01/01/12

STATE

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Cleveland gets first roll of casino dice in Ohio

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January 1, 2012

World bids adieu to a tough year

Volume 104, No. 1

INSIDE

NEW YORK (AP) — With glittering fireworks and star-studded celebrations from New Zealand to Times Square, the world eagerly welcomed a new year and hoped for a better future Saturday, saying goodbye to a year of hurricanes, tsunamis and economic turmoil AP PHOTO/JOHN MINCHILLO that many would rather forget.

Revelers in Australia, Asia, Revelers cheer behind police barricades in Times Square in anticipaEurope and the South Pacific tion of midnight on New Year’s Eve, Saturday, in New York.

Officials wish for prosperity As 2011 comes to a close, and we welcome 2012, the hopes for a prosperous new year are rekindled.

With a down economy having weighed on U.S. citizens for yet another year in 2011, one can only hope that a new year will mean the beginning of a rebirth for our nation Here in Miami County, officials hope for an improved economic climate where our local residents can get good paying jobs, health care and own homes — back to living the American dream. See

Adams predicts improving economy

Fans back for biggest game

Credits Kasich for balancing budget in 2011

The cotton candy, hot dogs and two-for-one tickets worked.

Paul Brown Stadium will be full and rowdy for a game with playoff implications all around. See

BY RON OSBURN Staff Writer rosburn@tdnpublishing.com

Page A7.

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AP PHOTO/AMY SANCETTA, FILE

Opponents cheer election results sounding the defeat of Issue 2 in the Ohio general election Nov. 8 in Cleveland. The story was voted one of the AP Ohio Top 10 stories for 2011.

The Troy Daily News offices will be closed Monday, Jan. 2; however, customers may reach the Circulation Call Center at 335-5634 from 6-10 a.m. Monday for delivery assistance.

Exotic animal case voted top story in Ohio

INSIDE TODAY Announcements ...........C8 Business.....................A11 Calendar.......................A3 Crossword ....................B7 Dates to Remember .....B6 Deaths ..........................A5 Margaret Schilling Richard L. Hildebran John D. Brill Mathew Sweat Jr. Rebecca Lou Clemons B. Kate Behm Alde F. Tarcea Frieda Jean Reaster Menus...........................B8 Movies..........................C5 Opinion .........................A4 Sports...........................A7 Travel ............................B4 Weather......................A12

Defeat of Issue 2 takes second place

By The Associated Press COLUMBUS — In 2011, amid a sputtering economy, Ohioans learned of scandal at Ohio State University and waged a fight to preserve the rights of union members.

The top 10 stories of 2011 from the Ohio Associated Press, as voted on by member newspapers and broadcasters around the state, are as follows: 1. Owner of exotic animals sets dozens of lions, tigers and bears free, forcing authorities to kill 48 animals and sparking intense debate about Ohio’s animal regulations.

2. Ohio voters overwhelmingly reject Republican-backed law that limited the bargaining abilities of public workers.

3. Scandal involving Ohio State football players violating NCAA rules by selling or trading memorabilia to the owner of a tattoo parlor leads to forced resignation of Jim Tressel, departure of star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, vacating of 2010 season wins.

4. Jurors convict and sentence Anthony Sowell to death for killing 11 women whose remains were found in and around his Cleveland home.

5. Post-recession Ohio econo-

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AP PHOTO/FILE

ABOVE: U.S. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio was elected Speaker of the House.

RIGHT: Anthony Sowell was sentenced to death for the murder of 11 women in Cleveland.

AP PHOTO/FILE

my sputters, with continued high unemployment.

6. Republican U.S. Rep John Boehner of Ohio is elected House speaker, succeeding Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

7. Ohio man pleads guilty to all charges in deaths of 3 people found dismembered in hollow tree, sentenced to life in prison without parole.

8. GOP sets new U.S. House districts that put Democrats

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9. Ohio homeless man with a smooth radio voice is offered multiple jobs after newspaper video clip becomes online sensation, eventually lands in rehab for alcohol and drug dependency.

10. Ohio sells one prison, turns two over to private operator, returns one facility to state control.

State Rep. Richard Adams praised the state’s schools and local governments for their “partnership” with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and statehouse Republicans in crafting a balanced state budget this past summer. The $56 billion 2011-2013 biennial budget included deep cuts to schools and local governments that enabled Kasich to close an $8 billion deficit.

“It was a very, very difficult task, getting out of an $8 billion hole and getting a balanced budget,” said Adams, a Republican who ADAMS represents the 80th House District, which includes all of Miami County and eight townships in eastern Darke County.

A member of the House Finance and Appropriations Committee, Adams was intimately involved in negotiations on the budget, which slashes an estimated $1 billion from education and local government reimbursements. But he said it was necessary, as even the state’s emergency “rainy day” fund had been depleted by former Gov. Ted Strickland.

“It was a partnership. Local government and schools did an excellent job of helping us balance this most recent state budget,” Adams, of Troy, said during a 75minute interview with the Troy Daily News last week.

He noted that state expenses were down slightly and state income was up in the last quarter of 2011, which he said will enable the state to replenish its emergency fund, and make its bond repayments on time.

Adams said he sees improvement in the state’s economy in 2012 and credits Kasich for his efforts after his first year on the job.

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island nation of Samoa, which jumped across the international dateline to be first to celebrate, welcomed 2012 with booming pyrotechnic displays. Fireworks soared and sparked over Moscow’s Red Square, crowds on Paris’ Champs-Elysees boulevard popped Champagne corks at midnight,

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Sunday, January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

Cemetery honored for protecting groundwater

BY WILL E SANDERS Staff Writer wsanders@dailycall.com PIQUA — For exhibiting the good practices of ground water and other forms of environmental stewardship, the Forest Hill Cemetery received a distinguished designation that only 10 other sites from around the state can boast.

This month, the historic cemetery received the 2011 Groundwater Guardian Green Site classification by the The Groundwater Foundation for groundwater-friendly practices that have recently been implemented at the site.

The Groundwater Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Lincoln, Neb., founded in

PIQUA 1985, helps educate and motivate the public to care about and for groundwater, said Jim Roth, Forest Hill Cemetery superintendent.

The program began in 2007 as a way to recognize good stewards of groundwater by encouraging managers of highly-managed green spaces to implement, measure, and document their groundwater-friendly practices.

Roth said the procedures involved in gaining the designation entailed creating policies and protocols for groundwater concerns such as chemical spills, conducting inventory of chemicals stored at the site and disposal methods

used at the cemetery relative to chemicals and oil, in addition in taking extra cautious steps toward preventing other contaminants from entering into the groundwater system.

The process was in cooperation with the Miami Conservancy District, Roth added, who paid to have their application evaluated.

Groundwater Guardian Green Sites are places with a lot of green space, and in addition to cemeteries, golf courses, educational campuses and the like are normally locations where potential sites could be located so long as they implement groundwater and surface water-friendly practices. By reducing its chemical usage and the planting of lower gardens

that require little water and trees to help clean water run off, the Forest Hill Cemetery is going green and helping protect and conserve local water supplies, according to The Groundwater Foundation.

Roth said several concerns were discovered, and fixed, as a result of the procedure.

“We discovered an oil drum that was sitting out in the open by itself and wasn’t in a containment zone,” he said. “These are the sorts of things we looked to correct and we began updating.”

Also, several policies were written so cemetery staff has more defined protocol in the event of a hazardous condition, such as a chemical spill.

Only 10 other Ohio sites

have the designation.

Forest Hill marks the fourth one in Miami County. Two sites are located in Tipp City and the other one belongs to the Miami County Park District, Roth said.

He encouraged people to visit the cemetery, to take a slow walk around it and take in the serene beauty.

“It’s a place some people might feel timid about going to, but a cemetery is like an outdoor walking museum because it tells you the history of the community, who immigrated here, lived here and worked here,” Roth said.

“It’s a real serene place.”

To find out more about Forest Hill Cemetery, contact 773-2614 or by visiting www.foresthillpiqua.com.

New Year • Continued from A1

STAFF FILE PHOTO/ANTHONY WEBER

State Rep. Richard Adams, left, shakes hands with John Wannemacher during a recent park dedication. Adams said he sees improvement in Ohio’s economy in 2012 and credits Ohio Gov. John Kasich for his efforts after his first year on the job.

Adams “He’s getting the ship turned around economically,” said Adams, who served two terms as a Miami County Commissioner in the 1990s and was the founding superintendent of the Upper Valley Joint Vocational School (now Upper Valley Career Center). He also serves on Commerce and Labor, and Health and Human Services committees, and is chairman of the Financial Institutions, Housing and Urban Development Committee.

Adams said he was drafted by Ohio Speaker of the House William Batchelder off the House’s Education Committee and onto the Finance and Appropriations Committee to help work on the state budget. He anticipates the

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House will see a supplemental “budget enhancement bill” within the first quarter of the year that may adjust and shift some aspects of the budget.

He also said his committee is working on a separate “small” capital improvements budget for things like infrastructure projects and university buildings, though he did not offer a projected dollar figure.

“It’s going to be small because all of those funds are (derived) from borrowed money, which must be repaid with interest,” he said.

Adams also predicts the statehouse will take on the growing problem of Medicaid funding in the state, where .39 cents of every dollar spent by the state is spent on Medicaid.

“That’s just not sustainable,” he said.

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Adams said Medicaid reform efforts should concentrate on how Ohio can be “more efficient, economical and effective” in administering the program at the state level. Adams said the state should look for ways to reduce Medicaid fraud, and he wants to lead efforts to bring together doctors, hospital administrators and others in the health care field who regularly deal with the Medicaid issue, to brainstorm on how to reform the program.

He said he anticipates legislative action and/or regulatory reforms addressing the Medicaid issue in Ohio in 2012, and predicts this is one issue that statehouse Democrats and Republicans can join together.

“I believe that’s something that will get bipartisan support,” he said.

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and up to a million revelers were expected to jam New York’s Times Square for the famed crystal-paneled ball drop.

But many approached the new year with more relief than joy, as people battered by weather disasters, joblessness and economic uncertainty hoped the stroke of midnight would change their fortunes.

“Once the ball drops, I won’t give 2011 another thought,” said Kyralee Scott, 16, of Jackson, N.J., whose father spent most of the year out of work. “It was a pretty tough year, but God was looking after us and I know 2012 has got to be better.”

Some New York revelers, wearing party hats and “2012” glasses, began camping out Saturday morning, even as workers readied bags stuffed with hundreds of balloons and technicians put colored filters on klieg lights. The crowds cheered as workers lit the crystal-paneled ball that drops at midnight Saturday and put it through a test run, 400 feet above the street. The sphere, now decorated with 3,000 Waterford crystal triangles, has been dropping to mark the new year since 1907, long before television made it a U.S. tradition.

As the country prepared for the celebration, glum wasn’t on the agenda for many, even those who had a sour year.

“We’re hoping the next year will be better,” said Becky Martin, a former elementary school teacher who drove from Rockford, Ill., to Times Square after spending a fruitless year trying to find a job. “We’re starting off optimistic and hoping it lasts.”

Many expressed cautious hope that better times were ahead after a year in which Japan was ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami, hurricanes wreaked havoc across the country and a debt crisis devastated Europe’s economy.

“Everybody’s suffering.

That’s why it’s so beautiful to be here celebrating something with everybody,” said Lisa Nicol, 47, of Melbourne, Australia.

For all of the holiday’s bittersweet potential, New York City always treats it like a big party, albeit one that now takes place under the watchful eye of

a massive security force, including more than 1,500 police officers.

Dick Clark, who suffered a stroke in 2004, was scheduled to return to help host his namesake New Year’s Eve celebration with Ryan Seacrest, featuring performances by Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Lady Gaga will then join Mayor Michael Bloomberg to lead the 60second countdown to the New Year.

In Las Vegas, police planned to shut down a four-mile section of the Strip to vehicle traffic six hours before midnight, letting revelers party in the street. Casino nightclubs touted pricey, exclusive bashes hosted by celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Fergie, and fireworks were expected to shoot from the rooftops of eight of the city’s most famous casinos.

Atlanta was welcoming thousands to its downtown, where a giant peach is dropped every New Year’s Eve at midnight.

Fireworks were to be launched from the top of the Space Needle in Seattle; in Houston, tens of thousands were celebrating at a party with country singer Delbert McClinton.

Miami has its own fruit, The Big Orange, a neon citrus with a new animated face that was to rise up the side of a downtown hotel as fireworks went off nearby. The town of Eastport, Maine, planned to lower an 8-foot-long wooden sardine from a downtown building at midnight, in celebration of its sardine canning and fishing history.

The first worldwide celebrations started in the island nation of Samoa, which hopped across the international date line at midnight on Thursday, skipping Friday and moving instantly to Saturday.

Samoa and the neighboring nation of Tokelau lie near the dateline that zigzags vertically through the Pacific Ocean; both sets of islands decided to realign themselves this year from the Americas side of the line to the Asia side to be more in tune with key trading partners.

In Sydney, more than 1.5 million people watched the shimmering pyrotechnic display designed around the theme “Time to Dream.” In London, some 250,000 people gathered to listen to Big Ben chime at the stroke of midnight..”

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MIAMI COUNTY’S MOST WANTED Ronald G. Rein Date of birth: 9/5/85 Location: Troy Height: 5’3” Weight: 165 Hair color: Brown Eye color: Brown REIN Wanted for: Theft

Christopher Spradley-Holman Date of birth: 6/2/92 Location: Piqua Height: 5’9” Weight: 165 Hair color: Black Eye color: Brown SPRADLEYHOLMAN Wanted for: Receiving stolen property

Whitney Stemen Date of birth: 5/8/88 Location: Sidney Height: 5’5” Weight: 140 Hair color: Brown Eye color: Brown Wanted for: STEMEN Passing bad check

Jeffrey W. West Date of birth: 7/19/57 Location: Troy Height: 5’7” Weight: 140 Hair color: Brown Eye color: Green WEST Wanted for: Probation violation — Carrying a concealed weapon

Charles D. Wilson Sr. Date of birth: 1/19/75 Location: Dayton Height: 6’1” Weight: 194 Hair color: Brown Eye color: Brown WILSON Wanted for: Receiving stolen property • This information is provided by the Miami County Sheriff’s Office. If you have information on any of these suspects, call the sheriff’s office at 440-6085.

Entered at the post office in Troy, Ohio 45373 as “Periodical,” postage paid at Troy, Ohio. The Troy Daily News is published Monday-Friday afternoons, and Saturday morning; and Sunday morning as the Miami Valley Sunday News, 224 S. Market St., Troy, OH. USPS 642-080.

Postmaster, please send changes to: 224 S. Market St., Troy, OH 45373.

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MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

anyone to come and enjoy the fellowship and the food. The menu will include chili soup, • OPEN HOUSE: A surhot dogs, Jell-o, brownies prise party open house for and drink. There is no Ernest Hague Jr., will will C o m m u n i t y charge for the meal, howevturn 90, will be hosted by er free will offerings will be his family from 1-4 p.m. at Calendar accepted.

2 E. Main St., Fletcher. No • SPAGHETTI DINNER: gifts are necessary and CONTACT US Troy Post No. 43 Baseball card and friends and famiwill offer an all-you-can-eat ly being present will be spaghetti dinner will be enough. offered from 3-7:30 p.m. at Call Melody 622 S. Market St., Troy. The MONDAY meal also will include a Vallieu at salad bar, drink and dessert.

440-5265 to • SPECIAL MEETING: Meals will be $6.75 for list your free The Tipp City Board of adults and $4 for children 12 Education will hold a speand younger. All proceeds calendar cial meeting at 7 p.m. at will benefit the Troy items.You the board office, 90 S. American Legion baseball. can send Tippecanoe Drive, Tipp • BLOOD DRIVE: A City. The purpose of the your news by e-mail to blood drive will be from 9 meeting is the annual vallieu@tdnpublishing.com. a.m. to noon at the Grace organizational meeting Family Worship, 1477 S. and request for approval Market St., Troy. Individuals of the baseball/softball with eligibility questions are field project. invited to email canidonate@cbccts.org or • REORGANIZATION MEETING: The call (800) 388-GIVE or make an appointNewton Township Trustees will be holding ment at www.DonorTime.com. their reorganization meeting at 9 a.m. at • PANCAKE BREAKFAST: The the township building, 210 W. Walnut St., Pleasant Hill United Church of Christ, one Pleasant Hill. Reorganization and trustee block west of the intersection of State appointment will take place.

Routes 48 and 718, will hold its monthly pancake and sausage breakfast from 7:3011 a.m. The cost is $4 for the standard TUESDAY adult breakfast of pancakes, sausage, • LITERACY COUNCIL TO MEET: The juice, and coffee, tea or milk. The meal includes all the pancakes you can eat and Troy Literacy Council, serving all of Miami free refills on drinks. A deluxe breakfast is County, will meet at 7 p.m. at the Hayner available for $5 and includes scrambled Cultural Center in Troy. Adults seeking eggs. A standard breakfast of eggs, help with basic literacy or wish to learn sausage and toast also is available.

English as a second language, and those Children’s portions also are served. interested in becoming tutors, can contact Contact the church office at (937) 676the council’s message center at (937) 3193 for more information.

660-3170 for further information.

• BOTANY WORKSHOP: A Winter • EXPLORATION HIKE: The Miami Botany Workshop will be from 1:30-4:30 County Park District will have an Adult p.m. at Aullwood Aubudon Center, 1000 Nature Walking Club hike at 9 a.m. at Aullwood Road, Dayton. Discover the science Honey Creek Preserve, 4536 State Route of studying plants by talking a close look at 202, east of Tipp City. Join naturalists or a their winter characteristics. An outdoor field volunteer leader as they head out to explore nature. Walks are not strenuous or study will follow, enabling participants to develop plant identification skills. while colfast-paced. Walks are held the first lecting seeds, twigs and more to start their Tuesday of every month. For more inforown collection. Class fee is $45 for nonmation, visit the park district’s website at members. Pre-registration is required. www.miamicountyparks.com.

• ROTARY MEETING: The Troy Rotary JAN. 8 Club will meet at 11:30 a.m. at Stillwater Technologies. The guest presenter, Roger James, will speak about the historical • AMERICAN CROW: The American event, The Great Race from Paris to crow will be the feature at 2 p.m. at Beijing. For information about Troy Rotary, Brukner Nature Center. The American contact Jill Wilson at 266-7338. crow is one of the most common nature Civic agendas sightings throughout the winter months • The regularly scheduled Monroe within the area. Come to this free event to Township meeting and re-organizational meet an American crow up close and meeting scheduled for Jan. 2 will be conlearn more about their behaviors and perducted at 7 p.m. today in the Monroe sonalities including why a group of crows Township meeting room due to the New is called a “murder.”

Year’s holiday.

• SPEAKER SERIES: A Winter • The Concord Township Trustees will Speaker Series, “A Year in the Life of a meet at 10 a.m. at the Concord Township Beekeeper,” with speaker Terry Smith, will Memorial Building, 1150 Horizon West be offered at 2:30 p.m. at Aullwood Court, Troy.

Audubon Center, 1000 Aullwood Road, Dayton. The presentation also will highlight the critical aspect of plant diversity WEDNESDAY that is a required link in pollinator health.

• GREAT TO SKATE: A Great to Skate • VETERANS TO MEET: The Miami County Veterans Museum invites veterans free ice skating event will be offered free to the public from 4:30-6 p.m. at Hobart to coffee and doughnuts at the museum, Arena, sponsored by the arena and Troy 107 W. Main St., Troy, in the Masonic Skating Club in celebration of National building. A representative from the Miami Skating Month.

County Veterans Service will be on hand • TURKEY SHOOT: The Troy VFW Post to answer any questions. This free event is 5436, 2220 LeFevre Road, will offer a for all past and present veterans to share turkey shoot beginning at noon. Sign ups with each other. The building is handiwill begin at 11 a.m. The women’s auxilcapped accessible. iary will offer an all-you-can-eat breakfast • KIWANIS MEETING: The Kiwanis from 9 a.m. to noon for $5.

Club of Troy will meet from noon to 1 p.m.

• BLUEGRASS JAM: A bluegrass jam at the Troy Country Club, 1830 Peters will be offered beginning at 2 p.m. at Road, Troy. Lunch is $10. Deb Oexmann American Legion Post No. 586, 377 N. of Brukner Nature Center will speak. For Third St., Tipp City. The featured bands more information, contact Kim Riber, vice will include Sugar Grove and Kentucky president, at (937) 974-0410.

River. Admission is free and food and bev• BLOOD DRIVE: A blood drive will be erage will be available. For more informafrom 3-7 p.m. at the Troy Church of the tion, call (937) 667-1995.

Brethren, 1431 W. Main St., Troy.

Individuals with eligibility questions are JAN. 9 invited to email canidonate@cbccts.org or call (800) 388-GIVE or make an appointment at www.DonorTime.com.

• GRANDMOTHERS TO MEET: The • STORY TIME: The Milton-Union Miami Grandmothers Club will meet from 1-3 Public Library will offer a “Winter p.m.at the First United Methodist Church in Hibernation” story time at 10:30 a.m. at the social room; 110 W. Franklin St. The the library, 560 S. Main St., West Milton. meeting is open to grandmothers in the comCivic agendas munity. For more information, contact Pat • Elizabeth Township Trustees will have Swank at 339-2350 or Ulene Shively at 335an organizational meeting beginning at 8499.

6:30 p.m. The regularly scheduled township • INVENTORY MEETING: Elizabeth meeting will follow at 7 p.m. at the township Township Trustees will hold their annual building. inventory meeting at 7 p.m. at the township • The village of West Milton Planning building.

Board will meet at 7:30 p.m. in council cham• FINANCIAL AID MEETING: The bers.Thursday Milton-Union High School Guidance • DISCOVERY WALK: A morning discov- Department has planned a college financial ery walk for adults will be offered from 8-9:30 aid meeting for 7:30 p.m. in the high school a.m. at Aullwood Audubon Center, 1000 cafeteria. Connie Garrett, a financial aid repAullwood Road, Dayton. Tom Hissong, eduresentative from Wright State University, will cation coordinator, will guide walkers as they conduct the meeting. There will be a time for experience the seasonal changes taking questions after her presentation. For more place. Bring binoculars. information, call the high school at 884-7940.

Civic agenda • BOARD TO MEET: The Miami County • The Lostcreek Township Board of Educational Service Center Governing Trustees will meet at 7 p.m. at Lostcreek Board will meet at 5 p.m. at 2000 W. Township Building, Casstown.

Stanfield Road, Troy.

• FREE PREVIEW: A free preview of the 13-week Financial Peace University will be JAN. 7 offered at 6:30 p.m. at the Quality Inn, Troy.

FPU is a program that teaches participants • PRAYER BREAKFAST: The Troy Community Men’s Prayer Breakfast will be at how to beat debt, build wealth and keep their own economy thriving. Topics covered 7:30 a.m. at First Place Christian Center, also include budgeting, savings and investTroy.

• SHARE-A-MEAL: Share-A-Meal will be ing. No financial products are sold or promoted. The actual program will begin Jan. offered from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the 23. Call (937) 552-7724 for more informaFirst United Church of Christ, 120 S. Market tion.

St., Troy. The meal is open to the public for

FYI

AP PHOTO

This artist’s rendering provided by Horseshoe Casino Cleveland shows the main gaming floor at the casino due to open in March 2012. Ohio’s first casino will retain the retro look of the old Higbee Co. department store interior.

Cleveland gets first roll of casino dice in Ohio CLEVELAND (AP) — Visitors to Ohio’s first casino won’t see glitzy Las Vegas-style stage shows but instead will get an invitation to gamble and then sample the attractions in blue-collar Cleveland.

The Horseshoe Casino Cleveland will open in late March on four floors of a renovated department store overlooking Public Square in the heart of downtown.

The casino will have 2,011 slot machines, 63 table games and a 30-table poker room.

Instead of offering inhouse live entertainment, the casino will bet on drawing visitors who are also interested in other Cleveland attractions including its sports teams, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and its busy theater scene.

“Rather than saying,

With walkways and pedestrian tunnels linking the casino to the sports complex and Tower City retail-office complex, “you have a unique constellation of really high-visitor, high-marquee venues that will be connected,” he said.

Plans for the initial casino phase call for a buffet restaurant and a food court with three outlets.

The casino eventually will expand to include a newly built casino overlooking smokestack industries along the serpentine Cuyahoga River.

The Cleveland casino and one planned for Cincinnati will be operated by a joint venture between Caesars Entertainment and Rock Gaming, run by Dan Gilbert, owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and founder of Quicken Loans.

to Horseshoe ‘Come Cleveland’ and just come into the casino and stay the entire time, we’re actually connecting to the city,” the casino’s manager, Marcus Glover, said during a yearend construction tour interview.

“We’ll provide first-class amenities in terms of leveraging the amenities around us in the downtown corridor with the fine restaurants and hotels that are down here, as well as the venues and other attractions.”

The city likes the idea of an estimated 5 million annual casino visitors strolling through downtown to shop, eat and sample the attractions.

“It’s important for the casino not to be just an enclosed shrine to betting,” said Chris Warren, Cleveland’s chief of regional development.

Your local community bankers at Unity National Bank would like to extend our sincere wishes for a very safe and Happy New Year!

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OPINION

Contact us David Fong is the executive editor of the Troy Daily News. You can reach him at 440-5228 or send him e-mail at fong@tdn publishing.com.

Sunday, January 1, 2012 • A4

T AILY NEWS • WWW .TROYDAILYNEWS .COM MROY IAMIDV ALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS .COM

In Our View Miami Valley Sunday News Editorial Board FRANK BEESON / Group Publisher DAVID FONG / Executive Editor

ONLINE POLL

(WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM)

Question: Do you expect to see major improvement in the U.S. economy in 2012?

Watch for final poll results

in next Sunday’s Miami Valley Sunday News.

Last week’s question: Will you make a New Year’s reso-

lution?

Results: Yes: 32% No: 68% Watch for a new poll question next Sunday.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

— First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

EDITORIAL ROUNDUP Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, Dec. 28, on Mitt Romney: It’s an adage as old as the Bible, though most of us probably heard it the first time from one of our parents.

Indeed, you will be judged by the friends you keep. Nowhere perhaps is this more true, in our opinion, than the world of politics.

