AND THE WINNER IS ... Meet Gary DiLisio of Youngstown. …

Special to The Vindicator | published: May 7, 2015

AND THE WINNER IS ... Meet Gary DiLisio of Youngstown. He submitted this picture of him dancing with his mother, Nancy DiLisio, also of Youngstown, for this year’s Mother’s Day Contest titled “Mama Told Me Not Come.” As it turned out, it was drawn as the winning entry. Sounds pretty routine, doesn’t it? Well, it’s actually cool that a guy is this year’s winner. You see, this is the first time the contest was open to sons to participate. Come June, the same will be offered to daughters for our Father’s Day Contest. For the past six years we’ve stuck to a more traditional gender match-up of daughters honoring their mothers and sons saluting their dads. We’re glad we changed it. Gary is, too. He won a $100 gift certificate to treat his mom to dinner at Bruno’s. Here’s his entry: “I remember being 14 years old and wanting to participate in a backyard wrestling league with my friends because we thought it would be so cool to pretend we were just like the wrestlers on television. My mom said absolutely not, but I went against her better judgment. Sure enough, one of my buddies ended up power bombing me so hard into the wrestling mat that it took me nearly an hour to get back up! Seventeen years later, I now see a chiropractor regularly. Although it could be attributed to other things, I can’t help but wonder if it all goes back to the day that I should have listened to Mom.”