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Four received township leadership award
By Mary Smith
MINERAL RIDGE
Weathersfield Township trustees this week doled out the first Weathersfield Township Community Leadership Awards, created by the trustees to honor residents for their community and civic contributions.
The recipients are William Rummel, Harlan Collier and Frank Wodogaza, all deceased, and assistant Fire Chief Ken Boring.
Rummel attended Mineral Ridge schools and later returned as a math teacher in 1953. In 1957, he became junior high school principal, and in 1965, he was named high school principal. He became schools superintendent in 1967 and remained in that position until 1988 when he retired. The new high school built in 1976 is named after him.
He died earlier this year, and is survived by his wife, of 62 years, Carole, three children and seven grandchildren.
Frank Marshall Wodogaza, who died in 2010 at age 65, was born in Niles. He is best known for his longtime fight to get water from the city of Niles water to the township’s Heaton-Chute area.
Wodogaza and his wife, Joyce Harris Wodogaza, bought a house in that area that had been abandoned for six months. He and his wife worked tirelessly along with friends and family to fix the dwelling, and the couple was awarded the Medallion Home award from the Warren Area Board of Realtors.
Wodogaza was a Democratic precinct committeeman and worked to get water, sewer drainage and streetlights in the Heaton-Chute area.
His goal of obtaining city water for the area started when he bought the house and found the water to be undrinkable. He brought the problem to trustees and the Trumbull County commissioners.
When a few of the neighbors lost their water wells, Wodogaza single-handedly canvassed the area with petitions to get city water for the entire area. By the early 1990s, with some grant money and self-funding, the neighborhood had city water.
He leaves his wife and a son, Shawn. A son, Jason, died in 2003 of leukemia. Shawn Wodogaza, a neighbor, Richard Cross, and trustees continue the effort to get city sewer service in the Heaton-Chute area.
Collier moved to Mineral Ridge when he married Margaret “Peg” BIanco. He joined the fire department and became chief in 1982.
He retired from the department in 1990 after more than 30 years. He served on the township zoning board starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and was involved with township zoning for 30 years, most recently as a member of the zoning appeals board, retiring in 2002. He died in 2006.
Boring joined the fire department in 1964 and was named assistant chief in 1999. He is married to the former Arettia Thomas; they have two children.
Boring is also a member of the Trumbull County Fire Chief’s Association, the American Red Cross, the Ridge Business and Professional Association and the Mineral Ridge Boosters Club.