News

Thir­teen young women will bat­tle for the title of Miss North­west­ern Ohio in the pageant schol­ar­ship, sched­uled for Sat­ur­day at the Defi­ance Com­mu­nity Audi­to­rium. Included in the pageant are three con­tes­tants from our local area: Nicole Baringer of Defi­ance, Dominique Ton­neas of Hicksville and Miranda Miller, of Napoleon. The schol­ar­ship …

The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion office in Defi­ance County, in con­junc­tion with Pauld­ing County, will be offer­ing Mas­ter Gar­dener Train­ing classes from Feb. 27– April 24. The classes will run from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. each Thurs­day, for nine weeks. Any­one inter­ested in receiv­ing an appli­ca­tion packet should con­tact the Defi­ance …

The sec­ond of two Indi­ana men con­victed in a string of car thefts and drug man­u­fac­ture in Williams County was sen­tenced last week in Williams County Com­mon Pleas Court. The Bryan Times reports that 24 year old Tim­o­thy L. Dull of Hamil­ton, Ind., was sen­tenced to a total of nine …

Sev­eral new issues will be on the bal­lot for vot­ers in Defi­ance County on Tues­day. One is a 0.3 per­cent per­ma­nent income tax increase request for police and fire ser­vices. If approved, the tax increase would gen­er­ate approx­i­mately $1.4 mil­lion annu­ally, and could only be used for police and fire …

North­west State Com­mu­nity Col­lege has announced that the school has received a grant for the iSTAR ( or Inno­v­a­tive Strate­gic Train­ing that Achieves Results) IT Spe­cial­ist Cer­tifi­cate Pro­gram to run until March 31, 2016. School offi­cials say that although there have been some ques­tions in the past on the grant’s …

If vot­ers in the Bryan City School Dis­trict approve the bond issue on Tuesday’s bal­lot, the exist­ing mid­dle school would be retained, but would be ren­o­vated specif­i­cally for preschool­ers through fifth graders. A new, two-story school would be built for grades six to 12 south­east of the mid­dle school, and …

Tes­ti­mony in the trial of Judith Hawkey is expected to con­tinue today in Defi­ance County Com­mon Pleas Court. Hawkey is charged with aggra­vated mur­der, four counts of endan­ger­ing chil­dren, and insur­ance fraud. Her trial began Mon­day. The prosecution’s first expert wit­ness tes­ti­fied Wednes­day. Dr. Bar­bara Knox, a child abuse physi­cian …

The meal pay­ment plan pol­icy at Ayersville Local Schools has come under the micro­scope this week fol­low­ing some parent’s Face­book posts. Daniel Starr posted online [QUOTE] “My chil­dren came home on Mon­day to tell me that they were pulled out of the lunch line and told that they would not …

Inves­ti­ga­tors now say a list of tar­geted vic­tims was part of the attack planned at Edger­ton High School. Two teenagers were arrested and locked behind bars on Mon­day in con­nec­tion with those plans. Accord­ing to law enforce­ment offi­cials, the teens’ plans were cred­i­ble and included a tar­get list which included …

A dozen wit­nesses tes­ti­fied for the pros­e­cu­tion Tues­day in the aggra­vated mur­der trial of an Oak­wood woman in Defi­ance County Court. The trial of 46 year old Judith Hawkey began Tues­day. Hawkey stands accused of aggra­vated mur­der; four counts of endan­ger­ing chil­dren; and insur­ance fraud. Pros­e­cu­tors charge that she caused …