That’s why we are gratified to see former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney surrounded by a cadre of impressive public servants and thinkers.

We endorsed Romney several weeks ago in Tuesday’s Iowa Republican caucus, and today we are glad to report that we are keeping good company.

More importantly, potential caucus goers should take note as they prepare to help our nation select the man or woman who will face off with President Barack Obama in November.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whom many wanted to see run for president himself, is perhaps the most prominent of the men and women to step firmly into Romney’s camp. Christie’s early endorsement gave Romney a much-need boost of momentum. Christie is a strong leader, and sees the same potential in Romney. …

Former President George Herbert Walker Bush, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, Nebraska U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns, Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty are among the many other prominent figures backing Romney. It’s quite the impressive cast.

If you believe what your parents taught you, then the choice in the crowded GOP field on Tuesday remains clear: Mitt Romney is the best prepared to lead. But don’t simply believe us. Ask any of the impressive people we’ve just mentioned.

The Seattle Times, Dec. 27, on new FAA rules for pilot rest breaks: The one thing every passenger rightly expects from an airline flight is a pilot who has had enough rest and break time to do the best job possible guiding the aircraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s new rules ensuring that pilots fly shorter shifts and have longer periods of down time are welcome and overdue. They are touted as the most sweeping changes in pilot rules in decades.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says they are science-based and raise the safety bar. But more can be done to address cumulative fatigue.

At the very least, common sense says the FAA should do its part to keep exhausted pilots out of the cockpit.

While the National Transportation Safety Board cited other factors as the cause of the crash of a 2009 commuter airline flight near Buffalo that killed 50 people, fatigue was a significant contributing cause. Pilots were heard in the cockpit yawning. It is likely they did not get enough rest the night before. For example, the co-pilot, Rebecca Shaw, of Maple Valley, had traveled all night from Seattle to her job on the East Coast.

Under the new rules, flight times will be restricted to eight or nine hours depending on the start time and number of flights flown. …

The FAA took its time developing the new regulations. They will be phased in slowly too slowly during the next two years. It’s the FAA’s job to stay current on the science and keep the skies safe.

The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, Dec. 25, on the holiday troop return: This year passes with a display of remarkable understatement.

After nearly a decade of war in Iraq, the troops came home for the holidays, as promised by the president.

There were no ticker tape parades as in the days of yore.

There were no banners that proclaimed victory. …

In this year in which the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack was commemorated, this December must be our new starting place for remembrance of our civic obligation and a vow.

This is the beginning of a new starting point for the United States of America. Since World War II we have been at war with minor blips of short duration. …

We must wage the political fight for peace first, war last.

We permit our elected leaders far too often to make a decision otherwise without our advice and consent as if we live in a far-away place like Iraq where a history of democracy is non-existent.

Ask any soldier to talk about what matters most, and you will hear the happiness in the heart to be home. The soldier teaches us becau

2011: A great year, or the greatest? Troy

I’m not typically someone who thinks about the past too much.

Sure it’s important — the single most important thing in anyone’s life, one could argue. The past is always the reason you’re who you are, where you are, at any given point in time. But once it’s past, it’s just that — past — and all you can do is be who you are in that present moment, because who you are is being shaped all the time.

No sense in worrying about how you got somewhere when you’ve still got places to go.

But after this past year, I can’t help but be a little bit reflective, and something tells me that years down the road, I’ll still have a habit of looking back on the year that was 2011.

Because it was the best year of my life up to now.

Sure, others have been pretty alright — graduating high school, experiencing college life, enjoying good times with good friends, landing my dream career writing about sports — but no single year has brought as many life-defining changes, as much happiness or as many what will become fond memories as 2011.

And all of them are because of

Josh Brown Sunday Columnist a woman named Mandie.

We hadn’t been dating long when the year began, but we didn’t need to be. That whole “when you know, you know” saying?

Completely true once you find the right person.

We officially moved in together in January, and it wasn’t very long — June, in fact — before I asked her to marry me and she said yes. That was the first of the label changes I went through in 2011, from mere man to fiance.

But the month before that, Mandie brought home a gift I’d been wanting for a long time — a puppy, a mangy little schnauzeryorkshire terrier mix. We struggled to settle on a name before my brother Chris, visiting from his Air Force post in California,

pointed out that he looked like a rat, and that since his favorite toy was a squeaky little stuffed turtle, we should name him Master Splinter after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ rodent of a sensei.

We weren’t even married yet and already our little family was growing.

That wedding came on July 22.

After considering how long it would take to plan, how much money it would take to pull off and the impending fall sports season — when I would see my ability to have free time or any chance at a honeymoon vacation gone for the next nine months — we decided there was no point in waiting.

Neither of us wanted a big, blown-out ceremony. We just wanted to be husband and wife, the most important labels two people can ever have.

Our honeymoon in Las Vegas fell through thanks to some dirty play by airlines, but we got something even better — a honeymoon in the single greatest city in all of the world, New York City. And thanks to our friend Julie, we got a genuine New Yorker experience, staying not in a touristy hotel, but in her family’s apartment

while they went to visit family of their own (thanks again, and a billion times over, for that!).

And then in October came news that our family was going to truly grow, that Mandie and I would be parents come July 2012.

Words can’t even express how excited we are to go through one last label addition, how thrilled we are to be bringing new life into the world and how much we can’t wait to hold that baby in our arms and watch it grow over the years and years to come.

It’s been a year of big changes, big steps forward — and I can’t wait to see where we go, who we become, from here on out.

But, this one time, it won’t hurt to look back and see how we got here.

Because I couldn’t be happier with who I am right now, sitting right here where I’ve always been meant to be.

Thank you for giving me all of the good things I’ve got and will have, Mandie. I can’t wait to continue this journey with you.

TDN Sports Editor Josh Brown appears Sundays. As great as 2011 was, there’s even more great still to come.

Miami Valley Sunday News

FRANK BEESON Group Publisher

DAVID FONG Executive Editor

LEIANN STEWART Retail Advertising Manager

CHERYL HALL Circulation Manager

BETTY BROWNLEE Business Manager

SCARLETT SMITH Graphics Manager

AN OHIO COMMUNITY MEDIA NEWSPAPER 224 S. Market St. Troy, Ohio 45373 www.TDN-NET.com 335-5634

LOCAL

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Sunday, January 1, 2012

A5

OBITUARIES

JOHN D. BRILL WEST MILTON — John D. Brill, age 92, of Dayton, formerly of West Milton, passed away Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011, at Springhill Singing Woods Assisted Living. He was born Aug. 29,1919.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Samuel and Mary (Black) Brill; sisters, Eudora Fisher, Carolyn Burroughs, Edna Brill and Olive Carlsen; and son-in-law, Larry Chance.

He is survived by his beloved wife of 67 years Lova (Macy) Brill; loving daughters and son-in-

REBECCA LOU ‘BECKY’ CLEMONS

law, Pamela Chance of Vandalia, and Becky and David Seagraves of Brookville; granddaughters, Abby Seagraves and Molly Henderson; and step-grandson, Sean Chance.

John served his country proudly in the U.S. Army during World War II and was a longtime coach and teacher at Brookville, Dixon, MiltonUnion and retired from Northmont Schools in 1975. He was Basketball Coach of the Year at Northmont in 1963-64.

Services will be held at the convenience of the family.

Arrangements are being handled by the HaleSarver Family Funeral Home, West Milton.

MARGARET ‘MAGGIE’ SCHILLING NEWARK — A memorial service for Margaret “Maggie” (Rea) Schilling, 84, of Newark, will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Second Presbyterian Church in Newark, with her nephew, the Rev. Dan Schilling, officiating.

Mrs. Schilling, a homemaker, passed away Dec. 29, 2011, at Riverside Methodist Hospital. She was born June 15, 1927, in Zanesville, to the late Stanley Cory and Florence Louise (Ansel) Rea. Mrs. Schilling was a member of the 2nd Presbyterian Church. She was an avid golfer who loved to play bridge, bake and quilt.

She is survived by her loving husband, Vernon Schilling, whom she married on June 13, 1948; children, Mark (Yuko) Schilling of Tokyo, Japan, Jeff (Jenny) Schilling of Troy, Sandy (Mark) Jones of Troy, and Dave (Tonya) Schilling of Westerville; sisters, Jean Hickey of Augusta, Ga., and Mary Sanders of London, Ohio; grandchildren, Ray and

Lisa Schilling of Tokyo, Japan, Jessica (Shawn) Miller of Fishers, Ind., Emily (Rob) Huber of New Palestine, Ind., Sarah Schilling of Columbus, Angie (Jim) Boggess of Fletcher, Bryan (Molly Glynn) Jones of Kettering, Malle Schilling of Zanesville, Coady (Kiele Christopher) Brown of Gahanna and Cori-Ann Brown of Westerville; great-grandchildren, Aleah, Blake, Cylah, Layla and Nolen, and several nieces and nephews.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by a brother, Robert Rea. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Jud C. Hickey Center for Alzheimer’s Care, 1901 Central Ave., Augusta, GA 30904.

Friends may call from 13 p.m. Wednesday at the church, 42 E. Church St. Newark.

The family request that all guestbook condolences be signed at www.bruckerkishlerfuneralhome.com and click obituaries/guestbook entry.

TIPP CITY — Rebecca Lou “Becky” Clemons, age 73, of Bethel Township, Tipp City, Ohio, died Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011, at her residence after a lengthy illness. She was born Nov. 10, 1938, in Jamestown, Tenn., to Walter and Sarah (McCloud) Mace, who preceded her in death.

Becky was a retired waitress with more than 20 years service with the Melody Restaurant. She was a member of the VFW Auxillary No. 4615 Tipp City.

Surviving Becky are her husband of 32 years, Rudale “Rudy” Clemons; her children and their spouses, Diane (Robby) Sullivan, New Carlisle, Jack Choate, Dayton, Rebecca (Pat) Howell,

Kettering, Tara (Doug) Brigner, Vandalia, Kathy (Michael) Poor, Anderson, Ind., and Danny Clemons, Tipp City. Siblings include Jack Mace, Muncie, Ind.; Sally (Wayne) Huston, Brandenton, Fla., Eileen Storie, Riverside, and June (Larry) Mitchell, Huber Heights. She also is survived by three grandchildren; and one great grandchild.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012, at Frings and Bayliff Funeral Home, 327 W. Main St. Tipp City.

Burial will be in Forest Hills Memorial Park, Vandalia.

Visitation will be from 68 p.m. Wednesday at Frings and Bayliff. Visit www.fringsandbayliff. com.

RICHARD L. HILDEBRAN TROY — Richard L. Hildebran, aAge 82 of Troy, passed away Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, at Upper Valley Medical Center. He was born March 7, 1929, in Miami County, Ohio, to his parents, Joseph and Mary (Deeter) Hildebran.

Richard graduated from Newton High School class of 1947, and worked as a foreman and wage employee for BF Goodrich, retiring after 37 years of service. He enjoyed driving and training horses and had several successful trotters.

He loved to play ball and was an avid Chicago Cubs fan, as well as a Civil War buff.

He was preceded in death by his loving wife, Betty Jane (Brandenburg) in 2001; and his son, Terry Hildebran.

He is survived by his sons and daughter-in-law,

Nick Hildebran of West Milton, and Michael and Susan Hildebran of Saranac, N.Y.; grandchildren, Katie Nolte, Brandy Hildebran, Bret Hildebran and Rodney Hildebran; great-grandchildren, Jason Hildebran, Casper Nolte, Patrick Nolte and Nichlas Fairchild; and special neighbors, Alex and Becky Gonter-Dray.

Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 3, at Jackson-Sarver Family Funeral Home, 1 S. Main St., Pleasant Hill.

Interment will follow at Pleasant Hill Cemetery.

The family will receive friends from 4-7 p.m.

Monday at the funeral home.

If so desired, memorial contributions may be made to the Standardbred Rescue. Online memories may be left for the family at www.jacksonsarver.com.

FRIEDA JEAN REASTER

WEST MILTON — Frieda Jean Reaster, age 60, of West Milton, passed into Heaven on detailed obituary information In respect for friends and Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, at published in the Troy Daily family, the Troy Daily News Kettering Medical Center, Dayton, with her family prints a funeral directory free News, should contact their by her side. She was of charge. Families who would local funeral home for pricing born Dec. 24, 1951, in details. like photographs and more Oneida, Tenn.

She was preceded in AREA BRIEFS death by her parents, Arzo T. and Anna Rose holiday. City refuse collec- (Hughett) Carson; grandVets invited tion and the curbside recy- parents, Herman and Ethie Carson; and stepcling program will be on for coffee schedule. Refuse and recy- grandmother, Maude TROY — The Miami cling is to be placed out for Carson.

Valley Veterans Museum She is survived by her pickup no later than 7 would like to honor all vet- a.m. on the day of collecloving husband of 25 erans by hosting a dough- tion. years, Walter Reaster; nuts and coffee social at 9 sons, Jamie Neal of Due to the holiday, the a.m. Wednesday at the Miamisburg and Walter next regularly scheduled Veterans Museum, 107 W. Troy City Council meeting Reaster Main St. in downtown III of West Milton; daughwill be Tuesday.

Troy. ters, Tammy Snyderof A representative from Lebanon and Vanessa Hayner film the Miami County Wright of Las Vegas, Nev.; Veterans service will be on series continues step-daughter, Sherrie hand to answer any quesReaster of Dayton; grandTROY — The Troytions anyone might have. son, Austin Snyder; brothHayner Cultural Center’s This is for all past and ers and sisters-in-law, film series, Lets Go to the Denny Ray and Regina present veterans. Bring a friend and enjoy the com- Movies, continues at 7:30 Carson of Helenwood, p.m. Jan. 13.

Tenn., Roland and pany of other veterans.

The series is free and Carlene Carson of The Miami Valley open to the public. The Springfield, Mo.; sisters Veterans Museum is on Hayner is at 301 W. Main and brothers-in-law, Reba the second floor of the St. in Troy. and Ernie Bordwine of Masonic Lodge building, This year’s series theme Cincinnati, and Wanda next to the Miami County is Fallen Stars. Each film and Allen Jones of Court House. There is an will feature a major star(s) Oneida, Tenn.; many elevator if needed. who is no longer living. The nieces and nephews; For more information, series will show a movie Uncle Cliff and Aunt call 451-1455. once a month through Glenna Carson, Uncle April. The dates for the Dean Carson, great-aunt City offices additional films in the Ada Phelps; and many series are as follows: Feb. great friends. closed Monday 17, March 9 and April 13.

Frieda’s most favorite TROY — The city of For a list of this year’s thing to do was work in Troy offices will be closed films, stop by Hayner or her garden, which was Monday for the New Year’s visit www.troyhayner.org. well known and frequently

OBITUARY POLICY

visited.

She also was an amazing baker and a great cook. She was very emotionally strong REASTER and extremely hard working. She will be greatly missed here, but welcomed in Heaven’s blooming gardens. She was a true Proverbs 10 woman.

She formerly worked at Delphi and was a member of Grace Baptist Church, Ludlow Falls.

Local funeral services will be at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, at the Grace Baptist Church, 2500 S. State Route 48, Ludlow Falls, with Pastor Dale Scott officiating.

Friends may call from 47 p.m. Wednesday at Grace Baptist Church.

Tennessee funeral services will be at 11 a.m.

Friday, Jan. 6, 2012, at High Point United Baptist Church, Oneida, Tenn., with burial to follow at the Carson Family Cemetery.

Friends may call from 10-11 a.m. Friday at the church.

If so desired, contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society or the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Arrangements are being handled by the Hale-Sarver Family Funeral Home, West Milton.

MATHEW SWEAT JR. PIQUA — Mathew Sweat Jr., age 65, of Bauxite, Ark., formerly of Piqua, died on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, at Baptist Hospital, Little Rock, Ark. He was born Feb. 9, 1945, to the late Mathew L. and Lana (Lawson) Sweat Sr. On May 19, 1962, in Piqua, he married Dixie J. Burkett. She preceded him in death on July 13, 1999.

Mathew is survived by three daughters and sons-in-law, Peggy Staugler, Covington, Stacey and Tim Windle and Lana and Dan Boles, all of Piqua; one sister and brother-in-law, Gail and Doug Harvill, Bauxite, Ark.; one sisterin-law, Paula Sweat, Bauxite, Ark.; and six grandchildren, Ben Staugler, Brian Windle, Edward Staugler, Adam Windle, Tristan Sweat and Draven Boles.

He was preceded in death by one daughter,

Barbara L. Sweat; and one brother: Maurice Sweat.

Mathew worked for Chrysler SWEAT Corp. for more than 25 years before retiring in 2000. He proudly served his country as a member of the U.S. Navy.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 6, 2012, at Victory Baptist Church, Piqua, with Pastor Phillip DeLorme officiating. Burial will follow in Forest Hill Cemetery, Piqua, with full military honors by the Veterans Elite Tribute Squad. Friends may call from 6-8 p.m. Thursday at Melcher-Sowers Funeral Home, Piqua.

Memorial contributions may be made to Victory Baptist Church Food Pantry, 1601 South St., Piqua, OH 45356.

Condolences to the family may be expressed to www.melcher-sowers.com.

ALDE F. TARCEA TROY — Alde F. Tarcea, age 98, of Troy, Ohio, died Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011, at the SpringMeade Health Center, Tipp City, Ohio. She was born April 15, 1913, in Wheatland, Wyo., to the late Alford and Barbara (Buirley) French. She was married on June 9, 1938, in Richmond, Ind., to Thomas Tarcea, who preceded her in death on Aug. 12, 1992.

Alde is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, John and Marilyn Tarcea of Troy; daughter and son-in-law, Helen and Tom Minnich of Cedarville, Michigan; three grandchildren, Christina Minnich, John (Kelly) Tarcea and and Joseph Tarcea; four great-grandchildren, Thomas Beukema, Brailyn Tarcea, Paige

(Cody) Gibbs and Payton Harner; and one greatgrandchild, Chase Gibbs.

In addition to her parents and her husband, she was preceded in death by her brothers, Harry, Estyand Claude French.

She was a former volunteer at the Stouder Memorial Hospital, Troy.

She retired in 1977 from Kimberly-Clark Corp.

Graveside service will be 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, at the Casstown Cemetery, Casstown, with the Rev. Dr. Richard Culp officiating.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Miami County, PO Box 502, Troy, OH 45373.

Friends may express condolences to the family through www.bairdfuneral home.com.

B. KATE BEHM TROY — B. Kate Behm, age 83, of Troy, Ohio, died Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, at the Sterling House of Troy.

She was born July 16, 1928, in Pinson Fork, Ky., to the late Chester M. and Claudia Kathleen (Cook) Tate.

She is survived by her sons and daughters-inlaw, Scott M. Behm of Palm Springs, Fla., and Tom S. and Susan Behm of Troy; stepson and daughter-in-law, Parker and Jane Behm of Troy; grandson, Christopher T. Behm; granddaughter, Abby E. Behm; sisters and brother-in-law, Joyce and Otis Brush of Reno, Nev., and Maxine King of Pocatello, Idaho; and several nieces and nephews.

Kate was a longtime realtor and broker and was employed with David K. Galbreath Realtors for 25 years and was vice president of H.E. Behm Builders Inc. in Troy. She was a member of the First Presbyterian Church; Elks and Moose Lodges in Troy; AmVets Post No. 88, Troy; and the Ohio and National Board of Realtors. She was mem-

ber and past president of the Miami County Board of Realtors and was named Realtor of the Year for Miami County in 1991.

She was a former volunteer with Riverside School and RT Industries; and a former advocate with CASA/GAL for abused children in the courts. She was a former lunch buddy at Concord School. Her sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren were the joy of her life and she considered herself truly blessed.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, at the Baird Funeral Home, Troy, with the Rev. Dr. Richard Culp officiating. Interment will be in Riverside Cemetery, Troy.

The family will receive friends from 5-7 p.m.

Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Acclaim Hospice, 7887 Washington Village Drive, Suite 350, Dayton, OH 45459.

Friends may express condolences to the family through www.bairdfuneralhome.com.

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Sunday, January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

I have the right to life.

I have the right to liberty.

I have the right to pursue happiness.

But, without the first right,

I have nothing.

Over 54,000,000 first rights revoked since Roe vs. Wade.

28,123 Abortions performed in Ohio in 2010

From Miami County one (1) baby was killed every 3 days Please Join Us For A PRAYER VIGIL to end abortion Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. at the Troy Hayner Cultural Center, 301 W. Main St., Troy

sponsored by

Miami County Right To Life 2240954

P.O. Box 201

Troy, Ohio 45373

Help Center at 305 E. Main St., Troy • 937-335-LIFE HOW CAN YOU HELP? Join us in prayer. Lend encouragement to those in need. Volunteer

at our office where we provide clothing, diapers, carseats, cribs, etc...to those in need but most of all we listen to those in need. Make the trip to Washington D.C. and join the March for Life on January 23. Have a donation drive at your church or organization for diapers or funds.

SPORTS

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

CONTACT US ■ Sports Editor Josh Brown (937) 440-5231, (937) 440-5232 jbrown@tdnpublishing.com

JOSH BROWN

A7 January 1, 2011

TODAY’S TIPS

■ National Football League

• BASKETBALL: No Limit Sports is offering men’s competitive (Thursday evening) and men’s corporate (Sunday evening) basketball leagues beginning the second week in January. The cost is $350 per team. Visit www.nolimitsportsacademy.com or call (937) 3350738 for more information.

No Limit Sports is also offering two basketball tournaments: No Limit Sports Tip-Off Classic on Feb. 11-12 for grades 3-6, and No Limit Sports Spring Preview on March 9-11 for grades 3-9. Both tournaments are $250 per team with a three-game guarantee. Visit www.nolimitsportsacademy.com or call (937) 335-0738 for more information.

• FOOTBALL: No Limit Sports is offering 6-on-6 flag football beginning Jan. 11. The cost is $300 per team.

Visit www.nolimitsportsacademy.com or call (937) 335-0738 for more information.

• SOCCER: No Limit Sports is offering U5 through Adult soccer leagues and tournaments beginning the 3rd week of January. Visit www.nolimitsportsacademy.com or call 937-3350738 for more information.

• VOLLEYBALL: No Limit Sports is offering adult coed volleyball leagues beginning Feb. 1. Games will be played on Wednesday evenings. The cost is $225 per team. Visit www.nolimitsportsacademy.com or call (937) 335-0738 for more information.

• HALL OF FAME: The MiltonUnion Athletic Department will be honoring its seventh class of Athletic Hall of Fame inductees during the Covington-Milton-Union boys basketball game on Jan. 7. The induction ceremony will take place between the JV and varsity contests. Inductees will include Lori Kinnison-Meyer, Dave Fine, Ralph Hildebrand and Ed Lendenski.

In the nick of time Fans back for Bengals’ biggest game CINCINNATI (AP) — The cotton candy, hot dogs and twofor-one tickets worked. Paul Brown Stadium will be full and rowdy for a game with playoff implications all around.

If the Baltimore Ravens (11-4) win on Sunday, they’ll secure only their third AFC North title, a bye and a home playoff game.

By beating a top team for the first time all season, the Bengals AP PHOTO (9-6) can clinch a wild card and Cincinnati Bengals’ Jerome Simpson goes in for a 19-yard touch- only their third playoff appeardown reception over the head of Arizona Cardinals’ Daryl ance in the last 21 years.

Washington during the first half Dec. 24, 2011 in Cincinnati.

And, the home team will have

a real home-field advantage for the first time this season.

Snubbed by disgruntled fans, the Bengals lured them back for the final game with pleading and price-cutting.

The atmosphere will fit the high-stakes game.

“We’ve got to do one thing: We’ve got to go in and get a victory and come up out of there,” Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said. “So, if there is one person in the seats or whether it’s 60,000

■ College Basketball

■ NFL

AP PHOTO

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (7) passes against the San Francisco 49ers in San Francisco Dec. 19, 2011.

Lots at stake

SPORTS CALENDAR

Browns meet rival Steelers in finale

TODAY No events scheduled MONDAY Girls Basketball Covington at Milton-Union (7 p.m.)

TUESDAY Boys Basketball Tippecanoe at Spr. Shawnee (7:30 p.m.)

Oakwood at Milton-Union (7:30 p.m.)

Greenville at Piqua (7:30 p.m.)

Franklin Monroe at Lehman (7:30 p.m.)

Girls Basketball Lehman at Bethel (7 p.m.)

Bradford at Parkway (7:30 p.m.)

Bowling Troy at Miamisburg (4 p.m.)

Piqua at Northmont (4:30 p.m.)

and joined Kansas in 2007-08 and Louisville in 2003-04 as the only teams over that span to achieve the feat in the same month. Against Kentucky, the Hoosiers needed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Christian Watford to win it.

On Saturday, the Hoosiers

CLEVELAND (AP) — Ben Roethlisberger has played on one leg before and he’s willing to do it again.

Roethlisberger has never let pain stop him, and Pittsburgh’s tough-as-the-steel city-he-playsin quarterback certainly won’t let it slow him this week. Not now, not with a possible division title and playoff seed at stake.

Let’s face it, the Steelers just aren’t the Steelers without him.

Despite a high ankle sprain that has limited his mobility and would probably sideline lesser QBs, Roethlisberger intends to play Sunday at least at the start as the Steelers (11-4) play their regular-season finale against the Browns (4-11), who never doubted for a second that they would have to deal with Pittsburgh’s top gun as well.

“Big Ben, we’ve always got to count on seeing him,” Browns linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said.

They can also count on seeing Steelers linebacker James Harrison, who three weeks ago blasted quarterback Colt McCoy with his helmet and hasn’t shown much repentance for his illegal hit that gave McCoy a season-ending concussion.

For Cleveland, the postseason remains a pipe dream again.

Unlike their rivals from Western Pennsylvania, the Browns are infrequent visitors to the playoffs. In fact, they haven’t

■ See BUCKEYES on A9

■ See FINALE on A8

WEDNESDAY Girls Basketball Piqua at Troy (7:30 p.m.)

Kenton Ridge at Tippecanoe (7:30 p.m.)

Bowling Kenton Ridge at Tippecanoe (4 p.m.)

Wrestling Milton-Union/Eaton at Monroe (6 p.m.)

THURSDAY Girls Basketball Dixie at Milton-Union (7:30 p.m.)

