Summit Business Connection has the potential to serve invaluably as an economic development tool, especially in view of growth largely coming from those who are already here.

The Akron schools are remaking themselves, drawing on the achievements of Nashville and other urban districts. The city of Akron has a housing initiative that also reflects successes elsewhere.

This isn’t to diminish the magnitude of the problems, more than half of the city’s children living below the poverty line. Or the persistence and ingenuity needed to succeed. The Greater Akron Chamber has the job of finding relevance, in part, because Mayor Horrigan and his team have yet to define the city’s broader approach to economic development.

The University of Akron, beset by enrollment trouble, lacks its own definition of what it wants to be.

One question hovered when Don Plusquellic exited, such a dominant presence now gone: Who will lead? The contrasting Horrigan style has opened the way to others. They’re thinking boldly about problems.

Douglas is the Beacon Journal editorial page editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3514 or emailed at mdouglas@thebeaconjournal.com.

Summit County program to help juvenile human-trafficking victims receives final state certification

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A Summit County Juvenile Court program aimed at helping youths who are human-trafficking victims has received its final state certification.

It is the first specialized docket of its kind in a juvenile court in Ohio.

“This will allow the court to continue to work with our community partners to offer youth a second chance at a normal, productive life and free them from the hold of those who victimized them,” Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio said in a prepared statement.

The program, called Restore Court, helps youths who are victims or are in danger of becoming victims of human trafficking.

It provides participants with services, rewards and punishments to try to steer them onto the right path.

Human trafficking is often referred to as a form of modern-day slavery in which people profit from controlling and exploiting others. Traffickers use “force, fraud or coercion” to lure their victims and force them into labor or prostitution, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Restore Court, created in January 2015, had previously received interim approval from the Ohio Supreme Court.

Sixty-one youths have so far participated.

Most of the youths are from Akron, but others hail from as far south as Clinton to as far north as Twinsburg.

They entered the program charged with a variety of crimes, including soliciting, chronic truancy, possession of drugs, public indecency and assault.

Helping Akron: Faith-based leaders share lessons they’ve learned while trying to help city’s poor, marginalized

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Some volunteers at a ministry near Summit Lake recently felt threatened by a group of young men who eyeballed them every time they drove by a corner store.

As Duane Crabbs of Kingdom Leadership Alliance tells it, the new leader of that ministry wanted to help his volunteers feel safe, so he reached out to Akron city officials for help.

Officials aim to close the store, which may solve the ministry’s immediate problem, Crabbs said, but that could cause problems for others in Summit Lake.

Where will neighbors who depended on the store shop, Crabbs asked Saturday during a meeting about good leadership in the nonprofit, faith community.

And what happens to the group of young men who hung out near the shop selling drugs? They won’t go away, Crabbs said. They’ll just move to another location causing problems for someone else.

Crabbs and Noelle Beck, executive director of First Glance youth center in Kenmore, Saturday morning coached a group of about a dozen people about how to lead.

Different lessons

Some of the lessons might apply to any business — like keeping a database of staff members’ favorite orders from Subway, Starbucks or other regular haunts and treating that person during a particularly rough work day.

But other lessons may be unique to the type of work these nonprofits do.

Beck, through her work at First Glance, said the day before she had been at a funeral for a 3-month-old.

In recent weeks, she had also attended the funerals of different parents who overdosed on opiates. And she was on-call for a suicidal teen who was trying to cope with a parent’s repeated opiate overdoses.

Beck insists each of her staff members, and herself, spend an hour each working day in a special room at the teen center set aside for prayer. Each of them also takes one day per month as a retreat. It can’t be used for laundry or to hide inside, Beck said, but for things they love to do, like hiking or biking.

“You have to engage the light because there is so much darkness,” she said.

About 1,000 teenagers visit First Glance every year. There is no exterior sign on the Kenmore Boulevard center to lure them. And Beck doesn’t make rounds of local schools trying to recruit, she said, because her words, as a middle-class woman, carry little credibility.

First Glance attracts teens by word of mouth, mostly from other teens who go to the center, she said.

And First Glance ultimately attracts many of the people who work or volunteer there to Kenmore.

Forty-five have moved to the neighborhood after working at the teen center, Beck said.

Building relationships

Crabbs, a former Cuyahoga Falls and Akron firefighter-paramedic, and his wife, Lisa, gave up their middle-class life, too.

