The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page B002

B2 Wednesday, September 18, 2013 In the Region Page B2 Wednesday, September 18, 2013 JACKSON. Ohio.com Connect with your community: AKRON Three arrested AKRON: Three people were arrested after a Summit County Metro Parks ranger spotted them walking through the woods near a Merriman Valley house that had been burglarized. Autumn Marie Eggleston, 20, Evan M. Parker, 25, and Adam C. Blash, 24, were each charged with burglary and were being held in the Summit County Jail.

Akron police said the three were walking through a wooded area just north of the 800 block of Merridge Road about 11 a.m. Monday, when the ranger found them and contacted police. Police said burglars forced open a window at the house and stole an iPod and miscellaneous jewelry. The iPod was recovered in the wooded area. Gunfire misses man AKRON: A gunman opened fire on an Akron man as he exited a car in Goodyear Heights early Tuesday.

The man, 30, was not wounded. He told police he had arrived at a house on Marie Terrace for a visit at 2 a.m., when the gunman fired several shots in his direction. He told police he ran through a backyard to avoid the gunfire. Police said two vehicles in the area sustained damage from stray bullets. There was no description of the shooter.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at 330375-2490. Volunteers needed AKRON: not too late to volunteer to help with this Akron Marathon. Volunteers are being sought to help with the Health and Fitness Expo downtown on Sept. 27, and to assist at the Kids Fun Run and at the Akron Marathon finish line Sept. 28.

is a great way for the community to get involved in the Akron Marathon, which has become a staple event in said Amy Freeman, vice president of the Akron Marathon. than 2,000 volunteers will play a vital role in making this event a Those who are interested should register at www.akron marathon.org/volunteers. A training session will be at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Mason Park school, 700 E. Exchange St.

For more information, call 330-434-2786. Awards to be given AKRON: Legacy III will host its Community Awards Dinner at 6 p.m. Friday at Party Center, 500 E. Waterloo Road. Legacy mission is to provide housing services to homeless women in Summit County who are recovering from chronic substance abuse, mental- health disorders or physical disabilities.

Legacy III will recognize 12 people who empower others to achieve self-sufficiency and two organizations that help improve the quality of life in the community. Tickets are $45 each. For more information or to order tickets, call 330-375-0071 or visit www.legacythree.org. BARBERTON Haunting time BARBERTON: A paranormal conference and evening ghost hunt to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Barberton Historical Society will be held from 1 p.m. to midnight Saturday at the Piggery, 248 Robinson Ave.

Speakers include personalities from shows currently airing on the Travel, BIO and SyFy channels. There will be a raffle, vendors selling ghost hunting equipment and fashions, and booths manned by various area ghost hunting groups. Historical tours of the Pig- gery, the Feed Barn and the Colt Barn will run from 1 to 6 p.m., and a public ghost hunt will be conducted through the three buildings from 8 p.m. to midnight. Tickets at the door are $15 for the daytime conference, $40 for the evening ghost hunt or $50 for an all-day pass.

NORTHFIELD Husted plans hours NORTHFIELD: Secretary of State Jon Husted will hold regional office hours at locations across Ohio this month, including in Northfield. Regional liaisons for office will provide voter registration forms and election information and answer questions. The local hours will be 12:30 to 2 p.m. Friday at the Nordonia Hills Branch Library, 9458 Olde Eight Road. SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP Shale film showing SPRINGFIELD The Portage Trail Group of the Sierra Club is hosting a showing of a new film Triple Divide on Friday.

The film, a look at shale drilling in northern Pennsylvania and how it was managed by that Department of En- vironmental Protection, will be shown at 7 p.m. at the Springfield Township Community and Senior Center, 2459 Canfield Road, just off U.S. 224. Filmmakers Joshua B. Pribanic from Ohio and Melissa Troutman from Pennsylvania will be at the screening to discuss the film.

The movie takes its name from the area of Potter County, where three continental divides for streams meet. It is an area where drillers have been active. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted. Seating is limited. To reserve a spot, send an email to or phone 330-784-1960.

