ORCHID: To Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost for leading his annual Capital Crimes Executive Summary report last week with the horrid and brutal assault and murder of 12-year-old Raymond Fife of Warren nearly 41 years ago. He aptly did so to illustrate the ineffectiveness of the state’s death penalty, to which killer Danny Lee Hill was sentenced 40 years ago last month. Gov. Mike DeWine recently pushed back Hill’s execution date — again — from this July to sometime in 2029. Yost, along with Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and Miriam Fife, mother of Raymond, have long bemoaned the state’s inability to obey the wishes of judges and juries in the state when it comes to the state’s most dangerous capital criminals. As Yost put it in the report, “For the worst of the worst killers, Ohio is wandering in a wilderness of lawlessness and desert of justice.” (To read the full 424-page report, go to www.ohioattorney

general.gov and click on the Publications link.)

ORCHID: To the Warren-based 11th District Court of Appeals for wisely rejecting an appeal from former Vienna Township Fiscal Officer Linda McCullough. McCullough, many will recall, pleaded guilty last year to all 10 charges against her: two counts of theft in office, one count of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of tampering with records. Her appeal, based on a technicality in the use of consecutive sentences, was found without merit, and she must serve out her eight-year prison sentence at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. The rejection exemplifies justice in action. After all, as Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Cynthia Westcott put it at sentencing, “These offenses were not motivated by anything other than Ms. McCullough’s greed.”

ONION: To careless, irresponsible, impatient, reckless and downright idiotic drivers who pass school buses while they are stopped to load or unload children. In Brookfield, for example, schools Transportation Director Meghan Zachery recently told school board members these violations happen at least three times per week in the district. But such careless driver demeanor is not limited to Brookfield. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 43.5 million illegal school bus passings in the United States during a recent school year. Orchids, however, must go to Brookfield school board members who last week approved installation of cameras on school bus stop arms to catch and record the nitwits in the act. Other districts should follow closely behind Brookfield’s commendable lead.

ORCHID: To the Champion SCOPE Center and Grace Hospice for sponsoring a program recently to show much-needed and often long-delayed appreciation to Vietnam War veterans in our region. The Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans ceremony fulfilled its purpose nobly by affording the men and women who served in that deeply unpopular and divisive war the respect and dignity they deserve and had for far too long been denied. Many Americans wanted to forget the unpopular war, treating veterans as reminders of a mistake rather than as the heroes they are. Some veterans were vilified by protesters, with reports of verbal and sometimes physical abuse directed at them. It’s about time those veterans in our community and throughout the nation received the thanks they so rightly deserve.

ONION: To perpetrators of so-called “grandchild-in-jail scams” for bilking scores of senior citizens out of their desperately needed savings. Just last week, an alert daughter prevented her parents from handing over $8,500 to deviant schemers who had called them, alleging their grandson was jailed on an OVI charge and needed the cash for bail. Sadly, this fraud is not unusual and often succeeds. U.S. Justice Department officials said last year they had charged 25 Canadian nationals in Vermont for carrying out a grandchild-in-jail scam that stole more than $21 million from residents in more than 40 states nationwide.

ONION: To the vandal or vandals who have been inexplicably and peculiarly targeting and damaging car-wash vacuum cleaners at ModWash businesses in the Mahoning Valley recently. As they were not coin-operated, no financial gain was in store for the hoodlum or hoodlums involved in such vandalism at the chain car wash in Liberty and Boardman, though more than $12,000 in damage was reported. Clearly, the destruction of business property was purely malicious. As such, we urge nothing short of a clean sweep for the guilty party or parties: swift arrest, speedy conviction and maximum punishment.

ONION: To the not-so-sweet criminals who made off with a whopping 413,793 Kit Kat candy bars recently in Italy. According to manufacturer Nestle, the 12 tons of chocolate were stolen after leaving a production site last week. “Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes,” KitKat said in a statement. The problem is not isolated to our neighbors across the ocean. Cargo theft in the U.S. and Canada increased by over 25% in 2024, with some tracking data showing a 93% increase in theft volume between 2022 and 2024, according to the American Trucking Association. Such data makes a strong case for Congress to pass the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which includes establishment of a badly needed national cargo theft database.

ORCHID: To building and construction seniors at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center for their expert workmanship in constructing a new 16-foot-by-36-foot outdoor stage for the Quaker Steak & Lube in Austintown. It replaces an aging and much smaller stage for use this summer for large-scale music, community events, and fundraisers in the restaurant’s expansive outdoor yard. Kudos also go to their instructor Ryan Benchwick, as well as Gervelis Law Firm for coordinating the project and Home Depot Austintown for donating all materials for the new stage. The project will reap Valleywide benefits for years to come. As JoEllen Mrofchak, operations manager for The Gervelis Law Firm, put it, “The stage is something the whole community can enjoy — it’s a place where people can gather, celebrate and experience everything our area has to offer.”