Miami East at Bethel (7 p.m.)

Twin Valley South at Newton (7 p.m.)

Bradford at Franklin Monroe (7 p.m.)

Lehman at Ft. Loramie (7:30 p.m.)

Bowling Westerville Central at Troy (4 p.m.)

■ See BENGALS on A8

AP PHOTO

Ohio State's Amir Williams (23) dunks against Indiana's Victor Oladipo, left, during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011, in Bloomington, Ind.

Upset specialists

WHAT’S INSIDE

After beating No. 1, Indiana tops No. 2 Buckeyes

National Football League ....A8 Mixed Martial Arts ..............A9 Scoreboard .........................A10 Television Schedule ...........A10

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) Indiana did it again. Three weeks after upsetting No. 1 Kentucky, the Hoosiers took down No. 2 Ohio State.

Victor Oladipo scored the goahead basket with 36 seconds left Saturday and Jordan Hulls finished with 17 points, giving the No. 13 Hoosiers a 74-70 victory the school’s first-ever sweep

of the nation’s top two teams.

“They’ve been punking us the past couple years and we realized that,” Oladipo said. “This year we had to go toe-to-toe with them.”

The Hoosiers (13-1, 1-1 Big Ten) didn’t back down.

Indiana became the ninth team since 1996-97 to beat No. 1 and No. 2 in the same season

■ National Football League

Now he’s a believer ‘Madden Curse’ bit Browns’ Hillis

UC beats Vandy in Liberty Bowl Isaiah Pead ran for 149 yards and a touchdown, and Ralph David Abernathy IV’s 90-yard kickoff return early in the fourth quarter put Cincinnati ahead to stay in a 31-24 victory over Vanderbilt in the Liberty Bowl.

The Bearcats (10-3) capped the season with their third straight victory.

See Page A9.

BEREA (AP) — For the longest time, Peyton Hillis refused to consider he might have been cursed by a video game. Not possible, he insisted.

Well, Hillis’ strange season seems to have changed his mind.

After all the drama triggered by his quarrel with Browns management over a new contract, his controversial decision to sit out a game with strep throat on the advice of his agent, the nagging hamstring injury that caused him to miss five straight games, his awkward rapport with team-

mates and his perhaps too-littletoo-late flourish to end the season, Hillis now thinks he may have been jinxed.

“Things didn’t work in my favor this year,” Hillis said.

“There’s a few things that happened this year that made me believe in curses. Ain’t no doubt about it.”

Blame it all on Madden.

Hillis began his second season in Cleveland atop the pro footAP PHOTO ball word. Following a breakout Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis (40) leaps over year with the Browns, he won a Baltimore Ravens strong safety Bernard Pollard in the second half ■ See HILLIS on A8 in Baltimore Dec. 24, 2011.

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A8

Sunday, January 1, 2012

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE M

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Bengals ■ CONTINUED FROM A7 in the stands, we don’t care about it. That’s their problem. We’ve got our own problems.

“We don’t have to worry about selling out. We have to worry about trying to keep people out and things like that. We have a different vibe in Baltimore, and that’s a credit to our city, that’s a credit to our fans. So that’s something they have to worry about, not us.”

The Ravens will reach the playoffs even if they lose, in which case they’d get the first wild card. They enter the final week tied with Pittsburgh at 11-4, but swept their season series and have the head-to-head tiebreaker for the division title, which is much preferred.

A home playoff game is no small matter for Baltimore. The Ravens went 8-0 at home this season, only 3-4 on the road.

Baltimore has been a

Prices drop for next year CINCINNATI (AP) — The Bengals are dropping the prices of upper-deck tickets for 2012, trying to fill Paul Brown Stadium on a regular basis.

Cincinnati had to offer two-for-one tickets to sell out its final game Sunday against Baltimore. A win by the Bengals (9-6) would get them in the playoffs for only the third time in the past 21 years.

The Bengals have sold out only two games at 65,500-seat Paul Brown this season, as fans showed their disapproval of the team’s on-field failures and management’s reluctance to change. The Bengals announced on Thursday that tickets for the top rows in some sections of the upper deck would be reduced by $20. Other upper-deck seats had smaller reductions, while the best seats will remain the same price next season. good road playoff team in recent years, but set homefield advantage as an overriding goal for this season.

The Ravens had all of their playoff games on the road in each of the last three seasons. They lost the AFC title game in Pittsburgh in 2008, and had second-round losses at Indianapolis and Pittsburgh again in the last

two years.

A victory in Cincinnati would leave them 6-0 in division play for the first time in their history and secure their first home playoff game since the 2006 season. They would get home field throughout the playoffs if they win and New England (12-3) loses at home to Buffalo.

“It makes a world of difference,” running back Ray Rice said. “It’s huge anybody will tell you. I personally feel like after you win the wild card round and not having that bye, you usually come back to that next game scratching and clawing. As you can see, Pittsburgh was the fresher team last year when we had to play them in the divisional game.

“Needless to say, this week is a playoff game. It’s big for them, it’s even bigger for us.”

The Bengals are trying to complete one of the most unexpected playoff surges in their history. Nobody gave them much of a chance with rookie quarterback Andy Dalton and rookie receiver A.J. Green taking over key spots. The duo grew up quickly Green made the Pro Bowl, Dalton is a first alternate and Cincinnati took advantage of a cushy schedule and other teams’ stumbles to stay in contention.

Forecast was off Doom and gloom after lockout didn’t pan out — for most

By The Associated Press Remember all the forecasts of gloom and doom for NFL teams after the lockout? Funny how virtually none of it happened.

Rookies weren’t clueless, injuries didn’t spike, and coaching staffs adjusted everywhere except Philadelphia and Indianapolis.

Play was sloppy for a while — that lasted through much of the season for some of the league’s most inconsistent squads, including playoff contenders in Dallas, New York, Oakland and Tennessee. But it also was one of the more exciting seasons, with frequent big rallies, tons of scoring (until December, at least) and plenty of headline makers.

Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott believes teams who succeeded in challenges overcoming from the lockout did so from Day 1.

“My observation is a lot of people didn’t pack their lunch pail,” Lott said.

“What I mean by that is the teams that packed their lunch pail the first day they blew the whistle, the first thing they learned was fundamentals, the first thing they learned was making sure they could tackle well, making sure they could hit. Jim Harbaugh instituted that right away. The Steelers instituted that right away. The Ravens instituted that right away.

The Packers will tell you they instituted that right away, because they were defending something.

“The Eagles, the one thing they didn’t institute … packing their lunch pails. It’s funny, the teams that have instituted packing their lunch pail and playing the game with fundamentals and doing it the right way, are the teams that are now where they’re at.”

Lott makes a particularly valid point concerning the Eagles, who were conceded to have “won” free agency with the signings of prizes such as Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Cullen Jenkins, Ronnie Brown, Vince Young and Steve Smith.

Yet from almost the beginning, it fell apart.

Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy wonders why the upheaval was damaging in Philly and not in other places.

“My original theory was that teams that stayed pat would be much better,” said Dungy, now an analyst on NBC’s “Football Night in America.” ”I thought Philadelphia would have some trouble with that many new parts, but look at Carolina, and they had to add players at the most critical position and they

AP FILE PHOTO

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick walks onto the field before a game against the Arizona Cardinals Nov. 13, 2011 in Philadelphia. The Eagles, who were conceded to have “won” free agency with the signings of a number of prize players, struggled to develop the chemistry necessary to make a playoff push and now find themselves on the verge of their own offseason. did much better than they did last year.

“I don’t know if we can blame Philly’s woes on the lockout.”

Still, not having a full offseason to incorporate those players and their distinct talents had to set back the Eagles some.

Michael Vick admitted that recently, saying, “I think we are well put together and well fit.

We’re playing together and that’s what it’s all about. But it takes time to build that chemistry, build that unity, that togetherness.”

Indianapolis always seemed to have that chemistry when Peyton Manning was behind center. With Manning’s neck surgeries sidelining him early on, and eventually for the entire season, the Colts never found their way. In fact, they fell into such a funk that none of their stars or coaches or executives was able to lead them out of it, an indictment of everyone in the organization.

“Well, we’re (the front office) certainly to blame if you don’t have quality players at every position and you come up a little short,” Colts President Bill Polian said in October in a radio appearance following a 62-7 loss at New Orleans. “As (coach) Jim Caldwell said after the (Saints) game, everybody deserves blame. We could be deeper at defensive tackle and cornerback.

We’ve been bothered by injuries at defensive tackle, but the bottom line is you have to be better.

There are other things we are not doing fundamentally, as I just said, that we have to get cleaned up.

“So you have to find a way to play with the guys who are out there. Should we have done a better job?

You bet. But we have to make sure we do a better job going forward.”

Beyond those two cases, the lockout pretty much was a big yawn when it comes to impacting the season.

Rookie quarterbacks and first-year coaches were supposed to struggle. So Carolina’s Cam Newton tears up all kinds of rookie passing records and Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton has his team on the verge of making the playoffs. Rookies played key roles throughout the league.

Jim Harbaugh took the 49ers from perennial alsoran to NFC West champion and, with a win Sunday at St. Louis, San Francisco gets a firstround bye. Ron Rivera has overseen a promising retooling in Carolina.

John Fox moved from the Panthers to the Broncos, then found through a month or so of the schedule that everything wasn’t working.

Perhaps if he’d had the entire offseason, he would have found his way to turning the offense over to Tim Tebow then. That he did it in October — and that the Broncos will win the AFC West by beating Kansas City on Sunday — was not affected by the lockout.

‘The lockout did not impact the teams with new coaching staffs as much as I thought,” Dungy said. “It probably impacted most teams the same. San Francisco is a good example.

“Rookies, they didn’t struggle, but the offensive rookies were ahead of the defensive rookies in terms of impact.”

That makes sense because offenses were far more successful for most of the season than the

defenses, a function as much of rules changes and philosophy. That’s the way the NFL has been trending anyway — though Dungy points out that quarterbacks throwing to receivers in informal workouts during the lockout could have contributed somewhat. We didn’t see nose tackles and linebackers sharing the same high school fields too often from March through mid-July while the league and players negotiated.

As for more players than ever going down with injuries, there’s no evidence the lockout caused anything close to that.

“I never worried about injuries, I thought guys would run and keep themselves in condition,” Dungy said. “They all have access to personal trainers, train all year round.”

One change in the rules in the new CBA, which limited the number of practices in pads and cut out two-a-day hitting sessions during training camp, was designed to limit wear and tear.

Again, its effect has been minimal.

“Football is football,” Jets safety Brodney Pool said. “Things don’t really change from college to the NFL. For the most part, there’s only so much you can do, only so many routes you can run, only so many ways you block something up and only so many ways you can play defense. So missing that time didn’t have as much of an effect as people might think.”

Yes, as we head to the playoffs, unless the subjects are the Eagles or Colts, don’t blame or credit the lockout for much of anything in NFL 2011.

The Bengals got in line for the wild card when the Jets (8-7) lost their last two games. Cincinnati will clinch it with a win. The Bengals also could get in with a loss, though they’d need a lot of help a combination of either the Jets and Raiders losing, or the Jets and Broncos losing.

“We’re so excited for this week,” defensive lineman Domata Peko said. “No one’s ready for the offseason yet.

No one’s bags are packed or anything. We’re ready to keep going and make our Super Bowl run, and it starts this week.”

The Bengals lost in Baltimore 31-24 on Nov. 20, when Green missed his only game of the season because of a bruised knee. Cincinnati fell behind 31-14 early in the fourth quarter, but Dalton led a furious comeback. He threw for 373 yards a Bengals rookie record but set up the big deficit with three interceptions.

It was part of a trend.

The Bengals are 0-6 against teams that are currently in first place or have clinched playoff berths.

Fans have stayed away because they’re upset with owner Mike Brown, whose franchise has one of the worst stretches of futility in league history. It appeared the Bengals were on their way to becoming a consistent contender when they won the AFC North in 2005 behind quarterback Carson Palmer, but they couldn’t sustain it. Now, with Dalton and Green and a young defensive core, they’re at the same point again.

“I know we can be that type of team,” middle linebacker Rey Maualuga said.

“All I can picture is us growing and becoming special. I just hope we don’t start in a couple years. Why not start this week and feed off that and just build on that? I know we’re capable of being that team.”

Finale ■ CONTINUED FROM A7 made them since 2002, when they lost to the Steelers.

Another painful, dreadful season is coming to a close and Sunday’s game could be especially difficult for Browns fans, who may be outnumbered the Towel-twirling Terrible Steelers faithful.

The Browns have lost five straight, eight of nine and are facing their sixth season of at least 12 losses since 1999.

But a win over the dreaded Steelers would at least make the offseason a little brighter.

“When we look at the tape next year, this is the game people are going to remember, against the Steelers,” wide receiver Josh Cribbs said. “If we win this, we can rest easy. This is our Super Bowl, against the Steelers. Right here.

Right now.”

Browns backup QB Seneca Wallace will start his third straight game in place of McCoy, who still hasn’t completely shaken the effects from the hit from Harrison. This will be Wallace’s first career start against the Steelers and their No. 1-ranked defense led by Harrison.

Wallace said he’s not worried about running into No. 92, and what could happen if he does.

“You’ve just got to go out

and play football,” he said.

“Everybody’s hitting. You (media) guys give him this aura where he’s the meanest guy in the NFL. He’s playing football. At the end of the day when you get on the grass and you line up across from somebody, we’re all doing the same thing.”

The Browns aren’t planning revenge on Harrison even though he has given three Browns McCoy, Cribbs and wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi concussions in the past two years. The only retribution they’re seeking is a win to damage Pittsburgh’s postseason position.

“This is our playoffs in a sense,” Jackson said. “We want to come out and play our best game, so we can go out and have something to talk about in the offseason.

The last impression stretches a mile long. That’s our main focus and that’s the focus to the young guys in this locker room just to do whatever you can and make the most of it.”

This one’s big for the Steelers, who must win to keep pace with Baltimore (11-4) atop the AFC North.

The Ravens hold the tiebreaker after beating the Steelers twice during the regular season, so Pittsburgh needs to beat Cleveland and hope Cincinnati can knock off Baltimore.

Hillis ■ CONTINUED FROM A7 nationwide fan vote to be the cover figure for “Madden NFL 12,” the best-selling video game that has earned a reputation for dooming any player who graces its jacket.

Hillis is the latest to succumb to its spell.

Now, as he prepares for Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Hillis faces an uncertain future. Throughout the turbulence of 2011, the soon-to-be-free agent has maintained he wants to come back to Cleveland.

The question is: Do the Browns want Hillis?

Browns coach Pat Shurmur was asked several times this week if Hillis, who ran for 1,177 yards last season and has only 557 this season, is part of the team’s plans going forward. Shurmur was noncommittal with each answer, saying the decision would be made following an offseason evaluation.

“As we look at our roster and we look at building our team, we’ve got to consider everything,” Shurmur said. “One thing you’ve seen about Peyton is that, in the last month or so, he’s gotten himself healthy and he’s performed well. That’s the Peyton everyone was used to seeing a year ago.”

Last season, Hillis plowed over defenders and blasted his way into the hearts of Browns fans.

However, until the past

two weeks against Arizona and Baltimore, Hillis has been a major disappointment. Some of it can be attributed to injury, but some of it has been self-inflicted controversy.

Hillis’ choice to skip the Sept. 25 game against Miami with a bout of strep throat didn’t sit well with some of his teammates, who wished he would have at least tried to play instead of bailing out before kickoff. Later, he missed a treatment for his hamstring when he left during a work week to get married, another misstep that didn’t sit well in Cleveland’s locker room.

He has burned some bridges, and it remains to be seen if they can be rebuilt with the Browns.

Hillis has made some amends.

In the past two weeks, Hillis has rampaged like his former self. He followed up a 99-yard performance against the Cardinals with a seasonhigh 112 against the Ravens, averaging 4.7 yards per carry against one of the NFL’s best defenses. The outings have invigorated Hillis.

“I think people can see when I’m 100 percent, I am running hard. I can do pretty good,” he said.

“That’s how I want people to see. I want people to see I’m not a one-hit wonder, that I can go out there and play well and run hard like I always do.”

SPORTS

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Sunday, January 1, 2012

A9

■ Mixed Martial Arts

Lesnar KOed into retirement UFC heads into 2012 minus its most recognizable star LAS VEGAS (AP) — Brock Lesnar took one last kick to his stomach and crumpled at the side of the cage, unable to fight back when Alistair Overeem pounced.

Lesnar had been finished by a 6-foot-5 Dutch kick boxer in the first round at UFC 141. A few minutes later, the UFC’s former heavyweight champion finished his own meteoric mixed martial arts career.

Lesnar retired from the UFC after Overeem stopped him with one vicious kick to the body at 2:26 of the first round in their heavyweight bout Friday night, leaving the UFC heading into 2012 without its biggest pay-per-view star.

“This is the last time you’ll see me in the octagon,” Lesnar said.

Largely thanks to his fame from a career in pro wrestling, the hulking Lesnar (5-3) played a significant role in expanding the

UFC’s profile and fan base over the past four years. He beat Randy Couture in 2008 to win the heavyweight title, defending it twice before losing the belt to Cain Velasquez last year.

But Lesnar has fought just three times in the past 2 1/2 years while dealing with bouts of a lower-intestinal ailment that nearly killed him. The accumulation of pain and rehabilitation finally undid Lesnar, whose famed strength and stubbornness couldn’t overcome diverticulitis.

“I’ve had a really difficult couple of years with my disease, and I’m going to officially say tonight is the last time,” Lesnar said.

Lesnar’s return from a 14month injury absence was a short, one-sided beating. After taking damage from two knee blows early on, he couldn’t recover from a kick to the liver from Overeem

(36-11), who made a stellar UFC debut despite getting cut near his right eye by a punch from Lesnar.

The 34-year-old Lesnar’s announcement stunned fans who already realized he faced a difficult matchup in the UFC’s traditional end-of-the-year event in its hometown. The matchup was a classic MMA clash of styles, with Lesnar’s brute wrestling contrasting sharply with Overeem’s vicious striking.

“I had no idea he would do that, (but) am I surprised? No,” UFC President Dana White said.

“Brock Lesnar has made a lot of money in his career and has achieved a lot of things. … He brought a lot of excitement to the heavyweight division. What he accomplished in a short amount of time is amazing, but I get it. It doesn’t shock me.”

Overeem is three years

younger but much more experienced than Lesnar, hurting the former champion at least twice earlier in the round while Lesnar failed in his attempt at a onelegged takedown.

“I promised my wife and my kids if I won this fight, I would get a title shot, and that would be my last fight,” Lesnar said. “But if I lost tonight … you’ve been great.”

Overeem will get the next shot at UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos, who watched from a seat near the octagon.

Overeem is a champion kick boxer who has fought in multiple promotions over the past decade, winning titles in Dream and Strikeforce with nearly unbeatable striking and size. He joined the UFC in September, finally presenting his formidable skills and intimidating physique to the sport’s largest audience.

■ College Football

AP PHOTO

Brock Lesnar reacts to his firstround TKO loss by Alistair Overeem right after their UFC 141 heavyweight mixed martial arts match Friday at The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Lesnar retired after Overeem stopped him with one vicious kick to the body at 2:26 of the first round.

■ College Basketball

Taking liberty Bearcats top Vanderbilt, win Liberty Bowl MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Isaiah Pead ran for 149 yards and a touchdown, and Ralph David Abernathy IV’s 90-yard kickoff return early in the fourth quarter put Cincinnati ahead to stay in a 31-24 victory over Vanderbilt in the Liberty Bowl.

The Bearcats (10-3) capped the season with their third straight victory.

But the co-Big East Conference champs had to work to put away Vanderbilt (6-7), a team that tied for fourth in the Southeastern Conference, despite forcing three turnovers and coming up with two sacks. The Commodores led 21-17 when Abernathy became the first Cincinnati player to return a kickoff for a TD in the program’s 13 bowl appearances.

Vandy’s Archibald Barnes blocked Tony Miliano’s 39-yard field goal with 3:58 left, giving the Commodores the ball with plenty of time to go ahead. Nick Temple picked off a Larry Smith pass with 3:15 remaining, and Pead sealed the victory with a 12-yard TD run with 1:52 left.

• Meineke Bowl Texas A&M 33, Northwestern 22 HOUSTON — Ryan Tannehill threw for 329 yards and a touchdown and Ben Malena ran for two more scores to lead Texas A&M to a 33-22 win over Northwestern on Saturday in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Northwestern led 7-3 early in the second quarter before A&M reeled off 27 straight points to take a decisive lead and then fight off a late rally to capture its first bowl victory since 2001.

Texas A&M broke a five-game bowl losing streak in a win the team dedicated to fired coach

AP PHOTO

Indiana’s Verdell Jones III puts pressure on Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger while going to the basket during the first half Saturday in Bloomington, Ind.

Buckeyes

AP PHOTO

Cincinnati running back Isaiah Pead (23) celebrates his 12-yard touchdown run against Vanderbilt in the fourth quarter of the Liberty Bowl Saturday in Memphis, Tenn. Pead rushed for 149 yards as Cincinnati won 31-24.

Mike Sherman and offensive lineman Joseph Villavisencio, who was killed in a car accident last week.

Northwestern hasn’t won a bowl game since the 1949 Rose Bowl, a span of nine losses.

• Sun Bowl Utah 30, Georgia Tech 27, OT EL PASO, Texas — John White plowed into the end zone from 8 yards out to give Utah a victory.

Justin Moore kicked a 34-yard field goal in Georgia Tech’s overtime

possession to take a threepoint lead, but White finished a 115-yard rushing day with the game-winning score on his 26th carry.

The Utes (8-5) tied it in regulation when Jon Hays hit DeVonte Christopher with a 28-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-14 with 1:32 left in the fourth quarter.

The Yellow Jackets (85) drove to the Utah 31 with 2 seconds left, but David Scully missed a 48yard field-goal attempt as time expired. Georgia Tech

has lost seven straight bowl games.

• Fight Hunger Bowl Iillinois 20, UCLA 14 SAN FRANCISCO — Terry Hawthorne returned an interception 39 yards for Illinois’ first touchdown late in the third quarter and Illini snapped a six-game losing streak.

Nathan Scheelhaase added a 60-yard touchdown pass to A.J. Jenkins midway through the fourth quarter to seal the first victory for Illinois (76) since beating Indiana 12 weeks ago.

■ CONTINUED FROM A7 needed Oladipo’s layup, three free throws from Hulls and Watford, a rebound from Watford and a steal from Oladipo in the final 36 seconds to seal it.

Ohio State (13-2, 1-1) was led by Aaron Craft with 16 points and Jared Sullinger with 15 points and nine rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to extend their five-game winning streak or the school record six-game winning streak against the Hoosiers.

The Buckeyes spent most of the day buried in foul trouble, and never could quite dig themselves out.

They squandered an early 19-9 lead, watching the Hoosiers close the half by converting back-to-back turnovers into easy baskets. That gave Indiana a 33-32 lead.

It was the same story in the second half.

Ohio State looked as if it might pull away after taking a 44-41 lead with 15:33 left, but the continual foul problems allowed

Indiana to hang around.

The Buckeyes took a 68-67 lead when Sullinger made the basket, drew the fifth foul on Cody Zeller and then capped it with a free throw.

Jones answered with a layup to make it 69-68 and then Ohio State’s Deshaun Thomas made a 15-foot jumper to give the Buckeyes a one-point lead with 1:51 to go.

That’s how it stayed until Hulls forced a turnover with a deflection, and Jones tossed the ball up the court to Oladipo for a layup and a 71-70 lead with 36 seconds left.

Ohio State called its final timeout to set up a play, but Craft’s bounce pass went through the hands of Sam Thompson.

Hulls made 1 of 2 free throws after getting fouled.

William Buford’s 3pointer would have given Ohio State the lead again with about 5 seconds to go, but Watford grabbed the errant shot and made two free throws to seal it.

■ College Basketball

Freshman leads UK past Louisville LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Freshman Michael KiddGilchrist had season-highs with 24 points and 19 rebounds to lead No. 3 Kentucky to a 69-62 victory over No. 4 Louisville on Saturday to extend the nation’s longest home winning streak.

Fellow freshman Anthony Davis added 18 points, all in the second half, for the Wildcats (13-1) in their annual in-state rivalry game.

Kentucky has won 44 AP PHOTO straight at home, including Kentucky's Michael Kidd-Gilchrist flexes his arms after 43 in a row at Rupp Arena, being fouled during the second half against Louisville for the nation’s longest in Lexington, Ky., Saturday. Kidd-Gilchrist contributed streak ahead of Duke’s 43.

This one will be remem24 points and 19 rebounds as Kentucky won 69-62.

bered after the teams came in with the highest combined ranking in history.

Iowa 72, No. 11 Wisconsin 65 MADISON, Wis. — Freshman reserve Aaron White scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half and Iowa snapped Wisconsin’s six-game winning streak.

No. 9 Connecticut 83, St. John’s 69 HARTFORD, Conn. — Shabazz Napier had 17 points and nine assists for Connecticut in a game coached by assistants for both teams.

No. 10 Florida 90, Yale 70

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Kenny Boynton’s 26 points led Florida less than 40 hours after the Gators were upset at Rutgers.

No. 12 Georgetown 49, Providence 40 WASHINGTON — Henry Sims scored five of his 11 points in the final 7 minutes for Georgetown, which blew a 14-point lead and shot a season-low 30 percent.

No. 16 Michigan St. 68, Nebraska 55 LINCOLN, Neb. — Draymond Green scored 19 points and Keith Appling had eight of his 14 in the last 7 minutes to lead Michigan State to its 13th

straight victory.

No. 15 Miss. St. 66, Utah St. 64 STARKVILLE, Miss. — Rodney Hood scored 16 points and Arnett Moultrie added 15 for Mississippi State.

No. 17 Kansas 84, N. Dakota 58 LAWRENCE, Kan. — Thomas Robinson posted career-bests with 30 points and 21 rebounds for Kansas.

No. 24 Harvard 74, Saint Joseph’s 69 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Kyle Casey scored 7 of his 26 points in the closing 4:25 as Harvard completed a comeback from a late 11point deficit.