STOW SCHOOLS Contract approved STOW: The Stow-Munroe Falls Board of Education unanimously agreed to a new four-year contract with teachers at a special meeting Monday. Teachers had approved the agreement in early August. Treasurer Catherine Bulgrin said teachers will not receive a wage increase during the current school year, which is the first year of the agreement. In the second year, salaries will rise by 1 percent. The third year will bring an additional 1 percent, and there will be a 2 percent increase in the final year of the agreement.

Bulgrin also said that there are no significant changes in benefits. Teachers will continue to pay 15 percent of their healthcare premiums. Step increases for length of teaching service have been reinstated after a two-year freeze. Teachers will be compensated at their current step level, Bulgrin explained. They will not receive any compensation for back step increases reached during the period of the freeze.

Board President Karen Wright described the negotiation process as and thanked board member Fred Bonacci for his involvement in the negotiation process. SUMMIT COUNTY Office hours CUYAHOGA FALLS: Summit County Councilman John Schmidt, District 2, will host public office hours from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Cuyahoga Falls Public Library, 2015 Third St. Schmidt, whose district covers Cuyahoga Falls, Munroe Falls and portions of Akron including East Akron, Goodyear Heights and North Hill, will address concerns and answer questions from constituents. For more information, call 330-643-2725.

Free movie AKRON: Summit County Councilman Frank Comunale will host a free movie for kids Saturday at Highland Square Theatre, 826 W. Market St. The Disney movie Planes will be shown at 10 a.m. Doors will open at 9:15. In addition to the movie, Comunale will give away a new bicycle in a prize drawing.

Free child ID and fingerprinting will be provided by volunteers with Guardians Advocating Child Safety and Protection. Food donations will be accepted from all those who wish to contribute, with the collections going to the Choice Food Pantry and House. The public is invited. ID theft workshop AKRON: Holy Trinity Lutheran Church of Akron will host an educational workshop on identify theft prevention at noon Sept. 22.

The workshop, offered in conjunction with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, is free and includes a light lunch. Registration is required by Thursday by calling 330-376-5154 or emailing com. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church is located at 50 N. Prospect St. Citizenship oath AKRON: About 50 people will be sworn in as American citizens at 4 p.m.

Friday at Akron-Summit County Public Library, 60 S. Main St. District Court Judge Sara Lioi will officiate the ceremony, which is co-sponsored by the library and the Akron Bar Association in recognition of the approval and signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787.

WADSWORTH Library closed WADSWORTH: The Wadsworth Public Library will be closed today to allow staffers to update the integrated systems. Users will be able to visit the website at www. wadsworthlibrary.com but will not be able access accounts, search the catalog or place requests. The book purses craft program scheduled at 5:30 p.m. in Meeting Room A will take place as scheduled, but access to the rest of the library will be re- OHIO LOTTERY Mega Millions numbers: 6, 15, 27, 31, 39.

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Powerball jackpot: $400 million. For Ohio Lottery payout figures, visit www.ohiolottery.com. Local TV pioneer Betty Cope, 87 By Rich Heldenfels Beacon Journal popular culture writer The horse story says it all. It was Thanksgiving 1950. Betty Cope, then working for WEWS (Channel 5) in Cleveland, was supposed to direct a telecast her first such job, and one that put Santa Claus on the air.

But a snowstorm had buried the city, stopping traffic and making it nearly impossible to get anyone to the station. Cope was determined. do you tell the kids Santa Claus going to make it in a she later said. She got a horse from a riding academy near her Shaker Square home and made it to work that way. That image not only of determination, but of a hardy pioneer on horseback fighting past wintry obstacles, summed up Cope, who died Saturday in her Bainbridge home at the age of 87.

She was one of the first people to work at WEWS as it went on the air in 1947. She was the rare woman director in a male-dominated field. When the station needed more daytime programming, she turned a struggling sportscaster named Ron Penfound into TV host Captain Penny. Later, while managing WVIZ (Channel 25), she would put on TV another man become a local broadcasting legend: Fred Griffith. But it was the broader achievement of WVIZ that stands out even more in her career.

