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Howland comes together for community celebration

McEvoy, 12, left, and A.J. Neuscheler, 11, both of Vienna and both in Boy Scout Troop 122/28 of Howland, look over the Lego cars they built and will race during the Howland Summer Celebration on Saturday afternoon in Richard E. Orwig Park. Staff photo / R. Michael Semple

HOWLAND — A relaxed Edna and Maureisa Winkleman relished being able to have the opportunity to watch a parade before the first float passed and the first piece of candy was tossed.

“It’s nice to be able to get out and see other people,” Edna, of Warren, said. “They have been cooped up so long and it’s nice to be able to get out.”

Edna and her daughter, Maureisa, were among those who got out and lined both sides of East Market Street to see the parade that kicked off Saturday’s Community Coming Together festival in and near Richard E. Orwig Park off East Market.

The parade began near East Willow Drive Northeast and proceeded on East Market before traveling north on Shaffer Drive.

Edna’s husband, Don Winkleman, a four-year U.S. Navy veteran and member of Howland-based American Legion Post 700, drove a truck with an attached trailer that, with Post 700’s color guard, started the parade.

Maureisa said she was happy to see more children outdoors and engaged in a variety of activities instead of being “behind their TVs and cellphones.” Nevertheless, mother and daughter worried that this “could be the calm before the storm,” referring to another possible COVID-19 spike.

Township officials canceled this year’s annual Fourth of July celebration because of uncertainty regarding the health crisis earlier in the year. In addition, events needed to be planned and scheduled ahead of time.

Township Trustee James LaPolla Jr. noted that the festival’s timing was ideal because many families are home during the Labor Day weekend. That gave people a prime opportunity to enjoy fellowship, friendship and others’ company, he said.

Saturday’s festival and the yearly Christmas tree-lighting ceremony are the township’s two events a volunteer committee organizes, LaPolla continued.

“We wanted to do something after the mask requirements were lifted,” Matt Vansuch, trustee and event chairman, said.

Freestyle karate demonstrations, dance performances, activities and games were among the festivities. They included a Lego Derby in which mainly young people built cars from Legos, then raced them on a four-lane wooden derby track with a finish line.

“They built their own Lego car with specialized weighted wheels,” Andy Stefurak, Cubmaster of Howland-based Cub Scout Pack 122, said.

Another fun competition was a “frog flinger” activity in which participants catapulted plastic frogs into two buckets for prizes, he added.

Stefurak noted that Pack 122 is hosting a recruitment gathering for boys and girls in kindergarten through grade 5 at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at Howland United Methodist Church on Howland-Wilson Road NE.

Saturday’s fest also included a Mahoning Valley Wall of Honor, which Post 700 brought to remember and honor the fallen soldiers from Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties who were killed in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea and World Wars I and II.

“I was in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment,” Richard Ginkinger of Warren, a three-year U.S. Army veteran, remembered as he sat next to the Wall of Honor.

Ginkinger recalled that his mother signed him up for military duty, which he entered in October 1964.

Part of his duties in Vietnam included covering for and protecting his platoon by firing powerful M-14 automatic rifles, said Ginkinger, who received basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., and infantry training at Fort Hood, Texas.

Also on hand was the Howland Historical Society, which hopes to relocate the two-story 1830s Brown Mackey Yellow House from its location off state Route 46, noted Cindee Mines, a society board member. The society’s museum is in the home, which is Howland’s oldest house, Mines said.

Many attendees also enjoyed “Raya and the Last Dragon,” which was shown on a 26-inch screen as the featured attraction for a “movie under the stars.”

Providing the musical entertainment was the Dave Kana Trio.

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