A10

SCOREBOARD

Sunday, January 1, 2012

FOOTBALL National Football League All Times EDT AMERICAN CONFERENCE East W L T Pct PF PA y-New England12 3 0 .800 464 321 N.Y. Jets 8 7 0 .533 360 344 6 9 0 .400 351 385 Buffalo 5 10 0 .333 310 296 Miami South W L T Pct PF PA y-Houston 10 5 0 .667 359 255 8 7 0 .533 302 295 Tennessee 4 11 0 .267 224 316 Jacksonville 2 13 0 .133 230 411 Indianapolis North W L T Pct PF PA x-Baltimore 11 4 0 .733 354 250 x-Pittsburgh 11 4 0 .733 312 218 9 6 0 .600 328 299 Cincinnati Cleveland 4 11 0 .267 209 294 West W L T Pct PF PA 8 7 0 .533 306 383 Denver 8 7 0 .533 333 395 Oakland San Diego 7 8 0 .467 368 351 Kansas City 6 9 0 .400 205 335 NATIONAL CONFERENCE East W L T Pct PF PA N.Y. Giants 8 7 0 .533 363 386 Dallas 8 7 0 .533 355 316 Philadelphia 7 8 0 .467 362 318 5 10 0 .333 278 333 Washington South W L T Pct PF PA y-New Orleans 12 3 0 .800 502 322 9 6 0 .600 357 326 x-Atlanta 6 9 0 .400 389 384 Carolina Tampa Bay 4 11 0 .267 263 449 North W L T Pct PF PA y-Green Bay 14 1 0 .933 515 318 10 5 0 .667 433 342 x-Detroit Chicago 7 8 0 .467 336 328 Minnesota 3 12 0 .200 327 432 West W L T Pct PF PA y-San Francisco12 3 0 .800 346 202 Seattle 7 8 0 .467 301 292 Arizona 7 8 0 .467 289 328 2 13 0 .133 166 373 St. Louis x-clinched playoff spot y-clinched division Thursday's Game Indianapolis 19, Houston 16 Saturday's Games Oakland 16, Kansas City 13, OT Tennessee 23, Jacksonville 17 Pittsburgh 27, St. Louis 0 Buffalo 40, Denver 14 Carolina 48, Tampa Bay 16 Minnesota 33, Washington 26 Baltimore 20, Cleveland 14 New England 27, Miami 24 N.Y. Giants 29, N.Y. Jets 14 Cincinnati 23, Arizona 16 Detroit 38, San Diego 10 San Francisco 19, Seattle 17 Philadelphia 20, Dallas 7 Sunday's Game Green Bay 35, Chicago 21 Monday's Game New Orleans 45, Atlanta 16 Sunday, Jan. 1 Chicago at Minnesota, 1 p.m.

Carolina at New Orleans, 1 p.m.

Detroit at Green Bay, 1 p.m.

San Francisco at St. Louis, 1 p.m.

Tennessee at Houston, 1 p.m.

Buffalo at New England, 1 p.m.

N.Y. Jets at Miami, 1 p.m.

Indianapolis at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.

Washington at Philadelphia, 1 p.m.

San Diego at Oakland, 4:15 p.m.

Kansas City at Denver, 4:15 p.m.

Seattle at Arizona, 4:15 p.m.

Tampa Bay at Atlanta, 4:15 p.m.

Baltimore at Cincinnati, 4:15 p.m.

Pittsburgh at Cleveland, 4:15 p.m.

Dallas at N.Y. Giants, 8:30 p.m.

NFL Playoff Scenarios Week 17 AFC CLINCHED: New England-East Division and first-round bye; HoustonSouth Division; Baltimore and Pittsburghwild-card spots.

NEW ENGLAND — Clinches home-field advantage throughout AFC playoffs with: Win or tie OR Baltimore loss or tie AND Pittsburgh loss or tie BALTIMORE — Clinches AFC North Division and first-round bye with: Win OR Tie AND Pittsburgh loss or tie OR Pittsburgh loss — Clinches home-field advantage throughout AFC playoffs with: Win AND New England loss PITTSBURGH — Clinches AFC North Division and first-round bye with: Win AND Baltimore loss or tie OR Tie AND Baltimore loss OR — Clinches home-field advantage throughout AFC playoffs with: Win AND Baltimore loss or tie AND New England loss DENVER — Clinches AFC West Division with: Win OR Tie AND Oakland loss or tie OR Oakland loss OAKLAND — Clinches AFC West Division with: Win AND Denver loss or tie OR Tie AND Denver loss — Clinches wild-card spot with: Win AND Cincinnati loss AND Tennessee loss or tie OR Win AND Cincinnati loss AND N.Y. Jets win CINCINNATI — Clinches wild-card spot with: Win or tie N.Y. Jets loss or tie AND Oakland loss or tie N.Y. Jets loss or tie AND Denver loss or tie N.Y. JETS — Clinch wild-card spot with: Win AND Cincinnati loss AND Tennessee loss or tie AND Oakland loss or tie Win AND Cincinnati loss AND Tennessee loss or tie AND Denver loss or tie TENNESSEE — Clinches wild-card spot with: Win AND Cincinnati loss AND N.Y. Jets win AND Oakland loss or tie Win AND Cincinnati loss AND N.Y. Jets win AND Denver loss or tie Win AND Cincinnati loss AND N.Y. Jets loss or tie AND Oakland win AND Denver win NFC CLINCHED: Green Bay-North Division and home-field advantage throughout NFC playoffs; New Orleans-South Division; San Francisco-West Division; Atlantaand Detroit-wild-card spots.

SAN FRANCISCO — Clinches first-round bye with: Win OR

New Orleans loss OR Tie AND New Orleans tie NEW ORLEANS — Clinches first-round bye with: Win and San Francisco loss or tie OR Tie and San Francisco loss N.Y. GIANTS — Clinch NFC East Division with: Win or tie DALLAS — Clinches NFC East Division with: Win NFL Team Stax Week 16 TOTALYARDAGE AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE OFFENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . .Yards Rush Pass New England . . .6368 1626 4742 San Diego . . . . .5827 1713 4114 Pittsburgh . . . . . .5597 1742 3855 Houston . . . . . . .5567 2296 3271 Oakland . . . . . . .5552 2007 3545 Buffalo . . . . . . . .5222 1815 3407 Baltimore . . . . . .5072 1775 3297 Tennessee . . . . .5000 1352 3648 Miami . . . . . . . . .4875 1899 2976 Denver . . . . . . . .4808 2416 2392 Cincinnati . . . . . .4782 1673 3109 Kansas City . . . .4692 1787 2905 N.Y. Jets . . . . . . .4615 1563 3052 Cleveland . . . . . .4381 1459 2922 Indianapolis . . . .4291 1538 2753 Jacksonville . . . .3888 1780 2108 DEFENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . .Yards Rush Pass Pittsburgh . . . . . .4108 1525 2583 Houston . . . . . . .4210 1450 2760 Baltimore . . . . . .4286 1377 2909 Jacksonville . . . .4710 1611 3099 Cincinnati . . . . . .4713 1454 3259 N.Y. Jets . . . . . . .4783 1695 3088 Cleveland . . . . . .4958 2198 2760 San Diego . . . . .5026 1852 3174 Kansas City . . . .5067 1896 3171 Miami . . . . . . . . .5148 1401 3747 Tennessee . . . . .5295 1901 3394 Denver . . . . . . . .5444 1915 3529 Buffalo . . . . . . . .5466 2086 3380 Indianapolis . . . .5674 2113 3561 Oakland . . . . . . .5738 2025 3713 New England . . .6182 1762 4420 NATIONAL FOOTBALL CONFERENCE OFFENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . .Yards Rush Pass New Orleans . . .6857 1919 4938 Philadelphia . . . .5996 2201 3795 Carolina . . . . . . .5936 2244 3692 Green Bay . . . . .5932 1477 4455 Detroit . . . . . . . . .5762 1450 4312 N.Y. Giants . . . . .5724 1321 4403 Dallas . . . . . . . . .5708 1758 3950 Atlanta . . . . . . . .5598 1583 4015 Washington . . . .5010 1484 3526 Minnesota . . . . .4974 2239 2735 Chicago . . . . . . .4817 1923 2894 Tampa Bay . . . . .4814 1423 3391 Arizona . . . . . . . .4804 1494 3310 San Francisco . .4653 1928 2725 Seattle . . . . . . . .4494 1580 2914 St. Louis . . . . . . .4226 1556 2670 DEFENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . .Yards Rush Pass San Francisco . .4622 1127 3495 Philadelphia . . . .4821 1671 3150 Seattle . . . . . . . .4927 1666 3261 Atlanta . . . . . . . .5044 1517 3527 Washington . . . .5047 1809 3238 Dallas . . . . . . . . .5054 1479 3575 Chicago . . . . . . .5306 1463 3843 Arizona . . . . . . . .5313 1808 3505 Detroit . . . . . . . . .5331 1971 3360 St. Louis . . . . . . .5413 2317 3096 Carolina . . . . . . .5425 1885 3540 Minnesota . . . . .5522 1620 3902 New Orleans . . .5594 1574 4020 N.Y. Giants . . . . .5722 1891 3831 Tampa Bay . . . . .5883 2246 3637 Green Bay . . . . .6010 1716 4294 AFC Individual Leaders Week 16 Quarterbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AttCom Yds TD Int Brady, NWE . . .576 378 4897 36 11 Schaub, HOU . .292 178 2479 15 6 Roeth., PIT . . . .473 301 3856 21 14 Mat. Moore, MIA316 189 2375 15 7 Rivers, SND . . .556 347 4314 24 19 Dalton, CIN . . . .472 278 3166 20 13 Fitzpatrick, BUF 523 324 3525 22 19 Hasselbeck, TEN483 297 3274 16 14 Flacco, BAL . . .523 297 3480 19 12 Sanchez, NYJ .511 287 3267 24 15 Rushers . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Att Yds Avg LG TD Jones-Drew, JAC3181437 4.52 43 8 A. Foster, HOU .278 1224 4.40 43 10 R. Rice, BAL . . .267 1173 4.39 67 10 Ry. Mathews, SND2221091 4.91 39 6 Re. Bush, MIA .216 1086 5.03 76t 6 McGahee, DEN 221 1054 4.77 60t 4 Benson, CIN . . .260 1016 3.91 42 6 S. Greene, NYJ 239 999 4.18 31 6 Chr. Johnson, TEN247986 3.99 48t 4 F. Jackson, BUF 170 934 5.49 80t 6 Receivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds Avg LG TD Welker, NWE . .116 1518 13.1 99t 9 R. Gronk., NWE .82 1219 14.9 52t 15 B. Marshall, MIA .77 1177 15.3 65t 6 Bowe, KAN . . . . .75 1066 14.2 52t 5 R. Rice, BAL . . . .74 696 9.4 52 3 St. Johnson, BUF 72 964 13.4 55 6 Hernandez, NWE72 772 10.7 46 6 M. Wallace, PIT . .71 1182 16.6 95t 8 N. Washington, TEN70931 13.3 57 6 Garcon, IND . . . .68 925 13.6 87t 6 Punters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds LG Avg Lechler, OAK . . . . . .77 3902 80 50.7 Fields, MIA . . . . . . . .74 3618 70 48.9 Moorman, BUF . . . . .69 3348 66 48.5 B. Colquitt, DEN . . . .92 4381 66 47.6 Scifres, SND . . . . . . .47 2234 71 47.5 McAfee, IND . . . . . . .85 3966 64 46.7 Koch, BAL . . . . . . . . .66 3066 62 46.5 Mesko, NWE . . . . . . .55 2551 65 46.4 D. Colquitt, KAN . . . .81 3707 68 45.8 Hartmann, HOU . . . .58 2573 69 44.4 Punt Returners . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds Avg LG TD Arenas, KAN . . . .29 388 13.4 37 0 Bess, MIA . . . . . .37 442 11.9 25 0 Cribbs, CLE . . . .31 366 11.8 84t 1 An. Brown, PIT . .30 325 10.8 60t 1 Kerley, NYJ . . . . .27 291 10.8 53 0 Edelman, NWE .28 300 10.7 72t 1 Mariani, TEN . . . .42 447 10.6 79t 1 Br.Tate, CIN . . . .47 498 10.6 56t 1 Jac. Jones, HOU 49 518 10.6 79t 1 L. Webb, BAL . . .29 290 10.0 68t 1 Kickoff Returners . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds Avg LG TD McKnight, NYJ . .32 1022 31.9107t 1 An. Brown, PIT . .24 664 27.7 52 0 R. Goodman, SND28 721 25.8 44 0 Cribbs, CLE . . . .37 951 25.7 63 0 C. Gates, MIA . . .32 801 25.0 77 0 Karim, JAC . . . . .24 573 23.9 37 0 Br.Tate, CIN . . . .39 926 23.7 45 0 Mariani, TEN . . . .31 725 23.4 49 0 McCluster, KAN .25 557 22.3 35 0 Lefeged, IND . . .28 548 19.6 51 0 Scoring Touchdowns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .TDRush Rec RetPts R. Gronk., NWE . .16 1 15 0 96 R. Rice, BAL . . . . .13 10 3 0 78 A. Foster, HOU . . .12 10 2 0 72

Scores AND SCHEDULES

SPORTS ON TV TODAY MOTORSPORTS 1:30 a.m. VERSUS — Dakar Rally, Mar del Plata to Santa Rosa de la Pampa, Argentina (delayed tape) NFL FOOTBALL 1 p.m. CBS — Regional coverage, doubleheader FOX — Regional coverage, doubleheader 4:15 p.m. CBS — Regional coverage, doubleheader game FOX — Regional coverage, doubleheader game 8 p.m. NBC — Teams TBA

MONDAY COLLEGE FOOTBALL 1 p.m. ABC — Outback Bowl, Michigan St. vs. Georgia, at Tampa, Fla. ESPN — Capital One Bowl, Nebraska vs. South Carolina, at Orlando, Fla. ESPN2 — Gator Bowl, Ohio St. vs. Florida, at Jacksonville, Fla. 5:07 p.m. ESPN — Rose Bowl, Wisconsin vs. Oregon, at Pasadena, Calif.

8:37 p.m. ESPN — Fiesta Bowl, Stanford vs. Oklahoma St., at Glendale, Ariz.

MOTORSPORTS 1:30 a.m. NBCSP — Dakar Rally, Santa Rosa de la Pampa to San Rafael, Argentina (delayed tape) NHL HOCKEY 1 p.m. NBC — Winter Classic, N.Y. Rangers at Philadelphia (Citizens Bank Park) 8 p.m. NBCSP — San Jose at Vancouver

TUESDAY COLLEGE FOOTBALL 8:30 p.m. ESPN — Sugar Bowl, Michigan vs. Virginia Tech, at New Orleans MEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL 7 p.m. ESPN2 — Michigan St. at Wisconsin MOTORSPORTS 1:30 a.m. NBCSP — Dakar Rally, San Rafael to San Juan, Argentina (delayed tape) NHL HOCKEY 8 p.m. NBCSP — Detroit at Dallas SOCCER 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 — Premier League, Liverpool at Manchester City Jones-Drew, JAC .11 Decker, DEN . . . . . .9 Green-Ellis, NWE . .9 Mendenhall, PIT . . .9 Tolbert, SND . . . . . .9 Welker, NWE . . . . . .9 Burress, NYJ . . . . . .8 Kicking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAT Gostkowski, NWE54-54 Rackers, HOU . .38-39 Nugent, CIN . . . .32-33 Cundiff, BAL . . . .35-35 Janikowski, OAK 34-34 Novak, SND . . . .36-37 Bironas, TEN . . .32-32 D. Carpenter, MIA25-25 Suisham, PIT . . .35-35 Folk, NYJ . . . . . .42-42

8 0 9 9 7 0 0 FG 26-31 29-35 30-34 27-36 27-31 26-32 26-29 25-30 21-28 18-24

3 8 0 0 2 9 8

0 1 0 0 0 0 0 LG 50 54 49 51 63 53 53 51 51 51

66 54 54 54 54 54 48 Pts 132 125 122 116 115 114 110 100 98 96

NFC Individual Leaders Week 16 Quarterbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AttCom Yds TD Int A. Rodgers, GBY502 343 4643 45 6 Brees, NOR . . .622 440 5087 41 13 Romo, DAL . . . .485 317 3895 29 9 Stafford, DET . .604 385 4518 36 14 M. Ryan, ATL . .557 341 4071 27 12 E. Manning, NYG556 335 4587 26 16 Ale. Smith, SNF 415 253 2931 16 5 Cutler, CHI . . . .314 182 2319 13 7 C. Newton, CAR492 295 3893 20 16 Vick, PHL . . . . .384 229 2968 15 13 Rushers . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Att Yds Avg LG TD L. McCoy, PHL .273 1309 4.79 60 17 Gore, SNF . . . .275 1202 4.37 55 8 M.Turner, ATL . .284 1168 4.11 61 9 M. Lynch, SEA .266 1118 4.20 47 12 S. Jackson, STL 244 1069 4.38 47t 5 B. Wells, ARI . . .245 1047 4.27 71 10 Forte, CHI . . . . .203 997 4.91 46 3 A. Peterson, MIN208 970 4.66 54 12 Murray, DAL . . .164 897 5.47 91t 2 DeA. Wlms., CAR148 783 5.29 74t 7 Receivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds Avg LG TD R. White, ATL . . .96 1227 12.8 43 8 J. Graham, NOR .91 1213 13.3 59 10 Ca. Johnson, DET851437 16.9 73t 15 Sproles, NOR . . .81 681 8.4 39 6 T. Gonzalez, ATL 79 867 11.0 30 7 Harvin, MIN . . . .77 852 11.1 52t 6 Cruz, NYG . . . . .76 1358 17.9 99t 8 Pettigrew, DET . .76 661 8.7 27 5 St. Smith, CAR . .73 1308 17.9 77t 6 Colston, NOR . . .73 998 13.7 50 6 Punters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds LG Avg A. Lee, SNF . . . . . . . .73 3686 68 50.5 Morstead, NOR . . . . .45 2160 64 48.0 J. Ryan, SEA . . . . . . .87 4074 77 46.8 Weatherford, NYG . . .78 3584 62 45.9 Masthay, GBY . . . . . .51 2330 71 45.7 Kluwe, MIN . . . . . . . . .71 3241 60 45.6 Zastudil, ARI . . . . . . .80 3605 66 45.1 Koenen, TAM . . . . . . .64 2874 65 44.9 Donn. Jones, STL . . .99 4348 65 43.9 McBriar, DAL . . . . . . .58 2542 68 43.8 Punt Returners . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds Avg LG TD D. Hester, CHI . . .26 450 17.3 82t 2 P. Peterson, ARI .40 636 15.9 99t 4 Ginn Jr., SNF . . .38 466 12.3 55t 1 L. Wshngtn, SEA 37 422 11.4 37 0 Cobb, GBY . . . . .26 295 11.3 80t 1 Weems, ATL . . . .31 306 9.9 42 0 Banks, WAS . . . .34 329 9.7 55 0 Sproles, NOR . . .26 249 9.6 72t 1 P. Parker, TAM . . .23 210 9.1 34 0 Sherels, MIN . . . .33 277 8.4 53 0 Kickoff Returners . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No Yds Avg LG TD Cobb, GBY . . . . .34 941 27.7108t 1 Ginn Jr., SNF . . .29 800 27.6102t 1 Sproles, NOR . . .38 1035 27.2 92 0 Stroughter, TAM .20 540 27.0 78 0 Pilares, CAR . . . .21 553 26.3101t 1 Je. Norwood, STL19 481 25.3 47 0 Logan, DET . . . .29 729 25.1 42 0 L. Wshngtn, SEA 41 1000 24.4 54 0 Dev.Thomas, NYG24 576 24.0 40 0 St.-Howling, ARI .36 857 23.8 37 0 Scoring Touchdowns . . . . . . . . . . . . . .TDRush Rec RetPts L. McCoy, PHL . .20 17 3 0120 Ca. Johnson, DET15 0 15 0 90

0 0 84 C. Newton, CAR .14 14 1 0 78 M. Lynch, SEA . .13 12 1 0 78 A. Peterson, MIN 13 12 Jor. Nelson, GBY 12 0 12 0 72 J. Graham, NOR .10 0 10 0 60 0 0 60 B. Wells, ARI . . . .10 10 1 0 56 Bradshaw, NYG . .9 8 9 0 54 D. Bryant, DAL . . .9 0 Kicking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAT FG LG Pts Akers, SNF . . . . .30-30 42-49 55 156 Kasay, NOR . . . .57-57 27-33 53 138 D. Bailey, DAL . . .37-37 32-36 51 133 Crosby, GBY . . . .62-63 23-26 58 131 Ja. Hanson, DET 50-50 23-27 51 119 M. Bryant, ATL . .39-39 26-28 51 117 Gould, CHI . . . . .35-35 27-31 57 116 Gano, WAS . . . . .24-25 30-39 59 114 Henery, PHL . . . .42-42 22-25 51 108 Mare, CAR . . . . .42-43 21-27 45 105 College Football FBS Bowl Glance Subject to Change All Times EST Saturday, Dec. 17 New Mexico Bowl At Albuquerque Temple 37, Wyoming 15 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl At Boise, Idaho Ohio 24, Utah State 23 New Orleans Bowl Louisiana-Lafayette 32, San Diego State 30 Tuesday, Dec. 20 Beef 'O'Brady's Bowl At St. Petersburg, Fla. Marshall 20, FIU 10 Wednesday, Dec. 21 Poinsettia Bowl At San Diego TCU 31, Louisiana Tech 24 Thursday, Dec. 22 MAACO Bowl At Las Vegas Boise State 56, Arizona State 24 Saturday, Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl At Honolulu Southern Mississippi 24, Nevada 17 Monday, Dec. 26 Independence Bowl At Shreveport, La. Missouri 41, North Carolina 24 Tuesday, Dec. 27 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl At Detroit Purdue 37, Western Michigan 32 Belk Bowl At Charlotte, N.C. North Carolina State 31, Louisville 24 Wednesday, Dec. 28 Military Bowl At Washington Toledo 42, Air Force 41 Holiday Bowl At San Diego Texas 21, California 10 Thursday, Dec. 29 Champs Sports Bowl At Orlando, Fla. Florida State 18, Notre Dame 14 Alamo Bowl At San Antonio Baylor 67, Washington 56 Friday, Dec. 30 Armed Forces Bowl At Dallas BYU 24, Tulsa 21 Pinstripe Bowl At Bronx, N.Y. Rutgers 27, Iowa State 13 Music City Bowl At Nashville, Tenn.

Mississippi State 23, Wake Forest 17 Insight Bowl At Tempe, Ariz.

Oklahoma 31, Iowa 14 Saturday, Dec. 31 Meinke Car Care Bowl At Houston Texas A&M 33, Northwestern 22 Sun Bowl At El Paso, Texas Utah 30, Georgia Tech 27, OT Liberty Bowl At Memphis, Tenn.

Vanderbilt (6-6) vs. Cincinnati (9-3), 3:30 p.m. (ESPN)

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM Fight Hunger Bowl At San Francisco UCLA (6-7) vs. Illinois (6-6), 3:30 p.m.

(ESPN) Chick-fil-A Bowl At Atlanta Virginia (8-4) vs. Auburn (7-5), 7:30 p.m. (ESPN) Monday, Jan. 2 TicketCity Bowl At Dallas Penn State (9-3) vs. Houston (12-1), Noon (ESPNU) Capital One Bowl At Orlando, Fla. Nebraska (9-3) vs. South Carolina (10-2), 1 p.m. (ESPN) Outback Bowl At Tampa, Fla. Georgia (10-3) vs. Michigan State (10-3), 1 p.m. (ABC) Gator Bowl At Jacksonville, Fla. Florida (6-6) vs. Ohio State (6-6), 1 p.m. (ESPN2) Rose Bowl At Pasadena, Calif.

Oregon (11-2) vs. Wisconsin (11-2), 5 p.m. (ESPN) Fiesta Bowl At Glendale, Ariz.

Stanford (11-1) vs. Oklahoma State (11-1), 8:30 p.m. (ESPN) Tuesday, Jan. 3 Sugar Bowl At New Orleans Michigan (10-2) vs. Virginia Tech (112), 8 p.m. (ESPN) Wednesday, Jan. 4 Orange Bowl At Miami West Virginia (9-3) vs. Clemson (103), 8 p.m. (ESPN) Friday, Jan. 6 Cotton Bowl At Arlington, Texas Kansas State (10-2) vs. Arkansas (10-2), 8 p.m. (FOX) Saturday, Jan. 7 BBVA Compass Bowl At Birmingham, Ala. Pittsburgh (6-6) vs. SMU (7-5), Noon (ESPN) Sunday, Jan. 8 GoDaddy.com Bowl At Mobile, Ala. Arkansas State (10-2) vs. Northern Illinois (10-3), 9 p.m. (ESPN) Monday, Jan. 9 BCS National Championship At New Orleans LSU (13-0) vs. Alabama (11-1), 8:30 p.m. (ESPN) Saturday, Jan. 21 East-West Shrine Classic At St. Petersburg, Fla. East vs. West, TBA, (NFLN) Saturday, Jan. 28 Senior Bowl At Mobile, Ala. North vs. South, 4 p.m. (NFLN) Saturday, Feb. 5 Texas vs. Nation At San Antonio Texas vs. Nation, 2 p.m. (CBSSN) NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoff Glance All Times EST Championship Friday, Jan. 7 At Pizza Hut Park Frisco, Texas Sam Houston State (14-0) vs. North Dakota State (13-1), 1 p.m.

