Iva Walker

Garrettsville - And a fine display it was, of all sorts of things, including—this being an event that takes place before Election Day on November 3—various individuals running for various offices, people on the ballot, people hoping to be written in, supporters of ballot issues for townships, county services...

Everybody is writing memoirs lately.   It’s the literary style du jour in all of the magazines and reviews.  So I’m thinking, hey, my memories are as good as anybody’s, why not hop to it and make the big bucks? One reason may be that my memories are certainly just...

T’was business as usual at the October 4 2015 meeting of the Rotary Club of Garrettsville-Hiram.  Action on and discussion   of the following were on the agenda : Kyle Collins is alive and doing well as a Rotary Exchange Student in Japan.  He’s noticing differences in social interactions as...

The ladies of the Twentieth Century Club of Garrettsville spent their  meeting of October 1, 2015 “horsing around”.  The subject of the evening’s roll call was experiences with horses and the tales sometime rivaled “The Perils of Pauline.” Business was conducted by President Mary Furillo and the group voted...

It’s awards season just about all of the time now.  There are awards in television, for the theatre, for movies, for sports of every stripe and description, for just about every genre of music that one can think of( and some that I don’t really classify as music, but,...

Read Big! It’s not too late to participate in the BIG READ, a program  sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts Midwest being offered by Hiram College’s Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature and the libraries of the Portage County Library District.  There will be authors, speakers,...

Well, I seem to have hit my quota again this year.  A little shy, perhaps, but got the basics done.  I am speaking, of course, of fair attendance.  I really like going to fairs.  It’s the food, mostly.  Nothing like hot grease wafting through the air to set the...

The August 31, 2015 meeting of the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary Club heard from a rock-star of the world of extreme rowers, Katie Spotz, who in a marathon 70-day adventure rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, from Africa to South America—alone!  There were 30 ft. waves, there were freighters, there were scary...

Ever since  that piece about plastic surgery and the aestheticians who keep having the gall to send me email about how they can get me a “Facelift Miracle”(as if I needed such a thing), I’ve been noticing a number of items in the news about occasions where the focus...

At one time, there were, give or take, six—yes, six—cats in this house.  That was, so to speak, the high water mark, but the tide seems to have receded rather precipitously lately. See, I started out, innocently enough, with just one, chosen from a litter just out of town advertised...

Recovering after their bang-up steak fry on August 3, the members of the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary club got down to business on August 10.  To wit : • The August 17 meeting will feature Cheryl Warren, District Governor, with a board meeting at 11:00 • The incoming exchange student will arrive on...

Park Cemetery?  Most popular place in Garrettsville!  People are just dying to get in. Old/bad joke, but a fine place for a tour of local history led by Kit Younker Semplak on Monday, July 20 for the education and enlightenment of a goodly crowd of interested listeners and history buffs. ...

The Garrettsville-Hiram Rotarians discovered that they had a “Rivergod” in their midst, as member Mike Keas gave an outline of his varied and interesting career(s) at the July 13, 2015 meeting. A Jack-of-all-trades and , clearly, master of quite a lot ,he traced his progress through meatcutting, the rafting business,...

The final June meeting of the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary Club was a busy one. It saw the installation of the new 2015-2016 club president, Thomas Collins (Installing officer, Jim Irwin, Tom’s family in attendance),  and other club officers : Amy Crawford—treasurer, Mike Keas—sergeant–at-arms, Delores McCumbers—immediate past president (Secretary Ted Lysiak  will...

Time marches on and so does the Rotary Club of Garrettsville-Hiram.  The meeting on June 22, 2015—first full day of SUMMER—featured reports from two young ladies who had participated in Rotary youth programs. Megan Ryser was the local recipient of the Rotary Youth Leadership Award, which  took her to Baldwin-Wallace...

If John Lennon hadn’t written it, Roger Monroe would have had to.  Maybe with a Pochedly on vocals or bass.  Who better to whip up a little ditty about the most quintessential of spring/summer fruit?  The fact that the song was written about a Salvation Army orphanage near Liverpool...

The June 8, 2015 meeting of the Rotary Club of Garrettsville-Hiram, at Cal’s II in Sky Plaza, Garrettsville featured a program presented by departing exchange student, Lenart Zsadany, better known as “Zad”.  He spoke of  some of the highlights of his stay in the U.S. with the Collins, Schwan...

Garrettsville - Congrats to Garfield’s two state champs Edie Svonavec and Lauren Jones in this year’s track and field competition down in Columbus.

I knew that I misplaced something. The Associated Press recently reported that nine—count ‘em, NINE—brains had been found alongside a railroad track near Gouverneur, northern New York state.  Authorities said not to worry. Well, I won’t but it seems like there might be someone out there who is not ABLE...

Tell you what….  Let’s have everyone who says, “Why don’t they…(whatever it is about the rebuilding needed on Garrettsville’s Main St.) or “They need to…(suggestions for operations to be carried out to restore Main St.) or “They ought to…(directions on how to accomplish the rebuilding of half of Garrettsville’s...

Business as usual at the June 1, 2015 meeting of the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary Club. The group decided to continue holding their annual Reverse Raffle/Steak Fry Fundraiser at SugarBush Golf Club; this year’s date will be the first Thursday in November, 11/5/15.  Mark your calendars now for a great  pre-holiday-madness good...

The James A. Garfield Historical Society met May 18, 2015 at the Mott Building on Main St. in downtown Garrettsville. It was a mathematical meeting, celebrated with pie.

There’s tribute and then there’s…TRIBUTE. Here’s one where some young ladies—not to mention their enthusiastic coach and supporters—played a sport that they love and made a commitment to U.S. Marines and Army vets coming home from service having suffered the loss of limbs and playing softball, inspiring fans with their...

Here’s one for the Village Piece Makers, you know, the dedicated quilt-makers who every two years come up with a lovely handmade spread to be raffled off at the Christmas Walk. I don’t know how they come up with the patterns—maybe they make them up themselves—but recently the AB-J ran a cartoon (It’s a regular series called Non Sequitur, usually pretty apt for what they put out there) that might get a rise from out local needlewomen, even Ellie Foster Monroe who does “Quilts for Causes”, contributing to efforts that she supports.

Remember, next Tuesday, May 5, is an Election Day. There is only one countywide issue, a renewal of a Children’s Services levy, but Crestwood, Aurora and Mogadore all have school issues to vote on, and Brimfield, Hiram, Ravenna, Streetsboro and Windham have local issues on the ballot.

It was “business as usual” for the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary Club on April  13 as the group caught up on community activities and projects under way. These included mention of the semi-annual Trash Pick-up on St. Rte 82 between Garrettsville and Hiram villages.  What a surprise, right?  InterAct Club members from...

The James A. Garfield Alumni association will be marking its 10th anniversary this fall while recognizing “old timers” of the classes of ‘2005, ‘95, ’85, ’75, ’65, ’55, ’45, ’35, and as far into the past as possible. Come one, come all. Bring your friends and family, classmates (and teachers, if they’re still tottering about) and folks in the neighborhood. Tom Klem is recruiting attendees from the Class of 1995, Andrea Fox is attempting the same for the Class of 2005. Anyone out there who’d like to do the same for your class, have at it. Y’all come!