In 1997, they moved their family to Summit Lake in a different struggling Akron neighborhood where Crabbs launched a ministry aimed at addicts, convicts and others often marginalized by society.

One of the things Crabbs emphasized to leaders Saturday was building relationships in the communities they’re trying to serve.

Crabbs and his family drive by the corner store in Summit Lake all of the time without a problem, he said.

The guys in front of the store were probably eyeballing ministry volunteers because that’s what they do when they see a middle-class stranger come into their poor neighborhood, Crabbs said. The dealers assume the middle class are there for drugs and stare at them, waiting for a signal they want to buy.

What if, Crabbs asked, the ministry at Summit Lake would have reached out to the store owner instead of city officials?

He would have discovered the owner moved to Chicago and let his son take care of the store. The owner’s son quickly fell into debt to the dealers, Crabbs said.

Maybe the ministry, which helps people find jobs, could have made a deal to find work for the young dealers in front of the store.

That not only would have solved the ministry’s problem, Crabbs said, but it also would have built trust in the larger neighborhood the new ministry is trying to serve.

Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.

Marla Ridenour: Buyouts for Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony could create brOhio partnership with LeBron James next season

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While Cavaliers fans were watching their blockbuster trade hopes dashed during the NBA Draft on Thursday night, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were taking in spring menswear shows at Paris Fashion Week.

Perhaps a few more jackets suitable for Northeast Ohio might be in order.

The state of their franchises, Anthony’s New York Knicks and Wade’s Chicago Bulls, could soon make them buyout candidates. The Cavs will have no influence on their futures short of LeBron James lobbying his two close friends to join him in Cleveland if those buyouts are offered, but a “brOhio” partnership is possible before the 2018 playoffs begin.

The Bulls launched their youth movement Thursday with a stunning trade of Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves. That left Wade, in the final year of his contract, possibly looking at another season that at best ends in the first round of the playoffs.

Wade, 35, told the Bulls on Tuesday that he was picking up his $23.8 million player option for 2017-18, but Chicago media reports did not say whether he had signed the paperwork, which is due on Tuesday. Even if he has, ESPN.com’s Zach Lowe wrote Friday that Wade “is a lock” to get bought out next season.

He is a Chicago native, but that loyalty might no longer go both ways.

“What we’ve done tonight is set a direction,” Bulls vice president of basketball operations John Paxson said of the Butler trade. “We’re going to do it with young players. We’re going to be disciplined and patient.”

That also does not bode well for Bulls guard Rajon Rondo, who could be traded next week, but it looks possible that Wade could be cut loose before the end of February.

Anthony, 33, has two years left on his contract at $26.2 million and $27.9 million (a player option). He’s been insistent about remaining in New York, but he’s clearly no longer wanted. Two days after the Knicks finished a 31-51 season, president Phil Jackson said Anthony “would be better off somewhere else.”

“We’ve not been able to win with [Anthony] on the court at this time,” Jackson said in April. “I think the direction with our team is that he’s a player that would be better off somewhere else and using his talent somewhere where he can win or chase that championship.”

Jackson’s Melo-shaming has not let up.

“We’d like him to have success,” Jackson said at the draft combine in mid-May. “The opportunity is narrowing. We’re not going to be there. Hopefully, we’ll be maybe a playoff team next year. It would be tough to consider us a possible champion.”

Anthony has a no-trade contract and a 15 percent trade kicker, although he might take a buyout to play with James. The Knicks seem to be a total disaster, with Jackson talking about trading Kristaps Porzingis on draft night, although no one paid the outrageous ransom Jackson demanded to deal the 21-year-old star power forward. Knicks owner James Dolan was playing with his blues-rock band 3½ miles away from the draft at Barclays Center and unaware of what was going on.

With the Cavs’ lack of assets, there is no way for them to get Wade and Anthony without buyouts, which would mean the Bulls and Knicks would pay the bulk of their salary. Those circumstances would reportedly leave the Cavs with a price tag of $5.1 million each as mid-level exceptions.

Former Cavs General Manager David Griffin relied on buyouts to boost the roster last February and March when the team added backup point guard Deron Williams and center Andrew Bogut. Although Griffin parted ways with Cavs owner Dan Gilbert on Monday, Assistant GM Koby Altman saw how well it worked.

