THE PLAIN DEALER MARCH MONDAY Northeast Ohio 11, 1996 Akron council to hear TV news concern IT'S A FACT ABOUT AKRON The Workers United Union Rubber evolved as a unit of the old Congress of Industrial Organizations. The first collective bargaining agreement between the URW and a major rubber company was signed in 1933 with the Firestone Tire Rubber Co. Over the years the union expanded, becoming officially the United Rubber Cork Linoleum Plastic Workers of America. Last year, the URW agreed to merge with the United Steelworkers of America. Capsule takes kids back to 4th grade By MICHELE M.
MELENDEZ PLAIN DEALER REPORTER COLUMBIA TOWNSHIP Self-portraits in crayon, childhood dreams in pencil, photographs and mementos of younger years came out of hiding after more than eight years underground. Dozens of Columbia Township teens looked into their past through items they had put into a time capsule during American Education Week 1987. Copopa Elementary School second -grade teacher Deb Geschke presented the contents of the decorated pickle barrel at a PTA meeting last week. The capsule was scheduled to be opened when the fourth-graders were in their senior year of high school, which is this year. Back in 1987, she had every class in the school kindergarten through fourth grade seal items into plastic bags to be buried in front of the school.
"Every year for American Education Week, I'd try to do something different," she said. "This seemed like a fun thing to do." On Nov. 18, 1987, the entire school watched as the capsule was placed in the ground, Geschke said. A student from each class threw a handful of dirt into the hole. "I had no idea what was going on," said Columbia High School senior Anna Violi 17, who was in the fourth grade then.
"I understand now. It was so interesting to see what I wrote and what I put in there." Anna placed seashells in her class' bag and wrote that her hobbies included cleaning. Other students wrote about their future jobs. Teaching was the favorite profession, but there were also children who wanted to be artists, doctors and truck drivers. One child wrote he hoped the Browns would make it to the Super Bowl by the time he reached the 12th grade.
Had he only known. ON THIS DATE 20 YEARS AGO The Historical Western Society Reserve recommended to the Ohio Historical Society that statues adorning the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge in Cleveland be declared a historic site. County Engineer Albert S. Porter said the "columns are monstrosities and should be torn down and forgotten." He said their preservation would interfere with his plans to renovate the bridge. By TERRY PLAIN DEALER REPORTER AKRON Mark Herchenroether plans to attend tonight's Akron City Council meeting to talk about television news.
Chances are pretty good that no TV cameras will be there to capture the action and that is what concerns him. Herchenroether, a laid-off state highway worker, said he became incensed when the new owners of WAKC Channel 23 pulled the plug on the station's local news programming. Akron Mayor Donald Plusquellic said the company's decision made Akron the largest city in the country without local television news. Herchenroether said he had spent the last two weeks soliciting support from mayors, police chiefs and school officials from Summit, Portage and Stark counties. He also spoke with officials of Paxson Communications, which discontinued the news programs after the station changed hands Feb.
28. Channel 23 was an important part of the community, Herchneroether said. The 28-year-old Akron man remembers being interviewed by Channel 23 sports reporter Phil Ferguson when Herchenroether played football at Stow High School. He said Cleveland television stations could not duplicate that kind of coverage, even if they increased their Akron coverage. Plusquellic echoed the same feelings when he talked about the demise of the Channel 23 programming.
"To me, one of the significant After beloved great aunt's murder, a Painesville woman learns to set aside thoughts of revenge and make peace with a killer Finding a way to forgive 8 losses that people will notice is the local sports news," he said. Without a local television news program, Plusquellic said, families will not be able to watch television footage of their sons and daughters in sporting events. Plusquellic said Channel 23 was "not flashy," but did its job in a straight-forward manner with no hype. The mayor said local residents who chose to watch Cleveland stations instead of WAKC had to share the blame for the station's lower ratings and the decision to cancel the news shows. A 3 4 3 3 C.H.
PETE COPELAND PLAIN DEALER PHOTOGRAPHER Page Zyromski: "At age 35, I found this horrible desire for revenge; and to taste that in yourself is bitter self-knowledge. To continue would be to not go on living yourself." and hers. "I'm Page and his nickname is Book," she said. Zyromski, a poetry lover, learned Booker wanted to write poems. Booker told her he had joined a Brooklyn gang at age 15, after his mother died.
He was later dishonorably discharged from the Army and was on parole for assaulting a woman the day Harman walked in on him. Zyromski sees another side to Booker a "wordsmith" whose poetry on life in prison and as a black man has been published by magazines and in two books. Booker has given his writing proceeds to Zyromski for her children's education fund. In the pilot's seat Polite, unassuming as captain By ABE ZAIDAN PLAIN DEALER REPORTER AKRON As a volunteer pilot for Air Lifeline, Michael Cheung has flown patients on round trips between home and a distant hospital. "That has let me do something that I love to do fly while I'm also helping somebody else," the University of Akron chemical engineering professor said.
As chairman of the UA Faculty Senate, Cheung, 38, is a key figure in a controversy that "I wish people would have rec-' ognized the need to watch it before it shut down," Plusquellic. said. Herchenroether, meanwhile, said he hoped his appearance tonight would persuade council members to become active in try-. ing to get the Channel 23 programming restored. He said he was willing to carry the fight to the courts and the Federal Communications Commission.