BASKETBALL National Basketball Association All Times EST EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division Pct GB W L 1 2 .333 — New York 1 2 .333 — Toronto 1 2 .333 — Philadelphia 1 3 .250 ½ New Jersey 1 3 .250 ½ Boston Southeast Division Pct GB W L 4 0 1.000 — Miami 3 0 1.000 ½ Atlanta 3 1 .750 1 Orlando Charlotte 1 2 .333 2½ 0 3 .000 3½ Washington Central Division W L Pct GB 3 1 .750 — Indiana Chicago 3 1 .750 — Milwaukee 2 1 .667 ½ Cleveland 1 2 .333 1½ Detroit 1 3 .250 2 WESTERN CONFERENCE Southwest Division W L Pct GB San Antonio 2 1 .667 — New Orleans 2 1 .667 — Memphis 1 2 .333 1 Houston 1 2 .333 1 Dallas 1 3 .250 1½ Northwest Division W L Pct GB Oklahoma City 4 0 1.000 — Portland 3 0 1.000 ½ Denver 2 2 .500 2 Utah 1 2 .333 2½ Minnesota 0 3 .000 3½ Pacific Division W L Pct GB Golden State 2 1 .667 — L.A. Lakers 3 2 .600 — L.A. Clippers 1 2 .333 1 Sacramento 1 2 .333 1 Phoenix 1 2 .333 1 Friday's Games Orlando 100, Charlotte 79 Indiana 98, Cleveland 91, OT Boston 96, Detroit 85 Atlanta 105, New Jersey 98 Phoenix 93, New Orleans 78 Miami 103, Minnesota 101 Memphis 113, Houston 93 Dallas 99, Toronto 86 Milwaukee 102, Washington 81 Utah 102, Philadelphia 99 Chicago 114, L.A. Clippers 101 Saturday's Games L.A. Lakers 92, Denver 89 Detroit 96, Indiana 88 Atlanta at Houston, 7 p.m.

New York at Sacramento, 8 p.m.

Phoenix at Oklahoma City, 8 p.m.

Utah at San Antonio, 8:30 p.m.

Philadelphia at Golden State, 9 p.m.

Sunday's Games New Jersey at Cleveland, 6 p.m.

Charlotte at Miami, 6 p.m.

Toronto at Orlando, 6 p.m.

Boston at Washington, 6 p.m.

Dallas at Minnesota, 7 p.m.

L.A. Lakers at Denver, 8 p.m.

Memphis at Chicago, 8 p.m.

New Orleans at Sacramento, 9 p.m.

Portland at L.A. Clippers, 9:30 p.m.

Monday's Games Golden State at Phoenix, 3:30 p.m.

Washington at Boston, 7:30 p.m.

Indiana at New Jersey, 7:30 p.m.

Orlando at Detroit, 7:30 p.m.

Atlanta at Miami, 7:30 p.m.

Toronto at New York, 7:30 p.m.

San Antonio at Minnesota, 8 p.m.

Oklahoma City at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.

Milwaukee at Denver, 9 p.m.

New Orleans at Utah, 9 p.m.

Saturday's College Basketball Scores EAST Albany (NY) 65, Mount St. Mary's 64 Army 79, St. Francis (NY) 70 Bucknell 63, Cornell 60 Drexel 63, St. Francis (Pa.) 42 Duquesne 118, Houston Baptist 72 Felician 69, NY Tech 60 George Washington 77, Delaware St. 59 Georgetown 49, Providence 40 Harvard 74, Saint Joseph's 69 Holy Cross 65, Dartmouth 61 La Salle 73, Hartford 55 Lehigh 72, Bryant 55 New Hampshire 71, Colgate 64 Quinnipiac 59, Boston U. 53 UConn 83, St. John's 69 MIDWEST Ball St. 86, Chicago St. 58 Butler 54, Milwaukee 50 Carroll (Wis.) 77, Wis.-Oshkosh 71 Detroit 65, Loyola of Chicago 54 Edgewood 72, North Park 71, OT Indiana St. 77, Bradley 66 Indiana Tech 63, Wilberforce 39 Iowa 72, Wisconsin 65 Iowa St. 67, MVSU 65 Kansas 84, North Dakota 58 Kansas St. 82, Howard 46 Michigan St. 68, Nebraska 55 Missouri St. 72, Drake 61 Purdue 75, Illinois 60 SIU-Edwardsville 66, Jacksonville St. 61 St. Scholastica 85, Wis.-Superior 71 Tiffin 84, Purdue-Calumet 74 Valparaiso 90, Green Bay 87 Wright St. 74, Ill.-Chicago 70, OT Youngstown St. 73, Cleveland St. 67 SOUTH Arkansas St. 65, Louisiana-Monroe 63 Augusta St. 73, Mount Olive 70, OT Charleston Southern 81, Liberty 76 E. Kentucky 73, Tennessee St. 68 East Carolina 91, Virginia-Wise 56 Emory 96, Guilford 84 Emory & Henry 70, Maryland Bible 58 FIU 81, W. Kentucky 63 Ferrum 72, Covenant 52 Florida 90, Yale 70 Gardner-Webb 61, Radford 55 Georgetown (Ky.) 81, Miami (Ohio)Hamilton 51 Kentucky 69, Louisville 62 Louisiana-Lafayette 67, FAU 55 Maryland 75, Samford 63 Middle Tennessee 68, South Alabama 52 Mississippi St. 66, Utah St. 64 Morehead St. 68, Austin Peay 64 NC State 82, W. Carolina 55 Pfeiffer 72, Livingstone 62 Shaw 67, Georgia College 63 South Carolina 72, SC-Upstate 66 Southern Miss. 65, McNeese St. 56 St. Augustine's 64, North Alabama 60 Tennessee Tech 85, UT-Martin 62 UAB 92, Alabama A&M 58 UNC Asheville 73, Winthrop 68, OT VMI 78, Presbyterian 70, OT Young Harris 91, Brevard 82 SOUTHWEST Lamar 102, Lyon 58 North Texas 87, Troy 65 Oklahoma 83, Northwestern St. 63 SMU 73, Louisiana Tech 65 Texas 73, Rice 59 Tulane 53, Texas-Pan American 42 Virginia Tech 67, Oklahoma St. 61 FAR WEST Arizona 68, Arizona St. 51 California 85, UCLA 69 Idaho 76, Boise St. 73 New Mexico St. 81, Ark.-Pine Bluff 65 Weber St. 74, Sacramento St. 63

HOCKEY National Hockey League All Times EDT EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA N.Y. Rangers 36 23 9 4 50107 77 Philadelphia 36 22 10 4 48123106 Pittsburgh 38 21 13 4 46121100 New Jersey 37 21 15 1 43103105 N.Y. Islanders 36 13 17 6 32 84113 Northeast Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA 34 24 9 1 49121 64 Boston Toronto 37 18 14 5 41116122 Ottawa 38 18 15 5 41117131 37 17 17 3 37 98109 Buffalo 38 14 17 7 35 97107 Montreal Southeast Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA 38 19 12 7 45100105 Florida 37 18 14 5 41101105 Winnipeg Washington 36 19 15 2 40107107 Tampa Bay 37 17 17 3 37104122 Carolina 40 13 21 6 32103135 WESTERN CONFERENCE Central Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Chicago 38 24 10 4 52125107 Detroit 37 23 13 1 47120 84 St. Louis 37 21 11 5 47 95 82 Nashville 38 20 14 4 44100105 Columbus 37 10 22 5 25 91124 Northwest Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA Vancouver 38 24 12 2 50128 92 Minnesota 39 21 12 6 48 93 91 Calgary 39 18 16 5 41 96106 Colorado 39 20 18 1 41104113 Edmonton 37 15 19 3 33100104 Pacific Division GP W L OT Pts GF GA San Jose 34 19 11 4 42 99 83 Los Angeles 38 18 14 6 42 82 89 Dallas 36 20 15 1 41 96105 Phoenix 38 18 16 4 40 98101 Anaheim 36 10 20 6 26 85120 NOTE: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss.

Friday's Games Nashville 2, St. Louis 1, SO Washington 3, Buffalo 1 Ottawa 4, Calgary 3, OT N.Y. Rangers 4, Florida 1 Saturday's Games N.Y. Islanders 4, Edmonton 1 New Jersey 3, Pittsburgh 1 Tampa Bay 5, Carolina 2 Phoenix at Minnesota, 6 p.m.

Montreal at Florida, 7 p.m.

Ottawa at Buffalo, 7 p.m.

Toronto at Winnipeg, 7 p.m.

St. Louis at Detroit, 7 p.m.

Washington at Columbus, 7 p.m.

Boston at Dallas, 8 p.m.

Colorado at Anaheim, 8 p.m.

Vancouver at Los Angeles, 10 p.m.

Sunday's Games Calgary at Nashville, 6 p.m.

Monday's Games N.Y. Rangers vs. Philadelphia at Philadelphia, PA, 1 p.m.

New Jersey at Ottawa, 7:30 p.m.

San Jose at Vancouver, 8 p.m.

Edmonton at Chicago, 8:30 p.m.

Colorado at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

BUSINESS

Sunday, January 1, 2012 • A11

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Crisis in Europe leads 2011 business news Credit downgrade, economy, gas prices make top 10 list NEW YORK (AP) — Europe took the financial world on a stomach-churning ride in 2011.

The rising threat of default by heavily indebted European countries spread fear across financial markets and weighed on economies worldwide. As the year came to a close, banks and investors nervously watched Europe’s political and financial leaders scramble to prevent the 17-nation eurozone from breaking apart.

Several of the other biggest business stories of the year highlighted the global economy’s linkages: A British phone-hacking scandal shook the foundations of Rupert Murdoch’s U.S.-based media empire; a nuclear disaster in Japan stymied auto plants in the U.S. and beyond; and the price of gasoline surged because of unrest in the Middle East and growing demand in Asia and Latin America.

In the U.S., political squabbling led to the first credit downgrade for government debt, the economy suffered its fourth straight disappointing year and Apple founder Steve Jobs died.

The European financial crisis was chosen as the top business story of the year by business editors at The Associated Press. The sluggish U.S. economy came in second, followed by the death of Jobs.

1. EUROPEAN FINANCIAL CRISIS. The government-debt crunch rattled Europe’s financial system and weighed on the global economy. Portugal became the third European country, after Greece and Ireland the year before, to require a bailout as its borrowing costs soared. And investors grew worried that countries with much larger debts, such as Spain and Italy, would also need help.

Financial markets were volatile all year as hopes rose and then were dashed that forceful steps would be taken to prevent the financial crisis from becoming Europe’s version of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers , which triggered a global financial panic and deepened the Great Recession.

Banks worried that they or their partners wouldn’t be able to cover losses if governments defaulted, so they cut back on lending.

European governments, facing ever higher borrowing costs, reined in spending a policy response that is

expected to stunt muchneeded economic growth.

Analysts estimate the slowdown in Europe, America’s No. 1 trading partner, will cut U.S. economic growth next year.

2. BAD U.S. ECONOMY: YEAR FOUR. The Great Recession may have ended, but the economic recovery continued to disappoint.

For the first six months of the year, the economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.9 percent. Growth improved to a 2 percent rate in the third quarter and a 3 percent growth rate is forecast for the fourth quarter.

Still, 2 years after economists say the recession ended, 25 million people remain unemployed or unable to find full-time work. The unemployment rate fell from 9 percent in October to 8.6 percent in November, providing a hopeful sign. Yet the housing market remained burdened by foreclosures and falling prices in many metropolitan areas. How to fix the economy became the top campaign issue for Republican presidential contenders.

3. STEVE JOBS DIES: The college dropout who helped popularize the personal computer and created the iPod, iPhone and iPad, died on October 5. That was two months after Apple Inc., which Jobs started in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976, briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil Corp. as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

Jobs cultivated a countercultural sensibility and a minimalist design ethic.

He rolled out one sensational product after another, even during the recession and as his health was failing.

4. THE U.S. CREDIT DOWNGRADE: The inability of political leaders to come up with a long-term plan to reduce the federal budget deficit led the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s to take away Uncle Sam’s sterling AAA credit rating for the first time.

The political bickering enraged voters, spooked investors and led to the lowest consumer confidence level of the year. But the nation’s long-term borrowing costs fell after the crisis.

The reason: U.S. debt still looks safer to investors than almost everything else, especially European debt.

5. RUPERT MURDOCH AND THE HACKING SCANDAL: The man whose

AP PHOTO/THE MUSKEGON CHRONICLE, GREG LINDSTROM, FILE

Gwen Williams of Norton Shores listens to speakers outside Rep. Bill Huizenga's Muskegon, Mich., office during a Dec. 8 rally calling to extend unemployment insurance benefits.

AP PHOTO/ANDREW BURTON, FILE

In this Oct. 14 file photo, a man affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests tackles a police officer during an Oct. 14 march toward Wall Street in New York.

The Occupy Wall Street movement inspired protesters around the world. worldwide media empire thrives on covering scandal became the center of a dramatic one. A British tabloid newspaper owned by Murdoch’s News Corp., which also owns Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, hacked the phone of a murdered schoolgirl.

Murdoch was not charged with a crime, but an investigation by British authorities raised questions about Murdoch’s ability to run his worldwide media empire.

News Corp. fired several executives and closed the newspaper at the center of the scandal, the News of the World.

6. JAPAN EARTHQUAKE: An earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor, owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co., cut off supplies of crucial Japanese parts and idled factories thousands of miles away. Auto companies, especially Toyota and

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WEEKLY REVIEW

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NYSE

WEEKLY STOCK EXCHANGE HIGHLIGHTS

7,477.03 -41.63

GAINERS ($2 OR MORE)

Name Last ChiMM rs 6.00 EndvrIntl 8.69 ChiMYWnd 2.27 SimcerePh 9.40 ChiCBlood 2.65 MagHRes 5.39 LeFON28 20.64 CameltInfo 2.85 CSVS3xInSlv61.12 LaredoP n 22.30

Chg +5.34 +2.29 +.54 +1.50 +.36 +.72 +2.71 +.36 +7.66 +2.63

%Chg +809.1 +35.8 +31.2 +19.0 +15.7 +15.4 +15.1 +14.5 +14.3 +13.4

LOSERS ($2 OR MORE)

Name Last Chg iP SXR1K 28.79 -13.02 Molycorp 23.98 -5.06 ETrSPlat 29.10 -5.64 LDK Solar 4.19 -.75 CS VS3xSlv 27.46 -4.86 ShangPhm 7.27 -1.22 NBGre pfA 2.88 -.44 XuedaEd 3.49 -.51 BiP GCrb 10.79 -1.54 Molycp pfA 56.19 -7.60

GAINERS ($2 OR MORE) Last 2.86 2.25 2.57 3.20 2.52 2.20 7.00 5.31 3.19 3.31

Chg +.53 +.35 +.39 +.46 +.30 +.23 +.71 +.51 +.23 +.23

%Chg +22.7 +18.4 +17.9 +16.8 +13.5 +11.7 +11.3 +10.6 +7.8 +7.5

LOSERS ($2 OR MORE)

Name Aerocntry HKN RareEle g QuestRM g Flanign Geokinetics Barnwell EngySvcs VirnetX Bcp NJ

1,313 1,805 295 73 3,190 72 8,726,674,285

Advanced Declined New Highs New Lows Total issues Unchanged Volume

DIARY

2,278.33 +12.63

Name Bacterin NewConcEn VoyagerOG Aerosonic AlmadnM g AntaresP EagleCGr CT Ptrs Versar StreamGSv

%Chg -31.1 -17.4 -16.2 -15.2 -15.0 -14.4 -13.3 -12.8 -12.5 -11.9

MOST ACTIVE ($1 OR MORE) Name Vol (00) Last Chg BkofAm 6375822 5.56 -.04 S&P500ETF3615446125.50 -.89 GenElec 1540062 17.91 -.32 SPDR Fncl1291514 13.00 -.15 iShEMkts1249316 37.94 -.55 FordM 1183859 10.76 -.19 iShR2K 1117170 73.75 -.80 Citigrp rs 1069539 26.31 -1.15 iS Eafe 891165 49.53 +.02 Pfizer 885378 21.64 -.19 Advanced Declined New Highs New Lows Total issues Unchanged Volume

u

AMEX

Last Chg %Chg 6.15 -1.52 -19.8 2.13 -.45 -17.4 3.25 -.61 -15.8 2.20 -.37 -14.4 6.75 -.87 -11.4 2.15 -.27 -11.2 2.70 -.28 -9.4 2.69 -.26 -8.8 24.97 -2.38 -8.7 9.20 -.85 -8.5

MOST ACTIVE ($1 OR MORE) Name Vol (00) Last Chg CheniereEn146185 8.69 +.22 CFCda g 88961 19.61 -.45 NwGold g 79922 10.08 -.04 NovaGld g 78194 8.48 -.29 Rentech 76815 1.31 -.08 GoldStr g 72594 1.65 -.05 SamsO&G 64601 1.95 -.03 AntaresP 55789 2.20 +.23 BarcUBS3652457 42.24 -.08 VirnetX 51861 24.97 -2.38 DIARY

248 254 46 39 523 21 322,323,571

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NASDAQ

GAINERS ($2 OR MORE)

Name Last Chg %Chg VlyNBc wt 2.60 +1.05 +67.7 AtlCstFn h 2.85 +1.12 +64.7 Tegal rs 3.35 +1.08 +47.6 Parlux 5.10 +1.63 +47.0 PorterBcp 2.90 +.81 +38.8 MoSys 4.20 +1.15 +37.7 PremExhib 2.45 +.66 +36.9 CmtyFinl 3.28 +.79 +31.7 CarolTrBk 2.33 +.53 +29.4 Zogenix 2.22 +.48 +27.6

LOSERS ($2 OR MORE)

Name Perfuman lf SearsHldgs CrescntF Cyanotch h RecovE rs Ambient rs SuperMda RIT Tech SumFWV Zagg

Last Chg 10.40 -9.30 31.78 -14.07 3.44 -1.16 6.95 -2.14 3.01 -.86 4.63 -1.23 2.64 -.64 3.36 -.76 2.73 -.57 7.07 -1.38

%Chg -47.2 -30.7 -25.2 -23.5 -22.2 -21.0 -19.5 -18.4 -17.3 -16.3

MOST ACTIVE ($1 OR MORE) Name Vol (00) Last Chg PwShs QQQ106423355.83 -.25 Microsoft 985753 25.96 -.07 Intel 901966 24.25 -.15 Cisco 865385 18.08 -.39 Oracle 840389 25.65 -.41 SiriusXM 799621 1.82 +.01 RschMotn 773608 14.50 +.59 FrontierCm684046 5.15 +.03 MicronT 617670 6.29 -.11 Yahoo 501137 16.13 -.06 Advanced Declined New Highs New Lows Total issues Unchanged Volume

DIARY

WEEKLY DOW JONES

Dow Jones industrials

2,605.15 -13.49

1,099 1,590 91 154 2,753 64 4,174,771,143

Honda, were hit hardest.

Inventory of certain models, especially hybrids, fell short at dealerships, reducing sales and sending retail prices higher.

7. GASOLINE PRICES HIT ANNUAL RECORD: The retail price of gasoline averaged $3.53 per gallon for the year, eclipsing the 2008 record of $3.24 per gallon. Americans drove less and switched to more fuel efficient cars, but it wasn’t enough to offset the higher prices. A bigger percentage of household income went into the gas tank in 2011 than any year since 1981.

8. SOCIAL MEDIA IPOs TAKE OFF: Shares of the business social networking site LinkedIn more than doubled when it went public in May, recalling the froth of the dot-com boom.

LinkedIn was followed by large IPOs from online radio company Pandora Media, online discount site

Close: 12,217.56 1-week change: -76.44 (-0.6%)

13,000

CLOSED -2.65 MON

-139.94 135.63 -69.48

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STOCKS OF LOCAL INTEREST Wk Wk YTD Chg %Chg %Chg

Name

Ex

Div

vjAMR AT&T Inc BkofAm Cisco Citigrp rs CocaCola Disney EnPro FifthThird Flowserve FordM GenElec Goodrich HewlettP iShSilver iShEMkts iS Eafe iShR2K ITW Intel

NY NY NY Nasd NY NY NY NY Nasd NY NY NY NY NY NY NY NY NY NY Nasd

... .35 -.25 -41.2 -95.5 1.76 30.24 +.37 +1.2 +2.9 .04 5.56 -.04 -0.7 -58.3 .24 18.08 -.39 -2.1 -10.6 .04 26.31 -1.15 -4.2 -44.4 1.88 69.97 +.03 ... +6.4 .60 37.50 -.20 -0.5 ... ... 32.98 -1.25 -3.7 -20.6 .32 12.72 -.04 -0.3 -13.4 1.28 99.32 -2.24 -2.2 -16.7 .20 10.76 -.19 -1.7 -35.9 .68 17.91 -.32 -1.8 -2.1 1.16 123.70 +.30 +0.2 +40.5 .48 25.76 -.12 -0.5 -38.8 ... 26.94 -1.34 -4.7 -10.7 .81 37.94 -.55 -1.4 -20.4 1.71 49.53 +.02 ... -14.9 1.02 73.75 -.80 -1.1 -5.7 1.44 46.71 -.65 -1.4 -12.5 .84 24.25 -.15 -0.6 +15.3

Name

Ex

JPMorgCh NY KimbClk NY Kroger NY McDnlds NY MeadWvco NY Microsoft Nasd Penney NY PepsiCo NY Pfizer NY PwShs QQQ Nasd ProctGam NY Questar NY S&P500ETF NY SearsHldgs Nasd SPDR Fncl NY Tuppwre NY US Bancrp NY VerizonCm NY WalMart NY Wendys Co Nasd

Div

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D Wk Wk YTD Chg %Chg %Chg

1.00 33.25 -.32 -1.0 -21.6 2.80 73.56 -.17 -0.2 +16.7 .46 24.22 -.26 -1.1 +8.3 2.80 100.33 +.18 +0.2 +30.7 1.00 29.95 -.02 -0.1 +14.5 .80 25.96 -.07 -0.3 -7.0 .80 35.15 -.52 -1.5 +8.8 2.06 66.35 -.22 -0.3 +1.6 .88 21.64 -.19 -0.9 +23.6 .46 55.83 -.25 -0.4 +2.5 2.10 66.71 +.04 +0.1 +3.7 .65 19.86 +.04 +0.2 +14.1 2.58 125.50 -.89 -0.7 -.2 .33 31.78 -14.07 -30.7 -56.9 .22 13.00 -.15 -1.1 -18.5 1.20 55.97 -.14 -0.2 +17.4 .50 27.05 -.31 -1.1 +.3 2.00 40.12 +.14 +0.4 +12.1 1.46 59.76 -.23 -0.4 +10.8 .08 5.36 +.02 +0.4 +16.0

Stock Footnotes: g = Dividends and earnings in Canadian dollars. h = Does not meet continued-listing standards. lf = Late filing with SEC. n = New in past 52 weeks. pf = Preferred. rs = Stock has undergone a reverse stock split of at least 50 percent within the past year. rt = Right to buy security at a specified price. s = Stock has split by at least 20 percent within the last year. un = Units. vj = In bankruptcy or receivership. wd = When distributed. wi = When issued. wt = Warrants.

Mutual Fund Footnotes: b = Fee covering market costs is paid from fund assets. d = Deferred sales charge, or redemption fee. f = front load (sales charges). m = Multiple fees are charged. NA = not available. p = previous day’s net asset value. s = fund split shares during the week. x = fund paid a distribution during the week.Gainers and Losers must be worth at least $2 to be listed in tables at left.

Most Actives must be worth at least $1. Volume in hundreds of shares. Source: The Associated Press. Sales figures are unofficial.

AP PHOTO/BEN MARGOT, FILE

Gasoline is delivered to a station in Oakland, Calif., March 8. Gas prices hit an annual record, and a bigger percentage of household income went into the gas tank in 2011 than any year since 1981.

Groupon and social gaming site Zynga. But the market is treacherous: shares of Pandora, Groupon and Zynga all traded below their offering prices soon after they were listed.

9. OCCUPY WALL STREET: On Sept. 17, several hundred protesters gathered at a small plaza about a block from the New York Stock Exchange. They slept in tents, ate donated meals and protested income inequality and the influence of money in politics.

The movement inspired protesters around the world who camped in city centers and business hubs to complain about unemployment, CEO pay

52-Week High Low 12,876.00 5,627.85 467.64 8,718.25 2,490.51 2,887.75 1,370.58 14,562.01 868.57 4,051.89

10,404.49 3,950.66 381.99 6,414.89 1,941.99 2,298.89 1,074.77 11,208.42 601.71 3,169.44

Name

STOCK MARKET INDEXES

Dow Jones Industrials Dow Jones Transportation Dow Jones Utilities NYSE Composite AMEX Index Nasdaq Composite S&P 500 Wilshire 5000 Russell 2000 Lipper Growth Index

MONEY RATES

Prime Rate Discount Rate Federal Funds Rate Treasuries 3-month 6-month 5-year 10-year 30-year

and a decline in upward social mobility.

10. THE DOWNFALL OF MF GLOBAL AND JON CORZINE: The former governor, senator and co-chairman of Goldman Sachs lost control of a small brokerage firm he agreed to run in 2010.

Saddled with huge debt and risky bets on European bonds, MF Global was forced to file for bankruptcy protection on Halloween after trading partners and investors got spooked. It was soon discovered that $1.2 billion in customer money was missing.

Corzine told Congress he had no idea where the money went.

Last 3.25 0.75 .00-.25

Pvs Week 3.25 0.75 .00-.25

0.02 0.06 0.83 1.88 2.89

0.003 0.03 0.98 2.02 3.05

Last

Wk Chg

Wk %Chg

12,217.56 5,019.69 464.68 7,477.03 2,278.33 2,605.15 1,257.60 13,189.93 740.92 3,532.13

-76.44 -33.60 +1.74 -41.63 +12.63 -13.49 -7.73 -84.12 -7.06 -15.51

-.62 -.66 +.38 -.55 +.56 -.52 -.61 -.63 -.94 -.44

Australia Britain Canada Euro Japan Mexico Switzerlnd

12-mo %Chg

+5.53 +5.53 -1.70 -1.70 +14.74 +14.74 -6.11 -6.11 +3.17 +3.17 -1.80 -1.80 ... ...

-1.27 -1.27 -5.45 -5.45 -4.06 -4.06

CURRENCIES Last

Pvs Day

.9782 1.5509 1.0180 .7724 77.01 13.9728 .9385

.9870 1.5395 1.0212 .7729 77.65 14.0006 .9415

British pound expressed in U.S. dollars. All others show dollar in foreign currency.