Among NBA insiders, Anthony is seen as a dinosaur who lacks the speed to keep up with the Cavs’ pace. But playing with James brings out the best in his teammates, with ex-Knick J.R. Smith perhaps the best example. Williams got in dramatically better shape in his few months in Cleveland, his training inspired by being around the Cavs.

Anthony has never won a championship, so joining James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love should be attractive. Anthony also played nearly three seasons with the Denver Nuggets and Knicks with Chauncey Billups, mulling the chance to become the Cavs president of basketball operations.

Anthony and Wade would not help the Cavs get younger, but both would provide some of the scoring punch the Cavs lacked in the 2017 NBA Finals against the Warriors. For Wade, the chance to chase his fourth championship — his third with James — would be a big draw should the Bulls decide they’re ready to accelerate the youth movement.

With the Cavs in luxury and repeater tax hell, most presumed James, 32, would have to head to Los Angeles after next season to play with friends before his career winds down. That might not be the case. Circumstances could unite three of the top five picks in the 2003 draft in Cleveland sometime next season.

Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.

Bob Dyer: Beware the ides of Peninsula — and the $250 fine

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Did you know that Peninsula is Satan’s playground, and that the streets are teeming with mutants because the government covered up a deadly chemical spill?

Hey, it’s on the internet. Must be true.

“Beneath its charm, say the locals, is something darker,” claims one of many websites spreading the word.

“According to some, the entire town is cursed. Rumors of evil rituals, disturbed hauntings and even government cover-ups plague the town.”

A church in the center of the village features an upside-down cross, clear evidence that black magic is afoot.

Adjacent Boston Township offers a winding road, since closed, dubbed the “Highway to Hell” because it claimed a “supernatural number” of lives, as well as an abandoned school bus in which numerous children were murdered.

The entire 44264 area is known as Helltown, we are told.

Peninsula Mayor Douglas Mayer is not amused. It’s not that he has no sense of humor — he has a good

one — but this kind of internet

garbage is attracting disruptive thrill-seekers from as far away as Columbus, sometimes in tour buses.

Mayer and the rest of the townsfolk are so tired of the intrusions and vandalism that anyone who sets foot in a Peninsula cemetery after dark is being slapped with a $250 fine.

“If you want to learn what Helltown is, come down some night and come to our cemeteries,” Mayer says. “We’ll call the police and you’ll get a $250 fine. Instantly.

“You think you’re coming down here to have fun and have a couple jokes with your buddies, but everyone in the car — everyone — will leave with a $250 fine.”

The Peninsula Police Department has jurisdiction over the village and Boston Township, so it can nail intruders at both Cedar Grove Cemetery in town and Boston Cemetery, the primary target of outsiders.

Mayer, 62, is a part-time mayor who by day works as an assistant road supervisor for Boston Township. The cemetery vandalism steams him even more because it is occurring in the area where his relatives have lived since the Civil War.

“The stones that they damage are historical stones, the old sandstone ones, the old limestone, that are almost impossible to repair,” he says.

“Some are from the early 1800s. They’ve been snapped two or three times now. …

“Some of them have actually been stored in a building because we can’t afford to have them broken again.”

He says a few groups of vandals, lured by the area’s “black magic” internet reputation, have performed sacrifices with reptiles.

But graveyards aren’t the only “attraction” in the evil land of Peninsula.

Multiple horrors

Sitting in his modest office last week after his daily shift with the township, Mayer pulls back a window blind and points across the street to a Catholic church.

An upside-down cross on the front of the church near the steeple has been billed as a symbol of the occult.

“All it is, is Gothic decorations,” he says with a sigh. “It has nothing to do with nothing. That’s how far people have stretched this whole thing.”

Among the other allegedly creepy locales:

• Crybaby Bridge. It’s on Boston Mills Road by Riverview Road, near the railroad crossing.

Police Patrolman Eddie Westfall, 53, is a native of Cuyahoga Falls who has been on the force since 1991. Even he couldn’t resist giving Crybaby Bridge a go.

”Supposedly,” he says, “if you park on the bridge, turn the ignition off and put the car in neutral, you’ll hear a baby crying.

“I tried it,” he admits with a laugh. “I tried at night. I never heard anything. Never heard a word.”

