TRUMBULL ELECTIONS BOARD Longtime director to retire

After retiring, Augustine may start training for a triathlon.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- After more than 30 years' worth of elections, Nov. 4 will be Lyn Augustine's last.
After 20 years as deputy director and director of Trumbull County Board of Elections, Augustine, 54, plans to retire before the end of the year.
She hopes to be living in Florida by January, "spending more time on fitness and doing what I want to do."
"I've worked since I was 14 years old," she said. "I've worked for 40 years, and it's time to move on."
Augustine was hired by the board of elections in 1973 and promoted to director in 1983. She became deputy director in 1992, when a Republican was elected secretary of state.
Augustine is a Democrat.
She says her decision to retire was prompted in part by the death of her son, Ron Crawford, under suspicious circumstances in Florida in March. She's urging officials to investigate the death as a homicide.
"It really made me get my priorities in order," she said.
Crawford, who formerly operated a fitness studio in McKinley Heights, caught the exercise bug from going to classes with his mother as a youngster, she said.
In retirement, she said she is considering going into the fitness field herself. She's registered the name "L.A. Boot Camp" with the Ohio secretary of state. In retirement, she may begin training to compete in a triathlon.
Augustine said she and her husband, pianist Joe Augustine, will keep their house in Howland, at least for a while.
Voting machines
In 1979, the board of elections switched from lever-operated voting machines to punch-card ballots. Now, at her last election, five precincts in McDonald will try out the next generation of touch-screen voting machines.
Officials hope the whole county will be using the new machines for the presidential primary election in March.
Despite the national controversy over punch-card machines, Augustine said Trumbull County had only one problem in all her years: A tray of cards was exposed to the rain and had to be dried with a blow-dryer.
"It is an excellent, excellent system," she said.