MUTUAL FUNDS

Total Assets Name Obj ($Mlns) PIMCO TotRetIs CI 142,635 Vanguard TotStIdx LB 62,801 Vanguard InstIdxI LB 57,915 Fidelity Contra LG 56,073 American Funds GrthAmA m LG 54,829 American Funds CapIncBuA m IH 54,764 American Funds IncAmerA m MA 51,409 Vanguard 500Adml LB 51,226 Vanguard TotStIAdm LB 48,932 American Funds CpWldGrIA m WS 45,594 American Funds InvCoAmA m LB 42,793 Dodge & Cox IntlStk FV 37,794 American Funds WAMutInvA m LV 37,593 Dodge & Cox Stock LV 36,876 Fidelity Magellan LG 13,313 Putnam GrowIncA m LV 4,086 Putnam MultiCapGrA m LG 2,851 Janus RsrchT LG 1,307 Janus WorldwideT d WS 821 Fidelity Advisor HiIncAdvT m HY 510

YTD %Chg

NAV 10.87 31.29 115.04 67.46 28.73 49.22 16.76 115.80 31.30 32.12 27.09 29.24 28.40 101.64 62.98 12.69 48.08 28.10 39.82 9.34

Total Return/Rank 4-wk 12-mo 5-year +1.5 +4.3/E +8.0/A +0.8 +0.8/B +0.2/B +1.0 +2.1/A -0.2/B -1.1 -0.2/B +2.6/A -1.2 -4.9/D -0.6/D +1.4 +3.0/A +0.9/C +2.4 +5.6/A +1.7/B +1.0 +2.1/A -0.2/B +0.8 +1.0/B +0.3/B -0.6 -7.4/C -0.9/B +0.7 -1.7/C -0.9/C +1.3 -16.4 -3.5 +1.9 +7.1/A +0.1/A +1.1 -4.0/D -4.1/E -0.3 -11.7/E -3.3/E +1.0 -4.8/D -4.2/E -1.8 -5.1/D -0.6/D -1.1 -4.0/D +2.9/A -2.5 -13.8/D -3.8/D +2.3 0.0/E +4.5/D

Pct Min Init Load Invt NL 1,000,000 NL 3,000 NL 5,000,000 NL 2,500 5.75 250 5.75 250 5.75 250 NL 10,000 NL 10,000 5.75 250 5.75 250 NL 2,500 5.75 250 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 5.75 500 5.75 500 NL 2,500 NL 2,500 4.00 2,500

CA -Conservative Allocation, CI -Intermediate-Term Bond, ES -Europe Stock, FB -Foreign Large Blend, FG -Foreign LargeGrowth, FV -Foreign Large Value, IH -World Allocation, LB -Large Blend, LG -Large Growth, LV -Large Value, MA -Moderate Allocation, MB -Mid-Cap Blend, MV Mid-Cap Value, SH -Specialty-heath, WS -World Stock, Total Return: Chng in NAV with dividends reinvested. Rank: How fund performed vs. others with same objective: A is in top 20%, E in bottom 20%. Min Init Invt: Minimum $ needed to invest in fund. Source: Morningstar.

A12

WEATHER

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Today

Tonight

Windy with a few showers High: 44°

Monday

Tuesday

Snow showers High: 32° Low: 22°

Partly cloudy High: 27° Low: 15°

Cloudy Low: 34°

SUN AND MOON

First

Full

Last

Jan. 23

Jan. 30

Jan. 9

Jan. 16

Thursday

Partly cloudy High: 31° Low: 17°

Partly cloudy High: 37° Low: 23°

TODAY’S STATEWIDE FORECAST Sunday, January 1, 2012 AccuWeather.com forecast for daytime conditions, low/high temperatures

MICH.

NATIONAL FORECAST

Sunrise Monday 7:58 a.m. ...........................

Sunset tonight 5:23 p.m. ...........................

Moonrise today 12:10 p.m. ...........................

Moonset today 12:53 a.m. ...........................

New

Wednesday

National forecast Forecast highs for Sunday, Jan. 1

Sunny

Pt. Cloudy

Cloudy

44° 34°

Fronts Cold

Very High

Air Quality Index Good

Moderate

-10s

Harmful

Main Pollutant: Particulate

250

500

Peak group: Absent

Mold Summary 1,980

12,500

25,000

Top Mold: Cladosporium Source: Regional Air Pollution Control Agency

GLOBAL Athens Bangkok Calgary Jerusalem Kabul Kuwait City Mexico City Montreal Moscow Sydney Tokyo Toronto

55 93 43 61 51 66 71 28 35 75 48 33

10s

20s 30s 40s

Temperatures indicate high and overnight low to 8 a.m. Saturday.

0

0

0s

50s 60s

39 73 26 45 21 35 48 0 30 62 41 28

Pressure

Warm Stationary

70s

80s

Low

High

Cincinnati 45° | 36°

90s 100s 110s

Low: -2 at Morrisville, Vt., and Saranac Lake, N.Y.

Portsmouth 49° | 36°

NATIONAL CITIES

Pollen Summary 0

-0s

Yesterday’s Extremes: High: 86 at Harlingen, Texas

45

Columbus 45° | 38°

Dayton 41° | 36°

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10+ High

PA.

TROY •

2

Moderate

Youngstown 41° | 34°

Mansfield 38° | 36°

Today’s UV factor.

Low

Cleveland 41° | 38°

Toledo 38° | 36°

ENVIRONMENT

Minimal

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

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Hi Lo Albany,N.Y. 33 29 57 33 Albuquerque Amarillo 57 38 Anchorage 09 01 Asheville 58 35 Atlanta 65 44 73 36 Austin Baltimore 54 40 46 40 Buffalo Charleston,W.Va.61 50 Charlotte,N.C. 59 48 Cheyenne 54 35 Cincinnati 55 40 Cleveland 48 41 Columbia,S.C. 67 50 Columbus 53 41 Dallas-Ft Worth 67 37 Dayton 50 38 Denver 57 37 Detroit 44 38 Grand Rapids 38 36 Honolulu 80 68 Houston 73 53 Jackson,Miss. 73 35 70 50 Jacksonville Kansas City 54 30

PrcOtlk .01 Rain Clr Clr .09 Clr Clr Clr Clr Cldy .12 Rain Cldy Clr Clr .15 Cldy .23 Cldy Clr .20 Cldy Clr .16 Cldy Clr .34 Cldy .25 Cldy Clr Cldy Clr Clr Clr

Hi 75 Key West Las Vegas 64 Little Rock 67 Los Angeles 66 Louisville 60 Memphis 61 Miami Beach 78 Milwaukee 40 Mpls-St Paul 32 Nashville 59 New York City 51 Oklahoma City 62 Omaha 49 Orlando 74 Philadelphia 55 Phoenix 75 Pittsburgh 51 Rapid City 47 Richmond 59 St Louis 58 St Petersburg 74 San Antonio 77 Santa Fe 48 Seattle 46 Syracuse 39 Tampa 75 Tulsa 65 Washington,D.C. 54

Lo Prc Otlk 66 Clr 44 Clr 35 Clr 45 Clr 45 Cldy 37 Clr 57 Clr 27 .65 Cldy 28 Cldy 39 Clr 47 Rain 35 Clr 30 Clr 53 Clr 43 Cldy 48 Clr 41 .08 Cldy 32 .01Snow 49 Clr 35 Clr 62 Clr 44 Clr 30 Clr 36 .02 Cldy 35 .02 Cldy 59 Clr 38 Clr 46 Cldy

W.VA.

KY.

©

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

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REGIONAL ALMANAC Temperature High Yesterday...........................41 at 12:45 a.m.

Low Yesterday..............................38 at 6:27 a.m.

Normal High .....................................................35 Normal Low ......................................................21 Record High ........................................67 in 1951 Record Low..........................................-6 in 1976

Precipitation 24 hours ending at 5 p.m..............................0.01 Month to date ................................................5.34 Normal month to date ...................................3.13 Year to date .................................................56.72 Normal year to date ....................................41.06 Snowfall yesterday ........................................0.00

TODAY IN HISTORY of Roses was held in Pasadena, Calif.

In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.

In 1913, the U.S. Parcel Post system went into operation.

In 1942, 26 countries, including the United States, signed the Declaration of the United Nations, pledging “not to make a separate armistice or peace” with members of the Axis.

In 1959, Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew

Today is Sunday, Jan. 1, the first day of Leap Year 2012.

There are 365 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight: On Jan. 1, 1912, the Republic of China was established under its first president, Sun Yat-sen.

On this date: In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states were free.

In 1890, the first Tournament

Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

In 1962, the first two U.S. Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) teams were created.

In 1984, the breakup of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.

In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.

Presently over 12,000 customers have come through our doors since September 29, 2008.

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VALLEY

B1 January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Economic development tops wish lists Local officials hope for prosperity in new year

BY MELODY VALLIEU Staff Writer vallieu@tdnpublishing.com

A

s 2011 comes to a close, and we welcome 2012, the hopes for a prosperous new year are rekin-

dled.

With a down economy having weighed on U.S. citizens for yet another year in 2011, one can only hope that a new year will mean the beginning of a rebirth for our nation — from new job opportunities for our unemployed to the housing market bouncing back from its record-breaking foreclosure rate.

On the homefront, it is a presidential election year where citizens can decide whether they believe Barack Obama is the man for the job, or yet another president will be seated in Washington.

With tyrants such as Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gadhafi off the map, the U.S. also can look forward to improved relations as we continue to reach out to the rest of the world.

Here in Miami County, officials hope for much the same things as those on the national level — an improved economic climate where our local residents can get good paying jobs, health care and own homes — back to living the American dream.

The following are a few Miami County officials and their hopes for the new year to come: • As we enter 2012, we welcome new members to council.

Robin Oda, Lynne Snee and Doug Tremblay have been attending meetings for several months and are prepared to “hit the ground running.” Doug, of course, was appointed in late 2011 to fill a vacancy on council. We also welcome our newly elected law director Jim Livingston. I am looking forward to their enthusiasm and ideas and to working with each of them. I will be working with council BAKER and staff during the next two years to formulate processes and procedures to accommodate two additional council members brought forth by two additional wards based on increased population in the city of Troy.

In late 2012 we will see the opening of the new Adams Street Bridge. This cooperative effort involving our residents, Miami County, the city of Troy and many contractors will result in a new river crossing that will hopefully last into the next century.

Challenging financial times are expected to continue and I know that our city auditor John Stickel is prepared to continue his conservative efforts to control spending as council asks the tough questions of whether each item they approve is actually a necessity. I am hopeful that our state legislators will work with the cities in their financial futures rather than presenting additional challenges. City staff continues to seek various grants that permit work to be done on our streets and intersections at a reduced rate to all of us in the city.

The vitality of our downtown is highly important and cooperation between Troy Main Street and the city continues to be imperative. The challenge of having the Troy Strawberry Festival downtown this year is being met with innovative ideas and continuous work by all par-

STAFF PHOTOS/ANTHONY WEBER

Troy Mayor Mike Beamish signs a letter to the city Wednesday at City Hall.

Mayor reflects on 2011, looks forward to 2012 To all Troy residents, Years come, and years go, but this year just seemed to fly by! As 2011 winds down, I’d like to share some reflections on the year just past, as well as some hopes for 2012. As I begin my third term as your Mayor, I continue to be honored and privileged to serve the people of Troy and to bring the qualities of our community to the global stage.

It is certain that these economic times have been a challenge for everyone. While Troy is by no means immune to these difficulties, I am grateful that the people who live, work and play here continue to make Troy, Ohio, a great place. As Mayor, I have always felt it part of my responsibility and privilege to support and highlight the unique attributes of our downtown. I have always referred to it as Troy’s living room, and I firmly believe that its overall beauty lends a welcome to the community.

It has been a priority of council and this administration to place great significance on our economic development efforts. In partnership with the Troy Development Council, we continue to maintain, expand and grow business and industrial opportunities for Troy and this region. We are blessed to have both domestic and international companies providing employment opportunities for our residents. Clopay has become one of our leading employers while the ConAgra expansion project is an example of growing employment opportunities within our community.

A key issue for many communities is maintaining quality services while

ties involved as they strive for success.

The No. 1 priority of council continues to be economic development to bring jobs to our residents and to support those companies who have chosen Troy as their home.

I plan to continue working quietly behind the scenes, coordinating the business of council through teamwork, to assure that the city continues to operate smoothly and financially stable. Finally, I wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year.

— Marty Baker President, Troy City Council

RESOLUTIONS The mayor’s personal 2012 resolutions include: • Spend more quality time with my family, which includes my wife Ginny and our two young grandsons.

• Take a 10- to 30-minute walk every day, exercise more, eat healthier and lose some weight.

• Set some time daily for spiritual meditation and/or prayer. remaining fiscally responsible. As Mayor, I am grateful that through the efforts of our city staff and elected officials, we have been able to accomplish that task for all Trojan residents. I have often said that it takes good people, doing good things to make a great community. In Troy, Ohio, that statement is a way of life.

Troy is very fortunate to have a strong legislative body. In 2012, we will see new faces on the Troy City Council as well as our law director. I know that council draws strength and courage from the knowledge that they represent the people of Troy. In turn, it is our duty to uphold, value and support those who are elected to serve. Each decision made by council affects all of us. I can personally attest that each member of council makes it a top priority to listen to their constituency, and your voices are heard. It will continue to be our goal to think forward, and consider how the choices made today will impact Troy in the decades to come. In today’s world, we must think forward!

I understand the many challenges associated with the new bridge construction.

I truly appreciate the patience and tolerance of all who have re-routed and rediscovered new ways to get around Troy. The end result

• My wish list is very simple: 1. I wish for the state and federal governments to quit looking at our city residents to bail them out of their overspending, and instead that they provide us with the kinds of laws that will help us TITTERINGTON manage our finances better; 2. I hope that the state of Ohio and Miami County Commission and engineer address the funding inequities between cities and townships;

will be a functional, yet aesthetically pleasing new bridge that will be here for decades to come.

The annual Troy Strawberry Festival will also see new challenges and opportunities in 2012. I thank all who have accepted this challenge and will demonstrate our continued resiliency in new and creative ways.

Cooperation is the key element that makes these words more than just a catch phrase. As 2011 draws to a close, I challenge all Trojan residents to continue the tradition of excellence in serving their community. Troy truly is a great place to live, work and raise a family. As we embark on a new year, I ask that you take some time to reflect on all the positives that make Troy, Ohio, very special, the place where “Civic Pride truly is City Wide.” We are too richly blessed to be stressed. Being an optimist, I want to believe the best is yet to come.

As we end 2011 and look forward to 2012, I want to wish all a Happy New Year and extend my best wishes for a prosperous 2012 filled with peace, joy and love.

Sincerely,

Mayor

and, 3. I resolve to focus on helping to bring even more industry and other economic development to Troy.

— Patrick Titterington Troy Service and Safety Director • As we look forward to the arrival of 2012 the largest challenge ahead for the Miami County Sheriff’s Office in the new year will be managing the jail population. The situation with managing the jail population has been exasperated by the recent passage of House Bill 86. HB 86 limited Common

Pleas judges from being able to sentence most felony 4 and 5 offenders to prison. Thus, the burden for those convicCOX tions will now fall to the counties.

My staff and I will continue to work closely with all of the judges and their respective staffs to manage the jail population as effectively as possible and continue to seek any funding sources for jail operations, however the picture appears bleak.

The last part of 2011 has seen a noticeable increase in property related crimes, i.e., burglary, theft, theft from auto, etc. While deputies and detectives have made many arrests, I do not see these types of crimes abating due to the unforeseen consequences of HB 86, more criminals on the streets due to jail overcrowding statewide and the ever increasing heroin problem, which fuels most property crimes in Miami County. Our partnership with the community will be critical in apprehending those who choose to steal.

Most breaks in property crime cases have been and are made by members of the community calling in suspicious behavior.

We are working on ways of getting crime alert information out to the community better and faster in this digital age through website enhancements and neighborhood watch groups.

With the recent changes in staffing levels at the sheriff’s office due to budget cutbacks, I have re-organized my staff eliminating the positions of captain and combining their responsibilities among other supervisors.

Additionally, I have eliminated the position of civil deputy whose primary duties were to handle sheriff’s sales and other related civil responsibilities.

Those responsibilities will now be handled by record’s staff in an effort to keep as many deputies as possible on patrol.

With the recent acquisition and implementation of the new Miami County Public Safety CAD/RMS/Jail/Mobile computer system, it has eliminated much data entry work previously done by record’s staff. This in turn has allowed for record’s staff to take on more tasks that deputies and correction’s staff had previously done, thereby freeing deputies and corrections officers to more mission critical tasks.

Lastly, my staff and I will continue to seek grants and other funding sources to keep our crime fighting arsenal current and hopefully enable us to do more with less. While there are many challenges ahead, I and my staff are committed and ready and will continue to do our best to provide Miami County residents with the law enforcement service they expect and deserve.

I wish all residents a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year.

— Charles A. Cox, Sheriff, Miami County Sheriff’s Office • As we approach a new year, my wish for our area is that all communities recognize that their combined individual uniqueness is our strength and each one offers a quality of life that resonates with its residents, workTHOMPSON ers and visitors.

Personally, my hope is for the health and happiness of my friends and family.

— Diana Thompson Executive Director, Miami County Visitors and Convention Bureau

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B2

NATION

Sunday, January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

AMERICA ON EDGE

As campaign unreels, voters dispirited Americans are uneasy about the future

BY PAULINE ARRILLAGA Associated Press A decade ago, customers flocked to the store in the converted fire station on the east side of Toledo in pursuit of Old Glory.

Howard Pinkley established Flags Sales & Repair in 1960, and runs it with his daughter, Wendy Beallas. In days after Sept. 11, 2001, customers lined up outside the door Americans wanted to show their pride, their determination, their Americanism.

It’s all a fading memory now.

These days, folks here are focused on paying bills. A new flag is a luxury, and the unvarnished patriotism of 10 years ago has been replaced by disgust with government. A recent Wednesday saw just two walk-in customers. Father and daughter have cut their payroll, but talk openly about whether they should give up. They’re no less dispirited than their neighbors.

“I go home and I refuse to listen to the news because it’s frustrating,” Beallas says. “To me, it’s not coming together and getting things done.”

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election, his advertisements boasted that it was morning in America. Nearly three decades later, as another presidential campaign begins, it feels like twilight or, if it is morning, it is the kind of gray winter daybreak when the sun is only a rumor, and only an optimist clings to hope that the clouds will break.

Listen to Americans in three swing states and you’ll hear the same plaintive echoes, not just about politics or the upcoming election, but about the unsettling predicament that is America in 2011. Republicans or Democrats, liberal or conservative, young or old, they lack confidence in the country’s potential to be great again, in their elected leaders’ ability to do the right thing, in the economy and in themselves.

It’s not that they feel incapable of doing what needs to be done, as much as they are uncertain about what that right thing is and whether anything they can do will have any real impact.

In Mount Airy, N.C., where a quaint Main Street is merely a reminder of better days: “We need to get back to the ’60s and the ’50s, and we need to get ourselves back to where we used to be standing on our own two feet,” says long-haul trucker Harry J. Moore, 57, punching a beefy fist into his open left hand to punctuate each syllable. “We’re losing our pride. Our pride’s gone away.”

In North Las Vegas,, Nev., where the bursting of the housing bubble has forced hard choices: “People have lost a lot of spirit,” says Elmer Chowning, 70, who had hoped to slow down in his golden years, but is instead still working in real estate while raising his 8-year-old granddaughter.

And in Lima, Ohio, where folks have seen America’s industrial might falter: “I’m just waiting for China or somebody to take us over. That’s the way it seems,” says Becky Jamison, 36, who has watched her 18-year-old son look unsuccessfully for work for

AP PHOTO/J.D. POOLEY

Howard Pinkley and his daughter Wendy Beallas stand in their family business, Flags Sales & Repairs, in Toledo, Dec. 20. Pinkley established the company a half century ago, and runs it with his daughter, Wendy Beallas. The days after Sept. 11, 2011 were good ones for the flag business. These days though, folks are focused on paying the bills. A new flag is a luxury, and the unvarnished patriotism of a decade ago has been replaced by disgust with government. months. “Because we’re just falling apart.”

If you look, you can find optimism in Ohio. The Armstrong Air & Space Museum is located in Wapakoneta, hometown of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. It stands as a monument to an earlier, more hopeful time, and there are visitors who are convinced that those times can come again.

To Stephen Andrasik, a foam salesman from Indianapolis who has stopped in to the museum on his way back home from a business trip, the U.S. remains resilient, facing problems that can be solved by new leaders in Washington who will allow Americans to live up to their potential.

“I think we’re still the same people we were back then,” says Andrasik. He studies a display case filled with inventions that were spinoffs of the space program, everything from fireproof clothing to battery-powered hand tools. “I’m assuming it’s going to get better as long as the American people have the ability to do what they want, to invent things, to start new businesses, we’ll be as great as we’ve always been.”

But standing before a model of the Apollo 11 command module at the edge of the museum’s parking lot, Jake Retter, a chimney cleaner from Blissfield, Mich., notes the irony of a country that once raced a Communist rival to put a man on the moon and now relies on China to buy its debt.

Rather than pursuing national goals, politicians chase their own divisive agendas, he says. A nation built on hard work and thrift has lost sight of what really matters.

“This country’s been falling apart for the last 50 years. It’s taken time,” Retter says. “It’s not that capitalism is failing us. It’s that we’re failing capitalism.”

For many years, this region provided the muscle of American capitalism. Its pride in its talent for making things is evident in Toledo place names like Jeep Parkway and the Veteran’s Glass City Bridge. The long, slow

Welcome to the neighborhood

AP PHOTO/CHUCK BURTON

Calvin Wood cooks pork chops for customers lined up at Snappy Lunch Dec. 1 in Mount Airy, N.C. This small town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains is the hometown of Andy Griffith and the Mayberry portrayed in his television show — America as it used to be, or as we would like to believe it used to be. decline of factory work has been a source of constant sorrow in the rust belt; recent stirrings like the recent announcements by Chrysler and General Motors that they will add 1,400 new jobs at their plants in Toledo, and Ford’s plans to ramp up engine production in Lima have offered some reason to hope.

“I can definitely feel like the forward momentum is there” jobs at the union hall are picking up, says Kurt Kaufman, 31. A union electrician, he worked steadily until 2006; he has since spent as much as nine months between jobs.

Still, he says, “I don’t think it’s ever going to be as good as it was around here.”

But a bad economy, some say, is not at the core of what ails northwestern Ohio, and America.

There have been hard times before, and there will be again.

The real problem, they say, is in

Americans and their leaders.

“What’s different from this and the Great Depression is that the moral fiber has changed,” says Russ Terry, a retired postal carrier who lives outside Lima and has stopped in for a morning break at The Meeting Place on Market, a coffee and sandwich shop downtown. “The reason we can’t handle this is we don’t have the moral backbone, the stick-toit-tiveness, the collective people working together.”

Terry, who describes his politics as very conservative, blames the federal government for printing too much money in an attempt to stimulate the economy. But at its heart, the country’s failings reflect the will of individuals, he says. “The government is just a reflection of the people, is it not?”

Just down the road from Toledo’s GM plant, Martin Ridener says his worries are

based on more than 20 years of running a 16-unit apartment building he once thought would pay for his retirement. Instead, a building that used to generate a steady income is now barely covering its expenses, as many tenants lose jobs, fall behind on rent and move out. Ridener, who is 75 and votes Republican, can’t imagine voting for President Barack Obama given the state of the economy, but he can’t see how Republicans taking over the White House will make things any better.

“I don’t consider either side wrong in what they’re doing.

What I resent is that every Democrat thinks completely one way and every Republican thinks another way. They’re afraid to talk over it and do what’s best for the country.”

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NATION

Sunday, January 1, 2012

B3

AMERICA ON EDGE

Voters • Continued from B2 Across town, most of the redchecked tables are full at the Hungarian hot dog purveyor Tony Packo’s. But between bites, Pat Shupe, a 72-year-old homemaker, says she worries about the world her 3-year-old granddaughter will inherit with seemingly limited opportunities.

“I absolutely see no light at the end of the tunnel until something is done in this country to equalize opportunity for people to get a job,” Shupe says.

While the 2008 election gave her hope that the country could work through its problems, the gridlock in Washington has robbed her of that brief optimism.

“I think we’re just ruining ourselves,” Shupe says, “destroying ourselves.”

Not everyone shares that bleak outlook. Terri Leary’s employer eliminated her job as a senior housing manager in 2009, six months after her husband lost work in construction management. Leary, 44, was convinced her lack of a college degree had made her expendable, so she enrolled at Owens Community College’s campus in Perrysburg.

Days before her graduation ceremony in early December, she sat in the commons area of College Hall and described the tough times of the last few years as an opportunity, an outlook entirely decoupled from politics.

The job losses and belt-tightening, she is convinced, “was a good thing. It teaches the kids very valuable life lessons, you know, make good with what you have….We learned we can do more with less and be just as happy.”

There are lessons to be learned, agrees 29-year-old Erin Tupper.

She and her husband, Marc, have much to be thankful for — they have been married just a week, they have a home of their own (albeit modest and worth less than it used to be), and Marc prizes his job as a police officer.

But they look around, and see evidence of an America that has lost its way.

Erin, recalling her father’s pride in his work as a truck driver hauling new Jeeps off the Toledo assembly line, says she and her friends talk now of employers who pile on hours while treating workers as expendable. When she drives near her childhood home, she is dismayed by the big homes on what was once farmland, a sign of misplaced values centered on instant gratification and overspending. People seem to be more concerned with themselves and their own narrow interests than in working together for the common good.

“We’re learning a lesson,” she says. And if we don’t, “we’ll be right back to where we were.”

“Your Community of Choice,” reads the motto on signs spread around the city of North Las Vegas, and for a while it was.

Once among the fastest-growing places in the country, the city saw thousands of stucco and tileroof homes sprout up to accommodate retirees and a middle-class work force coming for jobs in the booming casino and construction industries. The city added workers, increased revenue and embarked on ambitious plans for redevelopment projects to keep pace with the growth.

Today the community is deeply in debt, cutting programs, laying off employees, fending off a possible state takeover and weighing still more difficult decisions that will directly affect the 220,000 people who live here. Talk to folks on the street, in the library, at the recreation center, and seemingly everyone knows someone who is out of work. If they own a home, its value has decreased substantially and their neighborhoods are filled with forsaken properties.

You can’t watch TV without seeing local commercials — one after the other — for help with loan modifications or from lawyers vowing to keep the banks from your assets.