There’s not a shred of evidence that anyone ever threw a baby off the bridge.

• Stanford Road, aka “The Highway to Hell.” It is a twisting road near Boston Cemetery that gradually builds to a huge hill, which drops off dramatically right after it crests. You could get a car airborne there without much effort.

The internet insists Stanford Road was closed because of an inexplicably high number of car crashes induced by “hordes of robed figures that patrolled the road.”

The road is indeed closed, about a half a mile into it from Riverview Road, well before the hill, with multiple signs and a barrier. There’s also a no-parking sign, so don’t think you’re going to park there and hike back without getting your car towed.

Stanford was closed in the mid-1990s because the big hill suffered major erosion that would have required costly repairs.

As for the eerie “hearse with one headlight” and the abandoned school bus, where you can hear both “laughter and agonized screams” from the kids who were slaughtered by a serial killer or mental patient — well, a quirky area resident did buy an old hearse and did gut an old school bus (neither is still around). But no kids were murdered.

• The Chemical Spill Cover-up. “Rumors began to circulate of a chemical spill cover-up as sightings of mutant humanoids and other beasts became prevalent,” we are told.

This is one of several Peninsula legends that contains a strand of truth that has been hopelessly twisted.

It was not a spill, but a dump — 47-acre Krejci Dump, which straddled Boston and Northfield Center townships where Interstate 271 crosses over Hines Hill Road.

A “cover-up?” Hardly. More than $60 million was spent to clean it up, and the Beacon Journal has written literally 101 stories about the project just since 1985.

When the National Park Service was acquiring land for the park, officials thought they were buying an ordinary dump. But after the 1980 purchase, they discovered an environmental nightmare, a place crammed with an incredible array of toxic chemicals.

Starting shortly after World War II, big companies with major operations in Northeast Ohio — Ford, GM, Chrysler, 3M, Waste Management and Chevron among them — dumped all kinds of horrible stuff there.

Fortunately, the dump’s owner, John Krejci, maintained detailed records, so half of that $60 million bill was paid by Ford and GM, with most of the rest coming from six other companies.

The cleanup was expected to take a few years. It took two decades.

How much stuff had to be trucked away? In 2012, the Beacon reported the material would cover a football field to a depth of 173 feet.

Says the mayor, “They started removing the waste and found ravines that hadn’t been there.”

Asked whether he has encountered many mutants walking the streets of his village, Mayer replies, “No. But we have some characters.”

One of those characters was no doubt responsible for an annual celebration based on the next legend.

• The Peninsula Python, aka “a monstrous snake slithering around town, waiting to capture its human prey.”

This one contains a significant element of truth. During the 1920s or ’30s, Mayer says, “a circus train was coming through the area. It crashed, and a snake got out, and it was seen by a couple of farmers.

“The funniest thing about the ‘Peninsula Python’ is that it was never seen in Peninsula. It was in Boston Township.”

A group of people did go out hunting for it, though, and the python has turned into the village’s unofficial mascot.

One resident built a huge model snake, “about 30 to 40 feet long,” Mayer says. “They walk it from down here up to the library, and it sits outside overnight.

“They call it ‘The Python Parade.’ I call it ‘The Walking of the Snake.’ ”

Thus far, the fake snake hasn’t managed to coil itself around any human prey.

This year’s walk: July 17.

Peninsula doesn’t publicize the funky parade to the outside world, but the townfolk wouldn’t mind if you attended. Just don’t ask about Helltown.

And by all means, don’t sign up for a bus tour.

“We’ve had to turn away chartered buses that want to do tours in the cemetery because of this whole nonsense that people are reading,” Mayer says.

“Our police department meets them down there and says, ‘If one person steps off, here’s my ticket book. Who wants a $250 tour?’ ”

The mayor certainly doesn’t dislike the concept of tourists, most of whom patronize the scenic town’s little shops and restaurants. He just doesn’t want outsiders to patronize hallowed ground.

“It’s sad. We’re trying to restore our old veterans monuments down there [in Boston Township], trying to keep the cemetery the way the community wants it, and we’ve [had to put] fences around it. We have to lock it every night and unlock it every morning. That’s not what you should have to do with your cemeteries.”

None of this was happening until about 10 to 15 years ago, Mayer says. But now, thanks to the internet, it’s “constant.”

