Gene ‘Tom’ Robarts tonight will be celebrating the class reunion of Erie Strong Vincent High School Class of 1962. He won’t be there in person. Robarts has ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He’ll be joining his friends from over 1,000 miles away near Tampa Florida via a web cam. The Great Erie County Board of [...]

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Alcoa is the World’s largest aluminum company. The company’s first major success was an order from a company in Erie, PA. The shape and weight-related benefits of a teakettle was one of the first products made with Alcoa aluminum in 1895, when Arthur Vining Davis created the piece of cookware to display a new use [...]

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  Erie Insurance announced strong financial results for the second quarter 2007. The Company also announced that Jeffrey A Ludrof, president and chief executive officer, will be leaving the Company and the board of directors for personal reasons (he has Hodgkin’s disease. Ed. note: Ludrof is quoted as saying he is in good health) and [...]

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  The Erie Bayfront Convention Center opens today. Rooms for conventions, weddings, banquets, meetings, exhibits and classes range from space for 52 to 1920 people with theater style seating for up to 4114. It will be open for public tours 12-6 pm August 17 – 19.   The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine has [...]

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The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Erie County for June fell to 4.4 percent. It stood at 4.6 percent in May. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June 2006 was 5.3 percent. To ensure Interstate 80 remains a free highway, U.S. Reps. Phil English (R-Erie) and John Peterson (R-Pleasantville) touted the Free Highway Protection Act, [...]

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A truck overturned around 2 am on I-90 east-bound near Girard. The driver was not seriously hurt. Traffic, which is backed up, is being detoured onto Route 20. Discover Presque Isle raised nearly $117,000, up about 8 percent from last year. Attendance at the 3 day festival was an estimated 140,000 people. The Presque Isle [...]

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Ken Brundage has been named the new director of Gannon University’s Nash Library. Brundage will officially join the Gannon Community on Aug. 6. He will be responsible for managing the library’s day-to-day operations, as well as enhancing its future resources and technology. He has had extensive experience as the director of libraries at Mercyhurst College, [...]

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Six month old Devlin Peters died in a fire in Columbus, just outside of Corry, PA. Your heart just has to ache for the family. As soon as the 911 call was made neighbors and construction workers doing a project at nearby Columbus Elementary School tried to save the child by using garden hoses and [...]

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Three stupid teenage boys are luck to be alive after playing in the waters of Mill Creek at the entrance of the Mill Creek Tube. The Mill Creek Tube is a nearly 3 mile concrete pipe that carries the waters of the creek under the city streets to Presque Isle Bay. One boy was rescued [...]

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Former McDowell Intermediate High School Principal Thomas J Maciulewicz Jr was sentenced to 2 to 23 months in prison for stealing district owned synthesizers, two Apple Macintosh G4 laptop computers, an elliptical exercise machine, a LCD projector, a 17 inch computer monitor, and several used musical instruments. He also used a district credit card to [...]

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The family of Greg Jacobs is claiming that his organs were harvested before he died. Jacobs had a snowboarding accident at Peek ‘N Peak on March 13 and had severe head trauma. It sounds like a clerical error, but the time of death was written down nearly a half hour after his organs were removed. [...]

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The last time I wrote about Keeping Erie’s Environment Protected (KEEP). I received harassing phone calls and home and work, and a harassing email. The group is opposed to the Erie Renewable Energy proposed tire to energy plant. They held a meeting at the library which was attended by around 100 people. They would have [...]

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  Today is the start of Erie Blogs Week at the Community Blood Bank. Please donate if you can. One random donor who goes to the Community Blood Bank this week and uses the Erie Blogs Week sign up sheet will be entered to win a prize basket full of awesome stuff, including wine, Campbell [...]

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Here are the bands that are eligible to play Celebrate Erie for the RockErie Music Awards based on voting as of Friday. Voting for the awards continues until August 19th at midnight. Bands will play from 3-10 pm on Friday, 8/17 and Saturday 8/18 and 2-9 pm on Sunday 8/19, 20 minute sets with a [...]

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  Elizabeth Hirt Vorsheck has been named as a new individual trustee of the H O Hirt Trusts. In her role as trustee of the H O Hirt Trusts, Mrs Vorsheck replaces her father, F William Hirt, who died Friday, July 13. According to the Trust Agreement the remaining trustees, Susan Hirt Hagen and Sentinel [...]

