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Long-serving Trumbull County officials mark milestones during swearing-in ceremonies
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
New and re-elected Trumbull County officials took their oaths of office Wednesday in the largest courtroom in Ohio, as two current office holders prepared for the next chapter in their lives.
Common Pleas Judge W. Wyatt McKay administered the oath to county Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa and also took his own oath after being re-elected in November to another six-year term.
McKay has been a common pleas judge 30 years, which appears to make him among the two or three longest-serving common pleas judges in Ohio, according to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Also among the longest serving is Sheriff Thomas Altiere, who leaves office in the coming days with 24 years under his belt — the longest tenure as sheriff in the county’s history. He has spent 44 years in law enforcement.
In the coming months, he hopes to enjoy more time with his family, including his grandkids, he said Wednesday.
Diana Marchese of Johnston Township has served as county recorder for 24 years, making her the longest- serving recorder in county history. She administered the oath of office Wednesday to her successor, Todd Latell of Girard.
Marchese has served as a much-loved county official for decades, but also had government experience before her first term as recorder in 1992.
She served as Johnston Township clerk nine years while also serving as Trumbull County representative for Dennis Eckert, the congressman for northern Trumbull County in the early 1980s. She also ran for state representative around that time but didn’t win.
She is associated with rural Trumbull County, having moved to the 230-acre farm she and her husband, Dominic, bought in 1973. She milked cows and raised four children there, but she and Dominic are originally from Warren.
She grew up on Belvedere Avenue Southeast and graduated from Warren G. Harding High School in 1962.
“It’s good to raise your kids on a farm,” Marchese said. “They learn work ethic. They learn responsibility.”
Karen Infante Allen, Trumbull County clerk of courts, said she has tried to emulate Diana Marchese’s attitude toward customer service in her own public life.
“She’s probably one of the most professional and courteous people I’ve ever met in my life,” Infante Allen said of Marchese, adding that Diana is also a “very family-oriented woman” and a “very caring person.”
Marchese said her focus was driven by a simple act carried out during her drive to Warren from Johnston: “Every day on my way to work, I would pray for guidance. I know He kept me through the years.”
Some people have suggested that county recorder could be combined with other offices for efficiency’s sake, but she has always had the greatest respect for the land records and military-veteran discharge documents that her office has managed.
“This is your biggest purchase you have, and you want to make sure it’s in order, and it’s yours,” she said.
She was the first county recorder in Ohio in 2000 to begin to store land records digitally, but the move was necessitated by the renovation that the county commissioners did on the present-day county administration building, she said.
When confronted with the need to move all of her records to another building, she decided it was time to scan and digitize the records, with microfilm backups instead of storing original paper documents.