“When I’m out working in the summertime, mowing roads, doing whatever, at least once or twice a day someone will stop and ask me how to get to Helltown.

“And I give them directions. ‘It’s over in Bath. It’s actually a village.’ ”

We laugh, but he’s not joking.

Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31

Blue Line Beginners celebrate crossing finish line at Akron race

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Nearly 2,000 people filled the starting line corral at the University of Akron’s InfoCision Stadium on Saturday morning. Music with thick bass beats poured from oversized speakers, building adrenaline.

Many of them had been here before, experienced runners who became avid fans of the Akron Marathon and its summer-long race series long ago and no doubt have a wall full of medals and a closet full of commemorative tech shirts to show for it.

But I was looking for the silicone wristbands that identified Blue Line Beginners, a group of new runners and speed walkers who had spent the past 12 weeks working together to reach this place on this day at this hour.

They weren’t hard to find. There were 88 of them; 88 souls whose diverse life journeys intersected long enough to share one common goal: To train for and finish their first organized race.

The National Inter­state 8k & 1 Mile event announcer sounded a two-minute warning and I briefly flashed back to April Fools’ Day when I asked the community to join me and Akron Beacon Journal photographer Karen Schiely, a couple of running newbies, in tackling the race series together.

Those who knew the invitation was no joke joined us the following week for an inaugural 1.3 mile stroll through Firestone Metro Park.

Look at us now, I thought. April’s fools turned June’s warriors.

I saw Steve and Paula Kmet, 60-somethings from Tallmadge who had spent years standing on the outside of such race corrals cheering on their athletic children. Now they were on the inside. Now they were wearing the racing bibs.

And there was Marcia Linberger of Fairlawn, who waited until the day before to tell her daughter she’d registered for the same 8k her daughter was running. Before the day was done, Linberger and her daughter would be posing for pictures together, their twin Akron Marathon 8k medals glinting in the sun.

Sixty seconds, the announcer shouted. Runners and walkers stretched and pivoted like caged animals pleading to be set free.

I spotted Debra Baglia, Diane Fuller, Darlene Kirkland and Denise Kraft — the “Hansen” sisters from Clinton, Akron, Uniontown and Norton, respectively. Before the morning was over, their smiling faces would be on the giant scoreboard after getting snagged for a random interview.

They stood near MaryJo Jones, Penny Spickard, Joanne Grosko and Kris Wagner, four fitness friends from Green who have turned into a speed-walking force that can outpace some of the runners.

Anita Zona-Peters of Akron was lined up with her grandson, 14-year-old Collin McGrath, who came in from Pennsylvania to share the experience with her.

“Ten seconds,” a voice echoed over the long, narrow corral. The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army blared, its staccato rhythm sounding like a determined heartbeat.

I stood on my toes and spotted the three Jims ahead of me. Jim Mitchell, a civil engineer who used to run when he was in the Army but had never tried an organized race before. Jim Merklin, a CPA who picked up running after gastric bypass surgery changed his life. And Jim Thomas, a retired limo company owner who was less than 90 minutes away from putting a medal over the heart that just underwent a quintuple bypass in March.

And then the starting gun sounded. It was time to chase those dreams.

Akron Marathon Race Director Brian Polen told me only a small percentage of people in the race would look like typical runners, and that was abundantly clear as I ran, walked and trotted along the 8k course that wove through University Park and downtown Akron.

Participants came in every shape, size, age and fitness level. Only the top athletes consider this a “race.” For everyone else, it’s a personal challenge, a chance to set a goal and work hard to achieve it.

For 16 of our Blue Line Beginners, victory meant finishing the 1-mile route, a loop down Brown Street and up Spicer Street and ending inside InfoCision Stadium.

As they peeled off, another 72 Blue Line Beginners continued for another 4 miles, never suspecting some of the welcomed surprises in store.

On Main Street, they exchanged high fives with Santa Claus. Near Spaghetti Warehouse, they ran through a misty shower created by volunteers with hoses. On Exchange Street, speakers pumped music to motivate them into the final mile.

Cowbells sounded from curious places, including a well-prepared motorist who rang one outside her car window as she waited to cross an intersection.

Even police officers shouted words of encouragement to isolated runners who looked as if they could use a boost. To a runner, downtown Akron can feel like the hills of San Francisco.