The Neighborhood Recreation Center sits in the old part of town,

AP PHOTO/J.D. POOLEY

Marc and Erin Tupper sit inside their home in Toledo Dec. 20. The newlyweds have a home of their own and Marc prizes his job as a police officer. But they look around, and see evidence of an America that has lost its way.

AP PHOTO/JULIE JACOBSON

Vonne Chowning measures the exterior dimensions of a home soon to be up for sale in North Las Vegas, Nev., Dec. 13. Chowning, 68, along with her husband, Elmer, 70, background left, run a real estate service and had hoped to slow down by now, but the housing crisis put an end to those plans. North Las Vegas was once among the fastest-growing places in the country. Then the housing bubble burst, foreclosures abounded, tax revenues plunged and America entered a recession. a lifeline for senior citizens in need and young people whose parents can’t afford fancy gyms.

Over the summer, struggling to plug an overall $30 million budget deficit for the fiscal year and unable to reach a deal with police unions over cuts, the North Las Vegas City Council voted to close the center.

Seniors who consider it a second home revolted, descending on council meetings with signs and petitions in hand.

The facility was saved only after the local police union agreed to defer for six months a cost-ofliving increase and distribution of accumulated holiday pay — enough to keep the center open through next summer.

Recreation supervisor Neil Gallant sits at a desk littered with spreadsheets as he works to find grant money or other ways to subsidize the center’s costs. He talks of his seniors feeling “abandoned” when the City Council voted to close the center’s doors, and of a sense of disconnection between elected leaders and those they serve.

The politicians don’t know the people, Gallant says, “They don’t see them.”

That sentiment was echoed by so many in North Las Vegas, but especially Gallant’s struggling older clientele. They are women like Nita Hargis and Maxine Delisle, who live on meager Social Security checks and depend on the center’s $1.50 hot lunch (rising to $3 come January) and the companionship they find in ceramics class.

One Thursday, instead of molding candy dishes, they vented about the state of their community and the country, and the overarching theme was one of neglect — a feeling that every level of government is ignoring their needs and has failed them, despite so many promises to do otherwise.

For Hargis, a 65-year-old who has lived almost her entire life in North Las Vegas and worked a variety of jobs — painter, gift shop

clerk, remodeler — recent efforts to attempt to modify her home loan left her exasperated and in worse shape than she started.

“They ran me around for nine months. They ruined my credit. I even got one of these government guys that was supposed to help me, and all he did was say, ‘Well, call ‘em back, call ‘em back.’ He never did anything to help me,” she says.

For Delisle, it’s the glaring imbalance between people like her and those in government that leaves her feeling alienated. She notes that there hasn’t been a cost-of-living increase in Social Security for three years, yet it took months of difficult negotiations to get the local police union to agree to forgo its adjustment for just six months.

Nineteen-year-old Oscar Corral works the front desk at the rec center, a philosophical young man with an optimistic smile and outlook. Neither of his parents graduated from high school, and yet his mom is an accounting manager at a local cab company while his father works construction. His dad was laid off not long ago but soon found another job and is “hanging on a thread.”

“There’s this thing about humans. When they’re pushed, I guess they go into survival mode and they really work hard,” says Corral, who studies audio production at The Art Institute of Las Vegas. He likens the many problems facing Americans right now to climbing a mountain. “From far away,” he says, “it looks impossible. But when you start getting close up, you see there’s cracks here that I can climb up and you just attack it little by little. …

Sometimes we just get caught up in the big problem.”

It’s true that in North Las Vegas, as is the case nationally, the problems are so big it’s hard not to get caught up in them.

Band-Aids and eventual union concessions kept the city afloat this fiscal year, but already officials are predicting a $15.5 million

deficit for the next budget cycle.

Says Elmer Chowning, the real estate agent: “We’re a fast society.

We want things to happen. And this is a thing that is lingering, lingering, lingering.”

It’s no wonder, he adds, that people have taken to streets and parks in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

“There is a tremendous feeling of camaraderie,” he says, but also “hurt and madness.”

A couple of weeks ago, North Las Vegas and its residents did their best to put all of that aside for a time. Hundreds gathered on an unusually blustery evening to celebrate the grand opening of a nine-story City Hall — a project launched when the city was flush — and watch as the town Christmas tree was lit.

It was a night meant to represent a fresh start, the promise of tomorrow. Nita Hargis was there with some of her friends from the recreation center, wondering aloud why the city felt the need to hand out commemorative tiles and paperweights and what was the cost to taxpayers. The Chownings brought their granddaughter, and stood in the back as a children’s choir sang Christmas carols and ballerinas danced on the shiny new granite floor.

Soon they, and everyone, were joining in the carols, applauding the entertainers, sipping hot chocolate.

Soon, their worries seemed to fade. At least for one night, anyway.

By comparison, Mount Airy is a bit of fantasy in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. The hometown of Andy Griffith, it is Mayberry — America as it used to be, or as we would like to believe it used to be, when the nation’s industrial and military might was unquestioned and seemed unbounded; when a man, even one without a high school diploma, could earn enough to own a house, buy a new car every couple of years and send his kids to college for a better life than even he’d enjoyed. Stroll down Main Street, and you expect to meet characters like Aunt Bea, Goober and Floyd the barber.

They’re not here. Instead, you’ll find businessmen and women struggling to survive the recession by selling nostalgia, and real people eager to buy.

“They’re looking for what we wish that times could be again,” says Debbie Miles, who moved here with her husband from southern Indiana five years ago and opened Mayberry on Main, where the walls and shelves are lined with items like Aunt Bea’s Kerosene Cucumbers and Otis’s Moonshine Jelly. “That’s the main thing that we hear. ‘We wish that it could be like that again — like it was on the show.’”

Business is down about 10 percent from a couple of years ago.

But Miles can’t afford that kind of pessimism.

“You know, if you’re an optimistic person, you think there’s nowhere to go but up,” she says with a laugh. “It probably does try

everyone, but I think you still have to be optimistic, you know? That’s what Americans are supposed to do — think for the future.”

Darrel Miles — who, like his wife, is a registered Democrat but did not vote for Obama — finds it a bit harder to be hopeful.

“I think they need to turn the whole upside down in Washington and shake it real good,” says Miles, who worked 32 years for a company that made soda and ice dispensers. “I think we might have the wrong government, the wrong people trying to fix certain things.

There’s too many hands in the fire, as you would say. I mean they can’t even come to agreement even within their own parties to fix certain things, you know?”

Across the street, at Snappy Lunch, business is down 20 or 30 percent over a couple of years ago, says Mary Dowell, whose husband Charles has owned the restaurant since 1960.

“We still have tourists who come in, but the bus groups have dropped a little bit,” Dowell says over the sizzle of meat for the diner’s “famous pork chop sandwich.” ”Last year, I did have to give everybody a day a week off, because we were so slow. And we’ll probably do that this year.”

On this sunny afternoon, Jennifer Brown stands outside Snappy Lunch and peers through the window. Her parents, Steve and Diane, both have good jobs in manufacturing. But the 27-yearold Cleveland-area woman, who has an associate’s degree in office management, can’t find permanent employment.

“I did telemarketing. I worked at a park. I even worked at a county fair for a week,” she says. “I’m doing side jobs, some retail. But nothing that I wound up being able to keep.”

Her mother, whose company was recently bought out by a European firm, can’t help feeling that the U.S. is in decline.

“Because the average person can’t graduate from high school and find a job,” she says. “It’s easier for somebody to come from another country and get started than it is for us who grew up here.”

“Mmmm,” her daughter nods in agreement. Jennifer Brown motions to the street scene around her.

“This is where it needs to go back to,” she says. “Like the American dream. America, not the socialist stuff that’s going on. And where you could just, you can get a job.”

Around the corner from the bustle of Main Street, in front of the Andy Griffith Playhouse and Museum, Sheriff Andy Taylor and son Opie stride in bronze, hand in hand, rods over their shoulders, toward an imaginary fishing hole.

A plaque at their feet reads, “a simpler time.”

Inside the museum, the gauges on two vintage “ethyl” gas pumps are frozen at 17.9 cents a gallon.

Oil worker Jeff Zwicker of Vacaville, Calif., poses for a photo with museum founder (and Griffith childhood friend) Emmett Forrest.

Zwicker, 55, a 20-year Air Force veteran who served on cargo planes in Operation Desert Storm, is worried about the deficit and American indebtedness to foreign creditors like China. But if Washington can get those things under control — and he’s confident it can — “I think the future’s great for our country.”

“We’re a great nation,” he says.

“We have a lot of smart people here, and if we put all the smart people on this and get it going.

But you’ve gotta get serious about it, you know? You’ve gotta really do it. You’ve gotta WANT to do it.”

Forrest isn’t so sure. The 84year-old former electric company vice president says Obama has “taken us down the path to absolute ruin” and, if he’s re-elected, “there’ll be no recovery from it.”

“Ten or 20 years ago, I think we were the shining star of the world, and our star has dimmed quite a bit,” he says. “I guess I’m just cornpone patriotic. I love this country and hate to see it go down.”

2240795

TRAVEL

Sunday, January 1, 2012 • B4

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Coal country Guide sees tourism potential in West Virginia MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Some of the bloodiest and most important moments in the American labor movement happened in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. But most who live beyond its rugged mountains, and even many who live in them, don’t know the stories.

Doug Estepp is trying to change that, one busload of tourists at a time.

Estepp grew up in a coal mining family in Mingo County but never heard much about the early 20th century “mine wars” as a child.

The term covers many events in the long, violent struggle to unionize: a deadly gunfight on the streets of Matewan; the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War in the woods above Blair; the firing of machine guns from an armor-plated train on striking miners and their families in the Holly Grove tent colony.

Estepp set out this past summer to tell the tales. With no experience in the tour-bus industry, he took 80 people on two inaugural trips to prove that a region perhaps best known for mine disasters could become West Virginia’s next big destination.

Estepp, a full-time employee of the U.S. Treasury in Martinsburg, made enough money to break even, and he’s expanding in 2012 with six trips, including departures from Beckley, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Hampton Roads, Va., and Washington, D.C. His tour stops show everything from the squalor of company-run camps to coal barons’ mansions in Bramwell.

He’s also taking his customers’ advice and expanding the trips to four days, allowing more time to visit with active and retired miners and the people who re-enact the Matewan Massacre.

“I literally have to drag folks back onto the bus from that one,” Estepp says.

Donna May Paterino, who has led the 30-member Matewan reenactment troupe for 11 seasons, says Estepp’s tours helped her put on 12 street theater shows this year, more than ever before.

If he keeps coming, she may someday be able to raise the money she needs for an outdoor amphitheater.

The battle of Matewan occurred May 19, 1920, between the skilled marksmen of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency and striking miners, some armed with guns from the previous cen-

AP PHOTO/KLAIR GATON

This June 18 photo provided by Klair Gaston shows Doug Estepp, left, as he talks about the assassination of Matewan Chief of Police Sid Hatfield and his friend Ed Chamber in front of the McDowell County Courthouse during a Coal Country tour in Welch, W. Va. Some of the bloodiest and most important moments in the American labor movement happened in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. But most who live beyond its rugged mountains — and even many who live in them — don’t know the stories. Doug Estepp is trying to change that, one busload of tourists at a time. tury. Twelve men died.

“The miners had no rights,” Paterino says. “Their backs were strong, but the coal operators thought their minds were weak.”

They’d been abused and exploited, paid in company scrip, forced to live in company housing and shop in company stores.

Their lives were controlled, their work conditions dangerous, their labor never-ending.

And so they fought for what was then unthinkable. They wanted to be paid by the hour, not the ton. They wanted a week that lasted five days, not seven.

They wanted black miners and white miners to be paid equally.

The shootout, depicted in the 1987 John Sayles film “Matewan,” was a precursor to the 1921 battle of Blair Mountain, when armed miners clashed with law enforcement officers and hired guns who had fortified pickets, protective trenches, homemade bombs and machine guns.

At least 16 men died in that battle before the miners surrendered to federal troops.

“The struggles were so unreal,” Paterino says. “And when you start researching it, you realize it was just the beginning.”

Estepp says his clients always have the same question: “Why haven’t we heard this before?”

AP PHOTO/DOUG ESTEPP

This photo provided by Doug Estepp shows a group photo of an inaugural West Virginia Mine War Tour on the steps of the Whipple Company Store (circa 1890) in Scarbro, W.Va. The mine wars, he says, weren’t taught in West Virginia schools or included in textbooks.

For generations after the battles, “a lot of folks on both sides just simply wouldn’t talk about it,” he says. “They didn’t want to bring up hard feelings.”

Things only began to change after the release of the movie, which was actually shot in the Fayette County town of Thurmond.

Eleanore Hofstetter of

Baltimore took one of Estepp’s first tours with a friend. “We very much enjoyed it,” she said.

“It was tremendously educational; we didn’t know anything about the coal country wars.”

She even loved the accommodations in state park lodges: “They’re almost like luxury resorts.”

Estepp, who studied the conflicts as a student at West Virginia University and graduated with a degree in history, is

IF YOU GO …

• COAL COUNTRY TOURS: http://coalcountrytours.com or 540-233-0543. Four-day trips are $599 per person, double occupancy, all-inclusive (motorcoach, lodging, meals etc.) Departures for 2012 are May 17-20 from Columbus, Ohio; May 24-27 from Washington D.C.; June 7-10 from Pittsburgh; Sept. 13-16 from Hampton Roads, Va.; and Oct. 47 from Baltimore. Participants can also meet any of the tours in Beckley, W.Va. • MERCER COUNTY CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU: http://www.visitmercercounty.com/ or (800) 221-3206. “electrifying” in his enthusiasm, says Marie Blackwell, head of the Mercer County Convention & Visitors Bureau in Princeton.

“His possibilities are endless.”

Two years ago, the visitors’ bureau was in a branding crisis.

The area doesn’t have the same outdoor offerings as counties that capitalize on whitewater rafting, scenic gorges and rock climbing. So Blackwell tested a new theme, “Discover America’s Coal Story,” at a convention in Columbus. People snatched up brochures and offered to buy the coal figurines she’d brought along.

Blackwell called her staff.

“We’re coal and railroads,” she told them. “That’s what people are after, and that needs to be our branding.”

“It’s not whether you should or should not mine coal,” she says. “We’re sharing the stories of how the people have lived and worked, what their lives have been like.”

One of Estepp’s first stops is the Whipple Company Store in Scarbro, built in 1890 by Justus Collins, who came up with the idea of using Baldwin-Felts men to break strikes and ran his camp like a prison.

Now privately owned, the store has been preserved and turned into a museum. It features a hand-operated freight elevator, post office, switchboard station, two walk-in safes and a secret second floor.

It sets the tone, Estepp says, helping people understand the gap between the men who ran the companies and the laborers who kept them in business.

“We really try to explain each site and how it relates to the next one and the previous one,” he says.

Estepp has already branched out to include three Hatfield & McCoy Tours next year, exploring the feud between the legendary families from Kentucky and West Virginia.

If his second year proves successful, Estepp may add even more stops to the Mine War Tour, including the courthouse in Welch where Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield was assassinated the year after the gunfight.

He’s already got a few reservations.

First U.S. museum dedicated to Greek culture opens CHICAGO (AP) — Dolls a Greek woman made during World War II. Ice cream bowls and wooden spoons from a 1940s Greek candy store.

Thousands of record albums filled with Greek music.

These items and many other beloved objects and family heirlooms have found their way from around the country to the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago, which has a new place to store and exhibit them all, in a four-story 40,000square-foot environmentally friendly building of limestone and glass that opened in early December.

The $20 million project in the city’s Greektown neighborhood, which includes temporary and permanent exhibition space, classrooms, oral history archives, a library and roof patio overlooking downtown, replaces the museum’s previous space a few blocks away on one floor of a four-story build-

IF YOU GO …

• NATIONAL HELLENIC MUSEUM: 333 S. Halsted St., Chicago; http://www.nationalhellenicmuseum.org or 312-6551234. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays); SaturdaySunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Adults, $10; seniors and students, $8; children 3-12, $7.

• GETTING THERE: The museum is within walking distance of the Chicago Transit Authority’s No. 8 bus and Blue Line’s UICHalsted stop in the West Loop neighborhood. Street parking and pay parking are available.

ing.

“This museum became by default the repository for artifacts from the Greek American experience because there was no other place people felt secure donating their items,” said Stephanie

AP PHOTO/NATIONAL HELLENIC MUSEUM

This undated photo courtesy of National Hellenic Museum shows the exterior of the new 40,000-squarefoot National Hellenic Museum in Chicago’s Greektown neighborhood. The new four-story, green building of limestone and glass opened in early December.

Vlahakis, the museum’s executive director.

Outside the museum, the street bustles with diners at Greek restaurants like The Parthenon, Athena or Santorini. A group of men speak Greek during an animated game of backgammon at the Panhellenic Pastry Shop with mounds of powdered sugar almond cookies and baklava piled in the glass cases behind the counter.

“We are telling the

story of Greek America,” Vlahakis said. “We just start from the beginning, from ancient times and bring it to the modern times.”

The museum is a work in progress, with a skeleton version of the permanent exhibit on the second floor. Curators have scribbled design concepts in colored marker on the walls, like “absolutely want mosaic work” or “look into etching on

glass?” The hope is to raise enough money to fill the displays out in a year.

But there is still plenty to see: shelves filled with items from a Greek family in New York, a wall of black and white pictures that chronicles the story of Greek immigrants in America and an area to learn the Greek alphabet.

Visitors can watch a short introductory video narrated by, who else, George Stephanopoulos.

Museum curator Bethany Fleming hopes to travel to Greece and make casts of columns, gates and parts of temples to bring back to Chicago.

Downstairs the temporary exhibit space is home to “Gods, Myths and Mortals: Discover Ancient Greece,” an exhibit on loan from the Children’s Museum of Manhattan until August. It’s a child’s view of the daily life of ancient Greece and its legends and heroes, like Aristotle, Odysseus and Cyclops.

“What we want to do with all our exhibits is create a place where all generations of visitors can connect,” Fleming said.

There’s a kid-sized recreated Greek temple, and children can dress up in togas in front of a mirror or crawl into a junglegym Trojan horse.

Interspersed are nearly three dozen Greek artifacts, including coins, pottery and figurines. One Macedonian drachma coin dates to 336-323 B.C. and is about the size of a dime.

The museum building itself is inspired by nature, containing elements of earth, air, fire and water. Inside a large, sky-lit stairway leads visitors from east to west, symbolizing the travel of Greek immigrants from Europe to America.

Everything, Vlahakis says, was done deliberately to parallel the Greek American experience.

“So much of our world is inspired by the ancient,” she said.

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ENTERTAINMENT

Sunday, January 1, 2012

B5

Movie crowds dip to 16-year low as apathy lingers LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood has more tricks in its bag than ever with digital 3-D and other new film tools. Yet as the images on screen get bigger and better, movie crowds keep shrinking down to a 16-year low as 2011’s film lineup fell well short of studios’ record expectations.

Through New Year’s Eve on Saturday, projected domestic revenues for the year stand at $10.2 billion, down 3.5 percent from 2010’s, according to boxoffice tracker Hollywood.com.

Taking higher ticket prices into account, movie attendance is off even more, with an estimated 1.28 billion tickets sold, a 4.4 percent decline and the smallest movie audience since 1995, when admissions totaled 1.26 billion.

Just what has put the movie business in the dumps is anyone’s guess though safe bets include the tight economy, rising ticket prices, backlash against parades of sequels or remakes, and an almost-limitless inventory of portable and at-home gadgetry to occupy people’s time.

The year got off to a dismal start with what could be called an “Avatar” hangover, when revenues lagged far behind 2010 receipts that had been inflated by the huge success of James Cameron’s sci-fi sensation.

A solid summer lineup helped studios catch up to 2010, but ticket sales flattened again in the fall and have remained sluggish right into what was expected to be a terrific holiday season.

“There were a lot of highprofile movies that just ended up being a little less than were hoped for,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, whose sequel “Alvin and Chipmunks: the Chipwrecked” has been part of an under-achieving lineup of family films for the holidays. “The fall was pretty dismal. There just weren’t any real breakaway, wideappeal films.”

Big franchises still are knocking it out of the park.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the finale to J.K. Rowling’s fantasy epic, was the year’s biggest earner and the top-

AP PHOTO/PARAMOUNT PICTURES, ROBERT ZUCKERMAN, FILE

In this file film publicity image released by Paramount Pictures, Shia LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, left, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley plays Carly Miller in a scene from “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” grossing film in the series at $381 million domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide.

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” pulled in $352 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide, while “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” has climbed to $271 million domestically and $650 million worldwide.

Other franchises did well in 2011 but came up short of their predecessors on the domestic front, among them “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” ”The Hangover Part II,” ”Kung Fu Panda 2,” ”Cars 2” and “XMen: First Class.”

Strong overseas business has helped make up for shrinking domestic revenues and declining DVD sales. But 2011 was the second-straight year that domestic attendance declined sharply, and audiences generally have been shrinking since 2002, when admissions hit a modern high of 1.6 billion.

It could be a case of the same-old same-olds, with fans growing tired of overfamiliar characters and stories. It could be overcrowded weekends such as Thanksgiving, when studios loaded up on family films that cannibalized one another’s audiences. It could be the economy, with fans growing more selective on how often they spend their spare cash to catch a movie, particularly at a time when so many films play in 3-D with premium ticket prices.

And it could be the times we live in, when audiences have so many gadgets to play with that they don’t

need to go to the movies as much as they once did.

“It’s not any one thing.

It’s a little bit of everything,” said Jeff Goldstein, general sales manager at Warner Bros., whose Robert Downey Jr. sequel “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” has done solid business, yet is coming in well short of the first installment. “But consumers are being more specific with their choices on how to spend their money.

The options are a little greater than they were a few years ago with gaming and social-networking opportunities.”

The year’s animated slate failed to produce a $200 million hit, the first time that’s happened since 2005. Likewise, comic-book superheroes slipped in 2011, the genre unable to deliver a $200 million hit for only the second time in the last 10 years.

Even Adam Sandler, one of Hollywood’s most-bankable stars, had a mixed year, managing a $100 million hit with “Just Go With It” but barely crossing $70 million with “Jack and Jill.”

Studio executives typically blame slow business on “the product” weak movies that leave fans indifferent. But during the first few months of the year, when business lagged as much as 20 percent behind 2010’s, studios were confident they had great product coming, with many executives predicting that 2011 would finish with record revenues, topping the all-time domestic high of $10.6 billion in 2009.

The movies themselves

turned out fairly good, and surprise smashes such as “Bridesmaids,” ”The Help,” ”Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “The Smurfs” boosted business.

But the year was littered with duds (“Happy Feet Two,” ”Tower Heist,” ”Cowboys & Aliens”). And with only days left in 2011, Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol” is leading a batch of holiday releases that so far has done only so-so business.

Hollywood is left right where it was 12 months ago, finishing the year quietly and looking ahead to a promising lineup to turn its fortunes around next year.

Even more so than 2011’s schedule once looked, the 2012 film list looks colossal. Among the highlights: the superhero tales “The Dark Knight Rises,” ”The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Avengers”; the latest in the animated franchises “Ice Age” and “Madagascar,” along with “Brave,” the new adventure from animation master Pixar; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ “Men in Black 3”; Daniel Craig’s new James Bond thriller “Skyfall”; Johnny Depp’s vampire story “Dark Shadows”; Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” a cousin to his sci-fi classic “Alien”; and Jackson’s “The Peter Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first in a twopart prequel to his “Lord of the Rings” films.

That’s just a small sampling of 2012’s big-screen titles, which also include 3D reissues of “Titanic,” ”Finding Nemo,” ”Beauty and the Beast” and “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.”

Looking ahead, there’s good reason for optimism in Hollywood. Looking back, though, the past year spells caution.

“I’m not prepared to be Chicken Little yet, but if the films coming in 2012 can’t reverse this trend, then I think we need to reevaluate our expectations,” said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

“We are living in a different world today than we did in the mid-’90s in terms of the technology available to deliver media. That may finally be having an impact.”

Forrest Gump, Hannibal Lecter join registry

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bambi, Forrest Gump and Hannibal Lecter have at least one thing in common: Their cinematic adventures were chosen by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the world’s largest archive of film, TV and sound recordings.

Top Christian Albums “The Silence of the 1. Come To The Well, Lambs” (1991), a harrowCasting Crowns. Beach ing psychological thriller Street/Reunion/Providentabout the cannibalistic Integrity. serial killer Lecter, and 2. WOW Hits 2012.

“Forrest Gump” (1994), Various artists. Wordstarring Tom Hanks as the Curb/Provident-Integrity/EMI guileless hero who thinks Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs CMG. “life is like a box of choco1. Lotus Flower Bomb, 3. How Great Is Our God: lates,” were critical and Wale Featuring Miguel.

The Essential Collection, commercial successes that Maybach/Warner Bros.

Chris Tomlin. won the Academy Award 2. … in Paris, Jay Z sixsteps/Sparrow/EMI CMG. for Best Picture. The aniKanye West. Roc-A4. WOW Christmas: 32 mated Disney classic Christian Artists And Holiday Fella/Roc Nation/Def “Bambi” is among the most Jam/IDJMG. Songs. Various artists. EMI beloved movies ever made.

3. Party, Beyonce CMG/ProvidentA majority of the 25 Featuring Andre 3000.

Integrity/Word-Curb. titles chosen this year for Parkwood/Columbia.

5. Positively Christmas. inclusion in the National 4. Make Me Proud, Drake Various artists. Word-Curb.

Film Registry are lesser6. What If We Were Real, Featuring Nicki Minaj. Young known including silent Mandisa. Sparrow/EMI CMG. Money/Cash films, documentaries, Money/Universal Republic.

7. Awake, Skillet. avant-garde cinema and 5. Dance, Big Sean Ardent/Fair even home movies. The Featuring Nicki Minaj.

Trade/Atlantic/ProvidentLibrary of Congress G.O.O.D./Def Jam/IDJMG. Integrity. announced the selections 6. She Will, Lil Wayne 8. Vice Verses, Switchfoot.

Tuesday.

Featuring Drake. Young lowercase The registry began in people/Credential/EMI CMG. Money/Cash 1989 under an act of 9. Glory, Michael W. Smith. Money/Universal Republic.

Congress and now includes 7. That Way, Wale MWS/Provident-Integrity.

