Years Ago

February 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Today is Sunday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2010. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day. On this date in 1920, the League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago; its first president is Maud Wood Park.

In 1778, the American ship Ranger carries the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrives in France. In 1859, Oregon is admitted to the Union as the 33rd state. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s final play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” opens at the St. James’s Theatre in London. In 1903, the Department of Commerce and Labor is established. (It is divided into separate departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.) In 1912, Arizona becomes the 48th state of the Union. In 1929, the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” takes place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang are gunned down. In 1962, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducts a televised tour of the White House in a videotaped special that is broadcast on CBS and NBC (and several nights later on ABC). In 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, is kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police. In 1984, 6-year-old Stormie Jones becomes the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. (She lives until November 1990.)

February 14, 1985: Mathews High School is on the verge of losing its accreditation because of inadequate facilities.

With massive employee layoffs a few weeks away, Trumbull County commissioners are facing mounting pressure to enact a half-percent piggyback sales tax rather than put it on the ballot.

The Ungaro administration is predicting a minimum of $2 million more in business reinvestment in Youngstown after getting council approval to continue the city’s interest subsidy program.

February 14, 1970: Spec. 4 John J. Kos, 21, of Canfield is reported killed by enemy fire when on a combat operation in Vietnam. He was a 1967 graduate of Canfield High School.

Raymond Jenkins, a utility man in the Youngstown Building Commission office and building commissioner during three terms of Mayor Anthony B. Flask, is fired by Mayor Jack C. Hunter, a day after former Third Ward Councilman James Pastore is fired from his job in the water department.

A vocational rehabilitation unit is to be established at Woodside Receiving Hospital through an agreement between the Ohio Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

February 14, 1960: The Youngs-town district basic steel companies are anticipating one of their best years for production and earnings years in 1960, writes Vindicator Industrial Editor George R. Reiss.

Workers say they will end their three-day wildcat strike at the Republic Steel Corp.’s Poland Avenue plant. About 200 men walked out in a dispute over disciplinary action against a union member.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge David Jenkins will be presented the William R. Hopkins Medal for distinguished service to the preservation of Welsh traditions, a national award presented in New York City. Judge Jenkins continues to walk to the courthouse each morning, covering the 12 blocks from his South Side home at 56 Willis Ave. at a brisk pace.

February 14, 1935: Youngstown Mayor Mark E. Moore proposes the joining of county and municipal governments under one head to eliminate the cost of dual operation and provide a more efficient government.

Everyone in Mahoning County entitled to old age pension checks from the state welfare department will receive them within 60 days, Dr. A.M. Rosenblum, chairman of the local pension board, announces.

The 300 members of the South Side Merchants & Civics Association create a “vigilance committee” to look after taxpayers’ rights in the city and county by exposing “unfair methods, unethical practices or exorbitant profits to any individual” in the sale of land for out-of-town industries.