MARCH

MARCH
2. More than 600 people gather at Corner House Christian Church in Hubbard and Yankee Lake Ballroom in Brookfield for memorial tributes to Ty Longley, 31, a guitarist and Brookfield and Sharon native who was among about 100 people killed in the Feb. 20 Rhode Island nightclub fire.
3. Budget woes cause the layoff of 54 deputies in Mahoning County and 47 employees of the Trumbull County Sheriff's Department.
4. General Extrusions lays off 25 workers at its Boardman plant because of a lack of orders.
5. A $19.75 million federal grant will fund recreation and job-training centers, some 200 subsidized and market-rate homes, and even a youth golf center to replace Westlake Terrace Homes.
* Thirty-nine of the 48 members of the Army Reserve's 423rd Quartermaster Battalion at the Kunkel Army Reserve Center in Lordstown have received activation orders. The 423rd commands and controls water purification, distribution and transportation.
6. The New York-based Renco Steel Holdings, parent company of WCI Steel in Warren, infuses $15 million into WCI to keep it afloat.
7. A two-car crash on East State Street in Salem kills Jamie Evans, 19, of Salem and Jeffery Gabriel, 38, of Leetonia. Gabriel's niece, Emily Ayres, 11, of Leetonia is in critical condition at Akron Children's Hospital; Gabriel's wife, Marilyn, 38, is treated at Akron General Hospital.
* Howland Township trustees unanimously promote their detective bureau commander, Paul S. Monroe, to police chief to replace Steve Lamantia, who retired Feb. 7 after 10 years as chief.
10. B.J. Alan Co. of Youngstown says it will open a large fireworks warehouse in Wheatland to handle its growing business of supplying national retailers.
* State Auditor Betty Montgomery declares Niles schools to be in fiscal watch after predicting a $2.92 million shortfall in the district's general fund.
12. A preliminary feasibility study says a combined hotel and scaled-down conference center costing $9.5 million should be built next to the downtown Youngstown arena.
* Construction begins in Youngstown on the $24.9 million state Route 711 connector.
13. Louree Gayler, whose stepfather, Brian Mitchell, and mother, Wanda Barzee, are accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart nine months ago, says the girl may have been taken to "give my mom back something she lost." Gayler went to live with her father when she was about the age of Smart, 15.
14. After eight full-time dispatchers, two part-time dispatchers and one supervisor were laid off from the Trumbull County 911 Center, a dispatch supervisor resigned, saying the reduction in staff endangered lives.
15. The 347th Quartermaster Company of the 99th Army Reserve unit, a petroleum company based at the Pendel-Caminiti Army Reserve Center in Farrell, Pa., shipped out. The 347th was also activated during Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990.
* Kelly Morckel of West Branch Junior High School was crowned champion of the 70th Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee.
17. Ed DiGregorio, 76, resigns after 20 seasons as YSU women's basketball coach after three consecutive losing seasons. DiGregorio, who celebrated his 300th career win in 2001, led the team to five straight Mid-Continent Conference championships.
18. About 40 members of the Army Reserve's 423rd Quartermaster Battalion in Lordstown left this morning for Fort Lee, Va., where they will join other reservists and Army personnel to form a 600-soldier unit.
20. Youngstown City Council joined 151 other U.S. cities to date in calling for peace instead of war against Iraq.
* Dr. Franklin M. Rizer of Warren, an internationally known ear, nose and throat specialist who performed the nation's first cochlear implant on a child, dies when the single-engine plane he is piloting crashes about 300 yards short of the runway at the Leesburg, Va., airport.
* Clare O'Brien, 84, who served as Trumbull County recorder from 1970 to 1992, dies after a long illness.
21. Local talk-radio pioneer Dan Ryan, 74, of WKBN-AM 570 in Boardman, dies at his residence after a long illness.
25. All seven Trumbull County common pleas judges sign an order demanding that two sheriff's deputies each be stationed at the common pleas and juvenile courts, and Sheriff Thomas Altiere says he'll comply and ask county commissioners for more money for his department.
27. The Aut Mori Grotto circus will perform in a tent at the Canfield Fairgrounds and won't return to the Struthers Fieldhouse, where it has performed for 38 years, because circus officials said field house renovations would restrict the performance, making high-wire acts impossible.
* To cut costs, Werner Co. announces it is moving its ladder manufacturing operations out of Greenville, Pa., resulting in the permanent layoff of 500 workers. Company headquarters will remain in Greenville.
28. Wayne P. Gilliam, 21, of East Avondale Avenue, and John Drummond Jr., 25, of Allerton Court and Rutledge Drive, are charged with murder in the Feb. 24 drive-by shooting death of 3-month-old Jiyen C. Dent Jr. in Youngstown.