There’s an inherent warning in a city whose name is derived from the Greek word for “highest point.” What goes down must come up.

For many runners, there are less welcome surprises. With a mile to go, my left foot cramped, feeling as if I had two toes suddenly decide to twist and exchange places.

I thought of my fellow Blue Line Beginner Georgena Austin of Hudson, who has had foot surgery and was determined not to let her chronic pain derail her goal. I thought of Connie Pacanovsky of Akron, who persists through her multiple sclerosis. I put my head down and pushed on.

An hour and 17 minutes after crossing the starting line, I entered the stadium and cranked my legs, determined to finish with a flourish. Akron Marathon Director Anne Bitong was waiting.

“You did it!” she said as she put the 8k medal around my neck and gave me a hug. Behind her, Blue Line Beginners who stayed at the line to welcome their teammates lined up for high-fives.

For the next hour, 88 people who didn’t know each other 12 weeks ago lingered for the Finisher Festival, dining on chicken sandwiches, bananas and beer, exchanging stories of how they exceeded their pace expectations and how they managed that last brutal mile.

It was the moment of a lifetime. After all, while most of us will go on to tackle the Goodyear 10k in August and the FirstEnergy half marathon or team relay in September, there can only be a “first” race once.

Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.


Things You Need to Know

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Trumps attend D.C. wedding

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump were among the guests as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin married a Scottish actress. Mnuchin exchanged vows with Louise Linton in Washington. Vice President Mike Pence also attended.

Big cases, retirement rumors

The Supreme Court is entering its final week before a long summer hiatus. Action is expected on the Trump administration’s travel ban and a decision is due in a separation of church and state case that arises from a Missouri church playground. The biggest news of all would be if Justice Anthony Kennedy, 80, were to use the court’s last public session to announce his retirement.

Not conservative enough

Chief lieutenants in the Koch brothers’ political network lashed out at the Senate Republican health care bill as not conservative enough, becoming a powerful outside critic as GOP leaders try to rally support for their plan among rank-and-file Republicans. Tim Phillips, who leads Americans For Prosperity, the Koch network’s political arm, called the Senate’s plans for Medicaid “a slight nip and tuck” of President Barack Obama’s health care law, a modest change he described as “immoral.”

Things to Do, June 23: Strawberry social, movie debut, pet event and a park concert

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Strawberry social in Copley

The Copley Historical Society’s Strawberry Social will be at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at the Bandstand at Copley Circle. Phil Dirt & the Dozers will perform in the Bandstand.

Woofstock at One of a Kind

One of a Kind Pet Rescue will host Woofstock from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday at One of a Kind Adoption Center, 1929 W. Market St., Akron. The event will featuring music by Kevin Conway, Chris Miller and Dan McCoy. Food trucks and other vendors will be on hand. 330-865-6200 or www.oneofakindpets.com.

Movie debut at Akron library

A new film, The Chosen People? will debut in Akron. The film by Josh Gippin looks at Jewish identity and features some Akron area clergy including Rabbi David Horowitz, Rabbi Stephen Grundfast, Rabbi Mendel Sasonkin, Pastor Elden Smith and Imam Nader Taha. The movie preview will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at Akron-Summit County Public Library’s Main Library Auditorium in Akron.

Park concert at Happy Days

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park Concert Series will feature Meditations for Harp & Violin at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Happy Days Lodge, 500 W. Streetsboro Road., Boston Heights. The concert will feature Jody Guinn on harp and Isabel Trautwein on violin. Music is by Debussy, Ibert, Tournier and J.S. Bach. Tickets are $20 or $10 for students. For tickets, go to www.conservancyforcvnp.org/concerts/happy-days-lodge.

Akron streets close to cars and open to people during Open Streets event

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Forget simply dancing in the streets — folks were invited to run, walk, bike, skate, scooter and jam out in the streets Sunday afternoon during Open Streets Akron, where 4.3 miles of roads were closed to cars and opened up to people to move through freely.

Road closures extended from Kenmore Boulevard and the Towpath Trail near Summit Lake down to Wilbeth Road and Firestone Boulevard, creating a triangle that connected the business district in Kenmore, the nature center in Summit Lake and the residential area in Firestone Park.

