oddly enough

oddly enough

Oops! Clerk sends newspaper request to fix speeding ticket

BELLEVILLE, Ill.

A records clerk for an Illinois sheriff’s office admits she goofed when she mistakenly faxed a request to have a deputy’s son’s speeding ticket fixed to the local newspaper.

Joann Reed tells the Belleville News- Democrat that she accidentally sent the fax from the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department to the newspaper with a signed, handwritten message saying, “Dismiss this case.”

The papers were meant to go to the village attorney in Centreville, where police wrote up the deputy’s 18-year-old son for going 23 miles per hour over the speed limit Aug. 18.

Village attorney Carmen Durso says he was powerless to do anything about the ticket anyway. He says he can’t dismiss violations of state law, such as speeding tickets.

The sheriff says he’s investigating and will weigh disciplinary action.

University of Michigan fan uses Ohio Stadium for proposal

COLUMBUS

A University of Michigan football fan loves his girlfriend so much that he proposed to her on hostile territory: the field of her favorites, the archrival Ohio State Buckeyes.

Abbey Zellers didn’t know what was happening Tuesday evening when Johnny Wakefield led her to the empty Ohio Stadium and then down to the 50-yard line. The Columbus Dispatch reported that she told him, “We’ve got to get out of here. Someone is going to kick us out.”

That’s when Wakefield dropped to one knee and popped the question. He had paid $150 to use the stadium for an hour, for the purpose of the proposal.

Zellers, 28, said yes right away. “It was a total shock,” she said, adding that she thought they were merely celebrating their 10-month anniversary.

She grew up near Akron following Ohio State and now lives in central Ohio, as does Wakefield, 27, though his admiration for the Michigan Wolverines is a holdover from his parents, both Detroit natives.

Ohio State receives about five stadium “rental” requests for marriage proposals each year and puts the money in the athletic department’s general funds, said Brittan Roth, the department’s assistant director of event management.

Zellers got another surprise later Tuesday when she was taken to an engagement party. Her younger sister, Keli-Jo White, was on hand even though she was supposed to be retaking part of a test at the Medical University of South Carolina.

The professor, an Ohio State graduate, agreed to reschedule as long as she could see a photo of the proposal — showing “Michigan” bowing down in Ohio Stadium.

Associated Press