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Attorney John Mizner yesterday had a meeting with the committee of the state Supreme Court Disciplinary Board. Mizner stole nearly $70,000 from his former law firm. He jacked up his travel expenses. When he was questioned about it, he repaid the money and left the firm. His excuse was that he suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder [...]

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No wonder Brian Wells was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the bank robbery that led to his death. Court documents unsealed on Wednesday said that Wells had his neck measured for the collar bomb placed around his neck. Excellent job by reporters at the ETN including Ed Palattella that must had had to dig through [...]

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One man died and two people are in serious condition after an accident on I-90 in Harborcreek. It happened at 4 pm. Traffic was backed up to near the New York and Ohio state lines. With the thruway closed, traffic was funneled into the city on to Route 20. Total clusterf___. Detour signs are difficult [...]

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The Pennsylvania House and Senate approved a $27.2 billion budget, a 4.4 percent increase from last year. The Pennsylvania Senate stuck to their guns and defeated 7 tax increases proposed by Governor Rendell while the state had a $650 million surplus.   The 1933 Barbara Stanwyck film “Baby Face,” whose racy content inspired the Hays [...]

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  Erie Mayor Joe Sinnott announced he has hired Laura Schaaf to be his top assistant. Schaaf has spent her career working in the education field. She has bachelor’s and master’s from St Bonaventure University, certification from Ohio State University and a principal certification from Gannon University. Smart, educated and a leader but with no [...]

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  William “Bill” Hirt, board chairman of the Erie Indemnity Company and retired president and chief executive officer of Erie Insurance, passed away on July 13, 2007, at the age of 82. During his tenure as CEO (1976-1990), Erie Insurance grew 15 times in assets and nine times in premiums, making it larger than 99 [...]

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Delta Air Lines is leaving Erie in September, after just one year in the Erie market with their Atlanta route. They dropped the Erie to Cincinnati route in November and only had the Erie to Atlanta route left. Around 15 employees will be transferred or laid-off. Erie International Airport will lose about $60,000 in annual [...]

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Sex and drugs and murder. Stephen King couldn’t come up with anything this bizarre and twisted. U S Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan held a riveting press conference yesterday afternoon announcing the federal indictment was handed down. Brian Wells, the pizza deliveryman killed in the collar bomb explosion, was named as a co-conspirator along with Marjorie [...]

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A 1:30 pm press conference is scheduled so that U S Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan can announce indictments of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Ken Barnes in the kidnapping of pizza deliveryman Brian Wells. Expect to hear something about Wells himself being involved somehow. This could be very interesting. On August 28 2003, pizza delivery man Brian [...]

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Governor Rendell played chicken and lost. Rendell and the Pennsylvania Senate reached a budget agreement last evening. The main sticking point was Governor Rendell’s energy plan which called for a tax increase on electricity use. Pennsylvania taxpayers are fed up and Rendell needs to be reigned in. Senate Republicans opposed the tax increase. Furloughs were [...]

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  Presque Isle State Park is closed today – on a day where temperatures are expected to approach 90 degrees. And forget about visiting the Erie Maritime Museum and US Brig Niagara. Governor Ed Rendell furloughed around 24,000 “non-essential” state employees at 12:01 am when he failed to get a budget passed. The casinos around [...]

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Presque Isle State Park, the Erie Maritime Museum and US Brig. Niagara, and Presque Isle Downs and Casino could be closed indefinitely beginning on Monday because the state budget is not in place. Around 1,000 people in Erie County and nearly 25,000 ‘non-essential’ workers throughout the state could be laid off. State Police, liquor store, [...]

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James J Jackson, who slashed the face of a 15 month baby girl when he tried to stab Marcus Gray, turned himself in to Erie Police on Friday. Jackson must have been in a hurry to go to jail because he didn’t bother to put a shirt on. Marcus Gray was in the backseat of [...]

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Erie Police are searching for James J Jackson of Erie for stabbing a 16 month old in the face with a knife. Marcus Gray was in the backseat of Amanda Wiseman’s car when he saw Jackson who Grey said robbed his apartment. Words were exchanged and Jackson attempted to stab Grey but missed and sliced [...]

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  “Boom Over the Bay” has a huge success if the number of people watching was any indication. Presque Isle State Park was packed, Liberty Park was a great crowd, there were a ton on boats on Presque Isle Bay and a ton of people watched from the bluffs. This was the first time in [...]

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