Summit Cycling Center provided free bike rentals to make it easy to move through neighborhoods, and people who couldn’t travel the whole route on foot or on bike could take a trolley, which was also free for the afternoon.

Open Streets events occur across the United States as a way to encourage getting acquainted with different neighborhoods while being physically active. Sunday’s event was the second put on by the city with the help of the Knight Foundation.

Kyle Kutuchief, Akron program director for the Knight Foundation, said that with the Kenmore-Garfield high school merger going into effect this school year, the time was right to open the neighborhoods up to one another.

“This is like a see your own city thing, you know?” Kutuchief said. “It’s been great seeing young and old cruising around the streets on these red bikes.”

All along the route, tents and organizations dotted the streets with activities, from face painting and bubble blowing to gardening and musical entertainment.

Shops set up tents outside their storefronts to attract people into places they might have otherwise missed when driving by, while police officers stood posted at road intersections throughout the route to assure cars didn’t end up on the closed roads.

As the afternoon wore on, more and more people of all ages headed outside to enjoy the sunshine and breeze blowing through the trafficless streets.

Folks picked and chose activities to focus on for the day. For siblings Caden Corora, 10, and Camryn Corora, 9, it was collecting as many Kenmore rocks along the way as they could find — decorated rocks that people were encouraged to find, take pictures with and then rehide for others to find.

“We might just walk the whole way,” said Nick Corora, their dad. “This is awesome. There’s not much to do with kids that’s free.”

For many, it was a nice change of pace to see activity in areas that would’ve otherwise been quiet on a Sunday afternoon.

“This is actually really nice for the area,” said Brittney Rendino of Fairlawn as she paused on her bike to check out the happenings in Kenmore. “It’s usually pretty dead here. … It seems like they’re starting to bring this area back to life.”

Kutuchief said he hopes the city continues similar events in the future. Attendees expressed similar interests, hoping the event could cast a different light on the distressed reputation of some neighborhoods.

“When you think of Summit Lake, you always hear stories of dead bodies in the water. This shows there’s more to Summit Lake than bad things in the water,” said Kimberly Dowd, who lives in the neighborhood. “They used to never have any of this stuff down here. They definitely made the neighborhood a lot better.”

Theresa Cottom can be reached at 330-996-3216 or tcottom@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @Theresa_Cottom .

Ohio government websites hacked with pro-Islamic State rant

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COLUMBUS: Government websites, many of them in Ohio, were hacked Sunday with a message that purports to be supportive of the Islamic State terrorist group.

A message posted on the website of Republican Gov. John Kasich said, “You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries.”

The message, left by “Team System Dz,” also ended, “I love the Islamic state.”

The websites hacked include those of first lady Karen Kasich, Medicaid, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Casino Control Commission.

Tom Hoyt, chief communications officer for Ohio’s Department of Administrative Services, was among Ohio officials who confirmed the hack.

“All affected servers have been taken offline and we are investigating how these hackers were able to deface these websites,” he said. “We also are working with law enforcement to better understand what happened.”

Local history: Akron woman, 92, shares memories as family observes 100th anniversary in town

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Georgia native Edward Scrutchings arrived 100 years ago in Akron with the goal of finding steady work and building a better life for his family.

He succeeded at both.

Scrutchings and his wife, Lillian, and four sons Roy, Sherman, Alfred and Fred were scratching out a living in Milledgeville, Ga., when the family patriarch, a farmer, took pen and paper and made a fateful decision to address a note to Akron Postmaster A. Ross Read.

“Papa wrote a letter to the postmaster to ask him about work in Akron,” said daughter Ophelia S. High, age 92, a resident of West Akron. “Postmaster Read. And he wrote Papa back and said ‘Yes, there’s plenty of work in Akron,’ and for you to come. So Papa came to Akron. He got off the train at Union Depot on Jan. 1, 1917.”

Lured by job openings, Scrutchings joined a mass migration to Akron, a decade in which the population surged from 69,067 in 1910 to 208,435 in 1920. Scrutchings sent for his wife and sons to join him, so the African-American family traveled from the South in segregated train cars until reaching Ohio.

The family rented a house off Howard Street on Beverly Court, a street that no longer exists, but soon bought a brand-new Colonial home on Homestead Street when East Akron was mostly farmland. They were one of the first black families in the neighborhood.

