Orchids and onions
• ORCHID: To all the volunteers who came out amid the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure fallen servicemen and -women were honored this past Memorial Day by placing American flags on graves or patriotic wreaths at cemetery entrances throughout the area. In Trumbull County, the Memorial Day Federation, led by Gary Gutelius, placed some 2,600 flags and markers on graves in Pineview and Oakwood Cemeteries in Warren before the holiday.
• ONION: To Lordstown Board of Education for passing a motion recently that waived teacher and guidance counselor evaluations because schools are closed and learning is taking place online. Really? Teachers still are required to teach the students. Educators still are collecting their salaries to do their jobs. Students still were evaluated for assignments they completed, albeit remotely. So why, then, shouldn’t faculty members be held accountable in the same way they were previously?
• ORCHID: To Warren Police officers for not allowing the COVID-19 pandemic to stop them from hosting an annual “Stuff the Cruiser” fundraiser to raise donations for the Warren G. Harding food pantry. Orchid also to Warren’s St. Paul Lutheran Church youth group for partnering with police on the project taking place 1 to 4 p.m. today at the Warren Police Department. Monetary donations as well as nonperishable, “kid-friendly” food items are being collected, along with hygiene products and even socks and underwear, sizes 10 to adult large.
• ONION: To a tractor-trailer driver who accidentally pulled down live electric wires this week, setting off a blaze, causing heavy damage to three buildings of Vinylume Products Inc., an Austintown business, and destroying tens of thousands of dollars in product. We understand it was an accident, but this accident cost more than $100,000.
• ORCHID: To the Youngstown State University Foundation, which recently announced $1.4 million in aid will be available to students in financial need due to the pandemic. The Emergency COVID-19 Scholarship provides up to $4,000 in tuition help to existing and new students, including transfers and incoming freshmen in the 2020-21 academic year. Additionally, the foundation, as part of its annual gift to YSU, will provide $8.5 million more in support to students in the coming academic year.