Lowellville grad leaving mark on hometown through Gatorade contest

LOWELLVILLE

Though Dom DeFrank will graduate from Lowellville High School Sunday and go on to study business at Youngstown State University, his presence will be felt for years to come in the place he has long loved best: the village’s basketball courts.

As the grand prize winner of Powerade’s “Rise With Rose” national contest, the results of which were announced in the fall, Dom DeFrank earned a $25,000 donation to the village that will soon be used to repave and seal the two cracked, puddle-accumulating courts — one big, one small — as well as to install new basketball hoops and benches there.

But perhaps the best part is that the rehabbed courts will be dedicated to his father, John A. DeFrank Jr., who died in 2007 at the age of 58.

“It would make me feel so good to have his name on something,” said Dom DeFrank, a basketball player since the fifth grade.

DeFrank’s winning of the contest, sponsored by Coca-Cola North America, was thanks to a photo snapped by his mother, Theresa DeFrank, in the backyard of their Lowellville home and edited by him, last June.

Read more about his entry and his story in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.