oddly enough

oddly enough

Vt. woman crowned nation’s top grocery bagger

BURLINGTON, Vt.

A Vermont woman has been crowned the nation’s top grocery bagger.

Twenty-four-year-old Krystal Smith of Burlington won the award and the $10,000 prize at the 2011 U.S. Best Bagger National Championship in Las Vegas.

On Monday, Smith beat 21 competitors by filling three grocery bags in 38 seconds at the Mirage Hotel.

The Burlington Free Press says contestants are judged on their ability to bag grocery staples including bread, milk, eggs and canned goods and on their bag-building technique, weight distribution, style, attitude and appearance

Smith has worked for eight years at Hannaford Supermarket.

Ohio man proposes to girlfriend with bus ad

CANTON

An Ohio woman has said yes to a marriage proposal that arrived by bus.

Laura Kalamets looked out a Canton restaurant window during a Valentine’s Day lunch with her boyfriend and saw a public bus with an ad on its side that read: “Laura, Will You Marry Me?” It was signed “Mark” and included in smaller letters the words “and make me the happiest man in the world.”

Kalamets says she thought she’d have a heart attack.

Mark Rose paid the transit agency $300 for the special ad and arranged for the bus to be parked in the right spot around noon Monday.

The Repository newspaper of Canton reports the ad will remain in place for a week.

Now it has the additional message: “She said yes.”

4 teens charged with fake western Pa. fast-food burglary

PITTSBURGH

Police say four teenage employees of a fast-food restaurant near Pittsburgh staged a phony burglary and stole $1,300 after learning one of them was likely to be fired.

Police in Ross Township didn’t say which one of the employees instigated the incident at the Qdoba Mexican Grill after closing Thursday night.

Detective Brian Kohlhepp says the four workers first talked of staging an armed robbery. Instead, they stole the money from a safe and made it look like a burglary by making a regular night deposit, ransacking the restaurant and then throwing a large stone through a window as they left.

Police say the suspects have cooperated and confessed and have been charged with conspiracy, theft and criminal mischief.

Associated Press