"You just can't sit around and wait for something to happen," Herchenroether said. "You've got to go out and do it." Semi hits van, killing 5 in family By KEVIN HARTER PLAIN DEALER REPORTER PAINESVILLE Page Zyromski received a call in 1977 that broke her heart and nearly shattered her faith. Lorine Harman, her 94-year-old great aunt, had been murdered. Returning in midafternoon from her daily bridge game, Harman walked in on a man ransacking her Florida apartment. She was raped and stabbed 14 times in the throat and neck.
"She was skinny. with tons of energy and a very active social life," said Zyromski, 53, who grew up in Florida and came to Painesville a year after Harman's death, when her husband took a job at Lake Erie College. Zyromski, a mother of three grown children and a free-lance religion writer, paused as she moved from talking about Harman's life to her brutal death. "I don't think it gets any worse than that," said the softspoken Catholic. Biologically, Harman was her great aunt, but emotionally the woman was her grandmother.
After Zyromski's mother was orphaned at age 8, Harman raised her. The day after Harman's killing, Stephen Booker, then 24, was arrested. He would later be convicted of burglary, rape and murder and sentenced to die. In the 19 years since, Zyromski has found herself confronted with the same gut-wrenching issues explored in the Os inated film, "Dead Man Walking." "At age 35, I found this horrible desire for revenge; and. to taste that in yourself is bitter self-knowledge.
To continue would be to not go on living yourself. "I knew I needed to forgive him. Forgiveness is not optional for a Christian. But I didn't want to forgive him." The Lord's Prayer had long been part of her daily ritual, but in the year after Harman's murder, she found she could no longer complete it. She said that when she came to the phrase about forgiveness, "I would stop cold." She turned to friends, family and God.
"It was a pivotal point in my own spiritual development," she said. "It was a test of my faith." She began writing Booker, then visited him in prison in Starke, Fla. "It is a terrible place and well-named," she said. "Except for his lawyer, I was his first visitor. No family has ever visited him." When she met her great aunt's killer, Zyromski found symbolism and significance in his name ASSOCIATED PRESS UPPER SANDUSKY, Ohio Five Mercer County residents were killed Saturday after their minivan was struck by a tractortrailer.
Bucyrus, whichUpper Sandusky won 45-40. The minivan they were riding in was struck head-on by the tractor-trailer, the Wyandot Sheriff's Department said. Killed were the driver of the van, Jerome L. Heyne, 46; his wife, Carol M. Heyne, 44; Jerome's parents, Louis J.
Heyne, 74, and Norma Heyne, 71; and Jerome's sister, JoAnn Bergman, 49. Area of detail Crawford OHIO County County Crawford Wyandot County County Upper 293 Sandusky Bucyrus Fatal crash PLAIN DEALER Jerome and Carol Heyne's. daughter played in the game. Shem was not in the minivan with the, family. The truck's driver, Wayne Campbell, 39, of Toronto, Ohio, was treated at Wyandot Memorial Hospital and released.
He was in the County Jail yes-: terday, pending a hearing in Upper Sandusky Municipal Court, Sheriff Michael R. Hetzel said in a statement. The victims were pronounced; dead at the scene, the release. said. The accident occurred at the intersection of U.S.
30 and Ohio 293, about 10 miles west of Upper Sandusky. Deputy Sheriff Neil Reidlinger said Campbell had been following a group of trucks. The trucks slowed for someone to make a left turn, then began to pick up speed. Reidlinger said Campbell probably realized he was coming behind the trucks too fast, and: The victims, all from Coldwater, were returning home from watching the Division III girls basketball regional tournament game between Upper Sandusky, and Coldwater high schools in Three times, he has been given a reprieve just hours before he was scheduled to die. Zyromski has "forgiven, but not forgotten" what he did.
She has continued to visit Booker and will testify on his behalf at a hearing. She wants him to remain in prison, but not death row. "He's made a life for himself and I'm proud of what he's He's devoted himself to something he's trying to make a contribution to literature as a means of making amends." Zyromski, too, has found a cause. faculty senate leader emerges leading UA through controversy forces him to wonder whether rupted Elliott with a crisply the patient his university stated admonition that she was will be able to fly home in good out of order. Afterward, when he health.
was asked about his challenge to The dispute, which surfaced in the president, he said without December when the Faculty hesitation: "I would do it again if Senate questioned alleged hiring she was out of order." irregularities, has grown into a He is optimistic that problems full-blown conflict involving UA can be worked out soon so that President Peggy Gordon Elliott, the university will move on to its the board of trustees and the primary mission of educating Senate. students. One thing Cheung doesn't do "I've learned a lot about poliis dawdle. At a recent Faculty tics that I didn't know we needed Senate meeting, Cheung inter- to know." She has spoken against the death penalty at church retreats and other religious functions, but until she was asked to take part in a rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg last week, she had not been political. She spoke because she sees a desire for retribution rising nationwide.
She points to New York's recent adoption of the death penalty and the two executions in Pennsylvania last year, the first in 33 years. She said forgiveness and the pursuit of peace must begin with the individual. "It's got to start in your own heart and that's the hardest place of all." rather than run into the back of truck, he moved across the solid. yellow line into oncoming Tr BILL KENNEDY PLAIN DEALER PHOTOGRAPHER Michael Cheung: "Politeness is critical. Whether you disagree or not doesn't mean you can't be polite." 42.
