Linda Kay Cramer, 66 years, of Van Wert, and formerly of Williams County, Ohio, passed away Thursday, December 19, 2013 at Parkview Regional Medical Center, Fort Wayne, Indiana.  She was born June 13, 1947 in Bryan, Ohio, the daughter of the late Cashius and Clara O. (Paxton) Cramer.  Linda provided day-care for …

Ronald G. MacFarlane, Sr., 73 years, of Bryan, passed away Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at Genesis HealthCare-Bryan Center, Bryan, Ohio.  Ron was born July 15, 1940 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of the late Rodrick Bruce and Agnes Zona (Kollhoff) MacFarlane.  He was a graduate of Flint High School.  He married Jean …

Bryan “Gene” Kuhn, 69 years, of Hamilton, passed away Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at Cameron Hospital, Angola, Indiana.  Gene was born August 1, 1944 in Gary, Indiana the son of Charles Raymond and Wilma Viola (Waters) Kuhn, IV.  He was a 1962 graduate of Hamilton High School.  Gene was a veteran, serving in …

Helen Delores Jacoby, age 79, of Stuart, Florida and Archbold, Ohio, passed away on Thursday, December 19, 2013 at Martin Memorial Hospital in Stuart, Florida. Among her survivors is her husband, Frederick. Arrangements are pending at the Grisier Funeral Home in Archbold.

Life in prison with­out pos­si­bil­ity of parole. That’s the grim out­look now fac­ing 45 year old Judith Hawkey after she was sen­tenced Thurs­day after­noon in Defi­ance County Court. A jury on Novem­ber 8th, found Hawkey guilty of aggre­vated mur­der in the 2003 shoot­ing death of her hus­band, four counts of …

Emer­gency respon­ders in Williams County have been kept busy lately. Wednes­day night, fire fight­ers were called out to a sin­gle car fire inside the Goebel Wreck­ing Com­pany sal­vage yard As Bryan fire­fight­ers were clean­ing up that scene, another call came in for a barn fire on Ohio 249. The barn, …

Ful­ton County has a new trea­surer. Char­lene Lee of Pet­tisville will fill the posi­tion fol­low­ing the retire­ment of for­mer trea­surer Bev Schlosser. Now, Lee is plan­ning her res­ig­na­tion from her cur­rent posi­tion as chief finan­cial offi­cer of the Defi­ance Pub­lic Library Sys­tem effec­tive Dec. 27. Lee resides in Pet­tisville with …

This year, mem­bers of UAW Local 211 and GM’s Defi­ance Cast­ing Oper­a­tions plant have sup­ported local char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions, and have raised more than $74,000 for its annual United Way cam­paign through pay­roll con­tri­bu­tions and local fundrais­ing activ­i­ties. In com­bi­na­tion with ear­lier fundrais­ing activ­i­ties this year, the plant raised addi­tional funds …

A man from Adrian is behind bars today, charged with pos­ses­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of child pornog­ra­phy. Accord­ing to a fed­eral indict­ment, Brian Schwanke sent an under­cover offi­cer videos of young girls hav­ing sex. Schwanke claims to be a pas­tor who fre­quently has teenagers at his home accord­ing to police reports. …

The owner of a Bowl­ing Green store that was raided by fed­eral agents, was sen­tenced to 71 months in prison Thurs­day. This past July, Richard Schmidt plead guild to pos­sess­ing coun­ter­feit goods and other weapons charges. The FBI raided the Spindle­top Sports Zones one year ago this month. The Bureaus …