“386 is still there,” High said. “That’s where we were all born. At one time, it was 382 until the city come by and said our numbers were wrong.”

The Scrutchings family welcomed seven more children — Hazel, Edward, Walter, Marion, Ophelia, Chris and Willie — and built a second house on Homestead to handle the overflow.

“We used to go out and sleep on the back porch,” High recalled of summers past. “You know what my brothers would do? All of us little ones were out there. Then they’d come and throw water on us. ‘It’s raining! It’s raining!’ We’d pick up and run in the house, and then they’d go out there and sleep on the back porch.”

Edward Scrutchings always worked hard to keep a roof over his family’s heads. Akron factories offered good pay but the work was gritty, sweltering and dangerous. Safety rules were vague and industrial accidents were common, as Scrutchings painfully discovered.

“The first job I know that Papa talked about was at the International Harvester,” High said. “He got hit in the head by an automatic wrench at that time. Then he went to Firestone, and he fell in the shakeout pit.

“If you look that up, you’ll find he’s probably the only person that survived it. That was a fire, and he was in the hospital a long time. He had a raincoat and hat and all, and when they pulled that off, that pulled the skin off.”

Scrutchings healed, but he developed arthritis and lost strength. Not working was unthinkable, so he started his own business.

He hitched his horse, Ruby, to a wagon and traveled around Akron neighborhoods to haul trash or help people move. The rubbish man became a familiar sight in town as he collected bottles and other cast-off items.

“People would go to the house and ask him to come move them,” High recalled. “Or he would go around if you had junk and trash in your yard. He would go down to the dump on Hazel Street.”

She recalls how her father deftly coaxed Ruby to back up the wagon to reach sheds on the Homestead property. Such a graceful maneuver.

“And then I guess Ruby got old and they said they would take her to the soap factory,” High said. “And all of us were crying.”

Scrutchings bought an REO truck that he never did learn how to operate, but his sons helped with the driving. “You pulled a string and a wooden hand would go out to let you know I’m going to turn left,” High recalled.

She said her father couldn’t drive well, but that didn’t stop him from driving. “I remember him coming down Fifth Avenue, right across from Robinson School, and two wheels were up on the lawn and two were on the street,” she said.

She also recalls taking the truck as a child to buy a 25-pound bag of ice at a store at South Arlington Street and Fifth Avenue. She couldn’t have been more than 10 years old and her brother Chris was two years younger.

“Chris knew how to steer, and I would sit close to him and I did the clutch and shift the gears,” she said. “I bet Chris was 6, 7, 8 at the most, and we were driving that truck to pick up ice. ... I’d say, ‘Chris, turn! Turn!’ And me, I’m shifting gears and the clutch.”

Obviously, it was a different era. Laughing at the memory, High paused to say: “Sometimes I wonder: Did I do anything in life? Then when you get to talking, ‘I guess you did have a life, huh?’ ”

Edward Scrutchings continued to make rounds and got to know customers well. L.E. Devore, an executive with Citizens Savings & Loan, enjoyed chatting with the rubbish man and sometimes sent him home via chauffeur.

“Papa was a philosopher,” High said. “People loved to talk with him.”

And her mother, Lillian, was the perfect match for him.

“Mama was sweet,” she said. “In fact, her nickname was Sug.”

She remembers how Scrutchings would sit on the couch, read his newspaper and look up when his sons would leave the house for a night out.

“Papa would say, ‘Be right.’ ” High said. “He didn’t say ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ He would just say ‘Be right.’ You know, when somebody tells you that, that’s covering everything.”

It was difficult seeing her hard-working father age. High remembers living across the street on Homestead and helping Papa get dressed.

“Tie his shoes up, pull his collar out and make sure it was straight, and finish buttoning up his buttons because he couldn’t bend his fingers,” she said.

After a long illness, Edward Scrutchings died in 1957 at age 80. His wife, Lillian, died in 1972 at age 84. They are buried at Glendale Cemetery.

The Scrutchings family championed hard work and education and watched a parade of children and grandchildren attend Robinson School and East High School. Ophelia High has a great-grandchild at Robinson nearly a century after the first Scrutchings son attended there.

Believe it or not, High’s grandchildren still live on Homestead Street.

“We’ve been on that one street for 100 years,” she said with pride.

And it all began with a letter to the Akron postmaster.

Mark J. Price can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.

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