She was the manager of the station at its founding in 1965. Until her retirement in 1993 she could be seen and heard, on the air and off, building support for noncommercial, educational, informational TV. in northeastern Ohio believe in having a community station not commercially she would say, adding that is automatically Most TV, she argued in one speech, is controlled by and in the Nixon era she was part of the fight to keep public TV free of government control. Instead, she welcomed and lobbied for direct viewer support of programs through donations and on-air auctions, to the point that a 1974 story said that, you see her on the boob tube, Betty Cope is usually asking immodestly for But she asked well, increasing the budget sixfold in less than 10 years on the job, and doing it with a strong sense of humor. Before one auction, she happily noted that a big seller the year before had been llama dung good for tulips, you And she did it in a time when the expectations for women in television were not great.

A WVIZ account of life notes that in 1953, while still at WEWS, she appeared on the TV show My Line, where panelists tried through questions to guess professions; no one figured out that she was a TV director. When The Ed Sullivan Show was including a broadcast from Cleveland, Cope said a Sullivan staffer in Cleveland asked to speak to the director; when Cope explained she was, was this long Even in the late a newspaper story referred to her as slim copper-headed gal who looks more like she ought to be out playing a round of golf than managing a television Yet manage she did. Not that public television held firmly to the vision she had for it. Her comments about the perils of commercials predated the rise of so-called underwriting announcements. And she worried in the about stations doing too much since we need is a whole bunch of those how-to-do-it But she still won a place in the hearts of viewers who prized public-TV offerings, and the people who worked with and for her, whom she often singled out for praise while downplaying her own efforts.

Talking about her work ethic, she simply observed, of us have a higher metabolism than Born in Cleveland, Cope grew up in Shaker Heights. She graduated from Hathaway Brown, then was attending Marjorie Webster Junior College and working for a Cleveland advertising agency when someone suggested she try TV. was her reply. But she gave it a shot, first as what was then called a for an operation that was feeling its way through new territory, before moving up to director and producer. After a stint running her own company, she took on the launching of WVIZ.

Twice married and divorced, Cope had no children. She is survived by four nieces and two nephews, 11 great- nephews and six great-nieces, and four great-great nephews and three great-great nieces. A memorial service will be at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 12 at the West Woods Nature Center of the Geauga Park District.

Some material in this story was drawn from the Plain Dealer, WVIZ and WEWS. Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and Ohio.com, including the HeldenFiles Online blog, www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles. He is also on Facebook and Twitter. You can contact him at 330-996-3582 or thebeaconjournal.com. Long broadcast career includes start in 1947 and managing public station WVIZ Beacon Journal file photos Betty Cope was one of the first people to work at WEWS-TV as it went on the air in 1947.

She was the manager of WVIZ at its founding in 1965. Cope died Saturday at the age of 87. Cope Obituary Piatt, Fuller leave WNIR; no reasons announced Beacon Journal staff report Stan departure from local radio apparently has come sooner than planned. Piatt and morning show co- host Maggie Fuller of WNIR (100.1-FM) both left the station Tuesday for reasons not immediately made clear. Nor was it known if their two situations were related.

In late August, WNIR announced that Piatt was preparing to leave after more than 35 years with the talk- radio operation. He has a retirement party set for Monday in Cuyahoga Funny Stop club, where Piatt has long performed. But that party could have been just part of a more extended farewell tour. The retirement announcement said Piatt would stay as late as July 2014 to give the station time to find a replacement to join the morning team with Fuller, Phil Ferguson and Steve French. Late Tuesday, Face- book page said he at WNIR instead of page did not mention a WNIR connection at all.

Instead, she had a post stating in part that time comes in life when one must defend their own integrity. Two people did it this week. I was one. I am proud of us both and great things are on the Also, the section of website contained, well, nothing. It appeared to have scrubbed all information about the morning team.

According to a source, Ferguson, who is also news director, and French remain with the station and were expected on the air this morning. Attempts to reach station manager Bill Klaus, Piatt and Fuller were unsuccessful. take this black.