575 films. Its aim is not to Featuring Jeremih & Rick 10. Christmas In Diverse identify the best movies City, tobyMac. ForeFront/EMI Ross. Maybach/Warner Bros. ever made but to preserve 8. You The Boss, Rick CMG. films with artistic, cultural Ross Featuring Nicki Minaj. or historical significance.

Maybach/Def Jam/IDJMG. Mainstream Rock Songs Previous titles chosen 9. Can’t Get Enough, J. 1. Face To The Floor, range from “The Birth of a Cole Featuring Trey Songz.

Chevelle. Epic.

Nation” to “National Roc Nation/Columbia.

2. Buried Alive, Avenged Lampoon’s Animal House.”

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“Forrest Gump” has its Hopeless/Sire/Warner Bros. Young Money/Cash critical detractors but was Money/Universal Republic.

3. A Warrior’s Call,

praised for its technical achievements, including the seamless incorporation of the title character into historical footage.

More than 2,200 films were nominated for the registry this year. The National Film Preservation Board pares them down before Librarian of Congress James H. Billington makes the final selections.

“Each year, we do try to pick one of the titles that the public nominated the most, and ‘Forrest Gump’ was way up there on that list,” said Stephen Leggett, program coordinator for the National Film Preservation Board.

“Everything on the list is subject to dissenting opinion.”

Staffers at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Va., work to ensure that each title is preserved for future generations, packing away original negatives or unreleased prints into the facility’s massive vault and collaborating with other preservationists, movie studios and independent filmmakers.

“These films are selected because of their enduring significance to American culture,” Billington said in a statement. “Our film heritage must be protected because these cinematic treasures document our history and culture and reflect our hopes and dreams.”

Leggett said he was pleased by the inclusion of “The Negro Soldier,” a 1944 documentary produced by Frank Capra that was groundbreaking for its realistic and positive depiction of African-Americans.

It became mandatory viewing for soldiers entering the army in the latter stages of the war and was shown in commercial theaters.

“It was kind of ironic because the official Army policy at the time was still segregation. You had a film which was implicitly if not explicitly promoting integration,” he said.

Films must be at least 10 years old to be considered for the registry.

The oldest movies selected this year are both from 1912. “The Cry of the Children” is about the preWorld War I child labor reform movement, and “A Cure for Pokeritis” stars John Bunny, regarded as the American film industry’s earliest comic superstar.

“A lot of people would argue that the humor is kind of dated,” Leggett said of Bunny’s films mostly short domestic comedies in which he played a henpecked husband. “He really was a major figure at the time. It doesn’t help your reputation when people like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton come after you.”

Chaplin’s first feature, “The Kid” (1921), was also chosen for the registry.

It was a big year for actress Sally Field, who costarred in “Forrest Gump.” ”Norma Rae” (1979), featuring her Oscar-winning performance as a single mother who fought to unionize a Southern textile mill, also made this year’s list.

Among the other titles chosen: “The Big Heat,” a 1953 film noir starring Glenn Ford; “The Lost Weekend,” Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning alcoholism drama; “Porgy and Bess,” starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge; “Stand and Deliver,” starring Edward James Olmos as an inspiring East Los Angeles math teacher; and John Ford’s epic 1924 Western “The Iron Horse.”

Among the lesserknown titles chosen this year, “A Computer Animated Hand” (1972) by Pixar Animation Studios co-founder Ed Catmull was one of the earliest examples of 3D computer-generated imagery. The oneminute film shows a hand turning, opening and closing.

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MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

SCHEDULE SUNDAY 1/1 ONLY WAR HORSE (PG-13) 11:45 3:00 6:20 9:45 MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (PG-13) 12:00 3:40 7:00 10:10 THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (R) 11:30 3:10 6:35 10:00 THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN 3-D ONLY (PG) 11:10 2:00 7:55 10:30 THE SITTER (R) 10:25

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (PG) 12:15 3:55 7:15 10:20 THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN 2-D ONLY (PG) 4:40 SHERLOCK HOLMES 2: A GAME OF SHADOWS (PG-13) 11:00 1:55 4:50 7:45 10:40 ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED (G) 11:20 12:30 1:40 2:50 4:10 5:15 6:45 9:10 NEW YEARS EVE (PG-13) 7:35

B6

Sunday, January 1, 2012

VALLEY

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

DATES TO REMEMBER age-appropriate ways to parent children. Call 339-6761 for more information. There is no charge for this • DivorceCare seminar and sup- program. port group will meet from 6:30-8 • Narcotics Anonymous, Hug A p.m. at Piqua Assembly of God Miracle, will meet at 7 p.m. at the Church, 8440 King Arthur Drive, Church of the Brethren, 1431 W. Piqua. Child care provided through Main St., Troy, use back door. the sixth-grade.

• Narcotics Anonymous, • COSA, an anonymous 12-step Inspiring Hope, 12:30 p.m., Trinity recovery program for friends and Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset family members whose lives have Road, Troy. been affected by another person’s • Sanctuary, for women who compulsive sexual behavior, will have been affected by sexual meet in the evening in Tipp City. For abuse, location not made public. more information, call 463-2001.

Must currently be in therapy. For • AA, Piqua Breakfast Group will more information, call Amy Johns at meet at 8:30 a.m. at Westminter 667-1069, Ext. 430 Presbyterian Church, corner of Ash • Miami Valley Women’s Center, and Caldwell streets, Piqua. The dis- 7049-A Taylorsville Road, Huber cussion meeting is open.

Heights, offers free pregnancy test• AA, Troy Trinity Group meets at ing, noon to 4 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. For 7 p.m. for open discussion in the 12 more information, call 236-2273.

Step Room at the Trinity Episcopal • Pilates for Beginners, 8:30-9:30 Church, 1550 Henley Road, Troy. a.m. and 5:30-6:30 p.m. at 27 1/2 E. • AA, open meeting, 6 p.m., Main St., Tipp City. For more inforWestminster Presbyterian Church, mation, call Tipp-Monroe corner of Ash and Caldwell streets, Community Services at 667-8631 or Piqua. Alley entrance, upstairs.

Celeste at 669-2441.

• AA, Living Sober meeting, open • Next Step at Noon, noon to 1 to all who have an interest in a p.m. at Ginghamsburg South sober lifestyle, 7:30 p.m., Campus, ARK, 7695 S. County Westminster Presbyterian Church, Road 25-A, one mile south of the corner of Ash and Caldwell streets, main campus.

Piqua.

• Al-Anon, “The Language of • Narcotics Anonymous, Winner’s Letting Go, Women’s Al-Anon,” will Group, will meet at 5 p.m. at Trinity be at 6:45 p.m. at the Presbyterian Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset Church, Franklin and Walnut Ave., Troy. Open discussion . streets, Troy. Women dealing with • Narcotics Anonymous, Poison an addiction issue of any kind in a Free, 7 p.m., First United Methodist friend or family member are invited.

Church, 202 W. Fourth St., third floor, Greenville.

TUESDAY • Narcotics Anonymous, Never Alone, Never Again, 6:30 p.m., First • Deep water aerobics will be Christian Church, 212 N. Main St., offered from 9-10 a.m. or 6-7 p.m. at Sidney Lincoln Community Center, 110 Ash • Teen Talk, where teens share their everyday issues through com- St., Troy. For more information, call munication, will meet at 6 p.m. at the Carmen Pagano at (469) 667-3059 or 335-2715.

Troy View Church of God, 1879 • Hospice of Miami County Staunton Road, Troy.

“Growing Through Grief” meetings • Singles Night at The Avenue are at 11 a.m. on the first, third and will be from 6-10 p.m. at the Main fifth Tuesdays of each month, and 7 Campus Avenue, Ginghamsburg Church, 6759 S. County Road 25-A, p.m. the second and fourth Troy. Each week, cards, noncompeti- Tuesdays and are designed to provide a safe and supportive environtive volleyball, free line dances and ment for the expression of thoughts free ballroom dance lessons. Child and feelings associated with the care for children birth through fifth grade is offered from 5:45-7:45 p.m. grief process. All sessions are availeach night in the Main Campus able to the community and at the building. For more information, call Hospice Generations of Life Center, 667-1069, Ext. 21.

550 Summit Ave., second floor, Troy, • A Spin-In group, practicing the with light refreshments provided. No art of making yarn on a spinning reservations are required. For more wheel, meets from 2-4 p.m. on the information, call Susan Cottrell at third Sunday at Tippecanoe Weaver Hospice of Miami County, 335and Fibers Too, 17 N. 2nd St., Tipp 5191.

City. All knitters are invited to attend.

• A daytime grief support group For more information, call 667-5358. meets on the first, third and fifth Tuesdays at 11 a.m. at the Generations of Life Center,, second MONDAY floor, 550 Summit Ave., Troy. The support group is open to any griev• Christian 12 step meetings, “Walking in Freedom,” are offered at ing adults in the greater Miami 7 p.m. at Open Arms Church, 4075 County area and there is no participation fee. Sessions are facilitated Tipp Cowlesville Road, Tipp City.

• Shallow water aerobics will be by trained bereavement staff. Call 573-2100 for details or visit the offered from 8-9 a.m. or 11 a.m. to website at homc.org. noon at the Lincoln Community • A children’s support group for Center, 110 Ash St., Troy. For more any grieving children ages 6-11 information, call Carmen Pagano at years in the greater Miami County (469) 667-3059 or 335-3059.

• AA, Big Book discussion meet- area will meet from 6-7:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday evenings ing will be at 11 a.m. at Trinity at the Generations of Life Center, Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset second floor, 550 Summit Ave., Troy.

Road, Troy, in the 12 Step Room.

There is no participation fee.

The discussion is open to the pubSessions are facilitated by trained lic.

• AA, Green & Growing will meet bereavement staff and volunteers.

Crafts, sharing time and other grief at 8 p.m. The closed discussion support activities are preceded by a meeting (attendees must have a light meal. desire to stop drinking) will be at • A Fibromyalgia Support group Troy View Church of God, 1879 Old will meet from 6:30-8 p.m. the first Staunton Road, Troy.

• AA, There Is A Solution Group Tuesday at the Troy First United will meet at 8 p.m. in Ginghamsburg Methodist Church, 110 W. Franklin St., Troy, in Room 313. Enter from United Methodist Church, County Road 25-A, Ginghamsburg. The dis- south parking lot. The support group cussion group is closed (participants is free. For more information, conmust have a desire to stop drinking). tact Aimee Shannon at 552-7634.

• The Concord Township • AA, West Milton open discusTrustees will meet at 10 a.m. on the sion, 7:30 p.m., Good Shepherd first and third Tuesday at the townLutheran Church, rear entrance, ship building, 2678 W. State Route 1209 S. Miami St. Non-smoking, 718. handicap accessible.

• The Miami Shelby Chapter of • Al-Anon, Serenity Seekers will meet at 8 p.m. in the 12 Step Room the Barbershop Harmony Society will meet at 7:30 p.m. at Greene at Trinity Episcopal Church, 60 S. Street United Methodist Church, Dorset Road, Troy. The discussion meeting is open. A beginner’s meet- 415 W. Greene St., Piqua. All men interested in singing are welcome ing begins at 7:30 p.m. and visitors always are welcome.

• Alternatives: Anger/Rage For more information, call 778-1586 Control Group for adult males, 7-9 or visit the group’s Web site at p.m., Miami County Shelter, 16 E. Franklin St., Troy. Issues addressed www.melodymenchorus.org.

• Divorce Care, 7 p.m. at are physical, verbal and emotional Richards Chapel, 831 McKaig Ave., violence toward family members Troy. Video/small group class and other persons, how to express designed to help separated or feelings, how to communicate divorced people. For more informainstead of confronting and how to tion, call 335-8814. act nonviolently with stress and • An adoption support group for anger issues. adoptees and birthmothers will • Mind Over Weight Total meet on the first Tuesday of each Fitness, 6-7 p.m., 213 E. Franklin month. Call Pam at 335-6641 for St., Troy. Other days and times available. For more information, call time and location.

• The Mental Health Association 339-2699. of Miami County will meet at 4 p.m.

• TOPS (Take Off Pounds on the first Tuesday in the conferSensibly), 6 p.m., Zion Lutheran ence room of the Tri-County Board Church, 11 N. Third St., Tipp City. of Recovery & Mental Health, New members welcome. For more Stouder Center, 1100 Wayne St., information, call 667-6436.

Troy. Use the west entrance to the • Troy Noon Optimist Club will fourth floor. meet at noon at the Tin Roof • AA, women’s meeting, 8-9 restaurant. Guests welcome. For p.m., Dettmer’s Daniel Dining more information, call 440-9607.

• Weight Watchers, Westminster Room.

• AA Tuesday night meeting, 7 Presbyterian, Piqua, weigh-in is at 5 p.m., Troy Church of the Brethren, and meeting at 5:30 p.m.

1431 W. Main St., Troy.

• Parenting Education Groups • AA, The Best Is Yet To Come will meet from 6-8 p.m. at the Family Abuse Shelter of Miami County, 16 Group will meet at 11 a.m. in the 12 E. Franklin St., Troy. Learn new and Step Room at Trinity Episcopal

TODAY

Church, 60 S. Dorset Road, Troy.

The discussion is open.

• AA, Tipp City Group, Zion Lutheran Church, Main and Third streets at 8 p.m. This is a closed discussion (participants must have a desire to stop drinking).

• Al-Anon, 8:30 p.m. Sidney Group, Presbyterian Church, corner North and Miami streets, Sidney.

• AA, 7 p.m. at Troy Church of the Brethren, 1431 W. Main St., Troy. Open discussion.

• An Intermediate Pilates class will be from 9-10 a.m. and 6-7 p.m. at 27 1/2 E. Main St., Tipp City. For more information, call Tipp-Monroe Community Services at 667-8631 or Celeste at 669-2441.

• Women’s Anger/Rage Group will meet from 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays at the Family Abuse Shelter of Miami County, 16 E. Franklin St., Troy.

Issues addressed are physical, verbal and emotional violence toward family members and other persons, how to express feelings, how to communicate instead of confronting and how to act nonviolently with stress and anger issues. Call 3396761 for more information.

• Narcotics Anonymous, Just For Tuesday, will meet at 7 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset Ave., Troy. This is an open discussion.

• Narcotics Anonymous, Unity Group, 7 p.m., Freedom Life Ministries Church, 9101 N. County Road 25-A, Piqua. Open discussion.

• Public bingo, license No. 010528, will begin with early birds at 7 p.m. and regular bingo at 7:30 p.m. at the Elks Lodge No. 833, 17 W. Franklin St., Troy. Use the Cherry Street entrance. Doors open at 5 p.m. Instant tickets also will be available.

• Public bingo — paper and computer — will be offered by the Tipp City Lumber Baseball organization from 7-10 p.m. at the West Milton Eagles, 2270 S. Miami St., West Milton. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and concessions will be available. Proceeds will benefit the sponsorship of five Little League baseball teams. For more information, call 543-9959.

• DivorceCare will be every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Troy Church of the Nazarene, State Route 55 and Barnhart Road, Troy.

The group is open to men and women. For more information, call Patty at 440-1269 or Debbie at 3358397.

• Christian 12-Step, 7-8:30 p.m. at Ginghamsburg South Campus, ARK, 7695 S. County Road 25-A, one mile south of the main campus.

WEDNESDAY • Shallow water aerobics will be offered from 8-9 a.m. or 11 a.m. to noon at the Lincoln Community Center, 110 Ash St., Troy. For more information, call Carmen Pagano at (469) 667-3059 or 335-3059.

• Skyview Wesleyan Church, 6995 Peters Road, Tipp City, will offer a free dinner at 6:15 p.m. Bible study will begin at 7 p.m.

• The “Sit and Knit” group meets from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Tippecanoe Weaver and Fibers Too, 17 N. 2nd St., Tipp City. All knitters are invited to attend. For more information, call 667-5358.

• Grandma’s Kitchen, a homecooked meal prepared by volunteers, is offered every Wednesday from 5-6:30 p.m. in the activity center of Hoffman United Methodist Church, 201 S. Main St., West Milton, one block west of State Route 48. The meal, which includes a main course, salad, dessert and drink, is $6 per person, or $3 for a children’s meal. The meal is not provided on the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s.

• An Alzheimer’s Support Group will meet from 4-5:30 p.m. the first and third Wednesday of every month at Hospice of Miami County, 530 Wayne St., Troy. The group is for anyone dealing with dementia of a loved one. For more information, call Darla York at 335-3651.

• The Kiwanis Club will meet at noon at the Troy Country Club, 1830 Peters Road, Troy. Non-members of Kiwanis are invited to come meet friends and have lunch. For more information, contact Bobby Phillips, vice president, at 335-6989.

• The Troy American Legion Post No. 43 euchre parties will begin at 7:30 p.m. For more information, call 339-1564.

• AA, Pioneer Group open discussion will meet at 9:30 a.m. Enter down the basement steps on the north side of The United Church Of Christ on North Pearl Street in Covington. The group also meets at 8:30 p.m. Monday night and is wheelchair accessible.

• AA, Serenity Island Group will meet at 8 p.m. in the Westminster Presbyterian Church, corner of Ash and Caldwell streets, Piqua. The discussion is open.

• AA, 12 & 12 will meet at 8 p.m. for closed discussion, Step and Tradition meeting, in the 12 Step Room, Trinity Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset Road, Troy.

• AA, open discussion, 8 p.m., Westminster Presbyterian Church, corner of Ash and Caldwell streets,

Piqua. Use the alley entrance, upstairs.

• Al-Anon, Trinity Group will meet at 11 a.m. in the 12 Step Room at Trinity Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset Road, Troy.

• Men’s Anger/Rage Group will meet from 6-8 p.m. at the Family Abuse Shelter of Miami County, 16 E. Franklin St., Troy. Issues addressed are physical, verbal and emotional violence toward family members and other persons, how to express feelings, how to communicate instead of confronting and how to act nonviolently with stress and anger issues. Call 339-6761 for more information.

• A Domestic Violence Support Group for Women will meet from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Family Abuse Shelter of Miami County, 16. E. Franklin St., Troy. Support for battered women who want to break free from partner violence is offered.

There is no charge for the program.

For more information, call 3396761.

• Narcotics Anonymous, Inspiring Hope, 12:30 p.m., Trinity Episcopal Church, 60 S. Dorset Road, Troy.

• Children’s Creative Play Group will be from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Family Abuse Shelter of Miami County, 16 E. Franklin St., Troy.

School-age children will learn appropriate social interactions and free expression through unique play therapy. There is no charge for this program. More information is available by calling 339-6761.

• Narcotics Anonymous, 7:30 p.m., Spirit of Recovery, Church of the Brethren, 1431 W. Main St., Troy.

• Weight Watchers, Suite 2600, Stouder Center, Troy, at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. For more information, call (800) 374-9191.

• Overeaters Anonymous will meet at 7:30 p.m. at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, 9100 N. Main St., State Route 48, between Meijer and Samaritan North. For other meetings or information, call 252-6766 or (800) 589-6262, or visit the Web site at www.region5oa.org.

• Miami Valley Women’s Center, 7049-A Taylorsville Road, Huber Heights, offers free pregnancy testing, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call 236-2273.

• A Pilates Beginners group matwork class will be from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at 27 1/2 E. Main St., Tipp City.

For more information, call TippMonroe Community Services at 667-8631 or Celeste at 669-2441.

• Safe People, 7-8:30 p.m., Ginghamsburg Church, SC/DC 104.

Find guidance for making safe choices in relationships, from friendships to co-workers, family or romance. Learn to identify nurturing people as well as those who should be avoided. Call Roberta Bogle at 667-4678 for more information.

• Boundaries, 7-8:30 p.m., Ginghamsburg Church, ARK 200. A 12-week video series using Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. Offers practical help and encouragement to all who seek a healthy, balanced life and practice in being able to say no. For more information, call Linda Richards at 667-4678.

• The Temple of Praise Ministries will serve hot lunches from noon to 2 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday at 235 S. Third St., Tipp City.

• A free employment networking group will be offered from 8-9 a.m. each Wednesday at Job and Family Services, 2040 N. County Road 25A, Troy. The group will offer tools to tap into unadvertised jobs, assistance to improve personal presentation skills and resume writing. For more information, call Steven Kiefer at 570-2688 or Justin Sommer at 440-3465.

help group for adults of any age suffering from panic, anxiety, depression or other nervous or mental disorders, will meet every Thursday from 6-7:45 p.m. at the Troy-Miami County Public Library, 419 W. Main St., Troy. The organization is not meant to replace the advice of physicians, but can be a useful tool in developing good mental health through will training. There is no charge to attend, but free will donations are taken. For more information, call 473-3650 or visit the group’s Web site at www.LowSelfHelpSystems.org.

• Health Partners Free Clinic will offer a free clinic on Thursday night at the clinic, 1300 N. County Road 25-A, Troy. Registration will be from 5:30-7 p.m. No appointment is necessary. The clinic does not accept medical emergencies, but can refer patients to other doctors and can prescribe medication. Call 332-0894 for more information.

• Narcotics Anonymous, NAIOU, 7:30 p.m., Church of the Brethren, 1431 W. Main St., Troy.

• Preschool story hours will be from 10-11 a.m. and again at 6:30 p.m. at the Bradford Public Library, 138 E. Main St., Bradford.

• Weight Watchers, 6 p.m., Zion Lutheran Church, Tipp City. For more information, call 552-7082.

FRIDAY • Shallow water aerobics will be offered from 8-9 a.m. or 11 a.m. to noon at the Lincoln Community Center, 110 Ash St., Troy. For more information, call Carmen Pagano at (469) 667-3059 or 335-3059.

• A “Late Night Knit” meeting will be from 7-10 p.m. on the first and third Friday at Tippecanoe Weaver and Fibers Too, 17 N. 2nd St., Tipp City. All knitters are invited to attend.

For more information, call 6675358.

• AA, Troy Friday Morning Group will meet at 11 a.m. in the 12 Step Room at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1550 Henley Road, Troy. The discussion is open.

• AA, open discussion, 8 p.m. in the Salvation Army, 129 South Wayne St., Piqua. Use parking lot entrance, held in gym.

• Narcotics Anonymous, Clean and Free, 8 p.m., Dettmer Hospital, 3130 N. County Road 25-A, Troy.

Open discussion. Fellowship from 78 p.m.

• A Pilates Intermediate group matwork class will be held from 910 a.m. at 27 1/2 E. Main St., Tipp City. For more information, call TippMonroe Community Services at 667-8631 or Celeste at 667-2441.

• Weight Watchers, Suite 2600, Stouder Center, Troy, at 10 a.m. For more information, call (800) 3749191.

• A singles dance is offered every Friday from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. at Christopher Club, Dixie Highway, Kettering, sponsored by Group Interaction. The dance is $6.

For more information, call 640-3015 or visit www.groupia.org.

• Christian Worship Center, 3537 S. Elm Tree Road, Christiansburg, hosts a Friday Night Bluegrass Jam beginning at 7 p.m. each Friday.

Homemade meals are available beginning at 6:30 p.m. Participants may bring instruments and join in. A small donation is requested at the door. For more information or directions, call 857-9090 or 631-2624.

SATURDAY

• Recovery Too Al-Anon meetings are offered at 8:30 p.m. at Ginghamsburg Church, main campus, Room 117, S. County Road 25-A, Tipp City.

• AA, Men’s Meeting will meet at 8:30 a.m. at the new First Lutheran Church, corner of Washington Road and State Route 41. The meeting is THURSDAY closed (members must have a desire to stop drinking).

• Deep water aerobics will be • AA, Troy Winners Group will offered from 9-10 a.m. or 6-7 p.m. at meet at 8:30 p.m. in the 12 Step Lincoln Community Center, 110 Ash Room at the Trinity Episcopal St., Troy. For more information, call Church, 1550 Henley Road, Troy for Carmen Pagano at (469) 667-3059 discussion. The meeting is open. or 335-2715.

• AA, Troy Beginners Group • An open parent-support group meets at 7 p.m. in the 12 Step will be at 7 p.m. at Corinn’s Way Room at the Trinity Episcopal Inc., 306 S. Dorset Road, Troy.

Church, 1550 Henley Road, Troy.

• Parents are invited to attend This is an open discussion meeting. the Corinn’s Way Inc. parent sup• Weight Watchers, Westminster port group from 7-8:30 p.m. each Presbyterian, Piqua, meeting at 9 Thursday. The meetings are open a.m., weigh-in at 9:30 a.m. discussion.

• Pilates for Beginners • Tipp City Seniors, meet at (Introduction), 9:15-10:15 a.m. at 27 noon; bring a covered dish for 1/2 E. Main St., Tipp City. For more lunch; programs are held one or two information, call Tipp-Monroe times a month. For more informaCommunity Services at 667-8631 or tion, call 667-8865.

Celeste at 669-2441.

• Best is Yet to Come open AA • Narcotics Anonymous, meeting, 11 a.m., Trinity Episcopal Saturday Night Live, 8 p.m., St. Church, 60 S. Dorset Road, Troy.

John’s Lutheran Church, 120 W. • Weight Watchers, Suite 2600, Water St., Sidney.

Stouder Center, Troy, at 6:30 p.m.

• Relapse Prevention Group, For more information, call (800) 5:30-6:45 p.m. at The Avenue, 374-9191.

Room 504, at Ginghamsburg Main • AA, Tri-City Group meeting will Campus, 6759 S. County Road 25take place 8:30-9:30 p.m. in the A. cafeteria of the former Dettmer • The Next Step, a worship celeHospital. The lead meeting is open. bration for people on the road to For more information, call 335recovery, 7 p.m. at Ginghamsburg 9079.

Main Campus Sanctuary, 6759 S. • AA, Spirituality Group will meet County Road 25-A. at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian • Yoga classes will be offered Church, Troy. The discussion is from 10-11 a.m. at the First United open.

Church of Christ, Troy. The public is • Recovery International, a self- invited.

AMUSEMENTS

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Buying books Many kinds of best-sellers in 2011 NEW YORK (AP) — There were many kinds of best-sellers in 2011 and they sold in different ways.

Some were meant for success, such as Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” or Tina Fey’s “Bossypants” or Stephen King’s “11/22/63.”

Some were surprises, such as Todd Burpo’s “Heaven Is for Real” and Adam Mansbach’s “Go the (Bleep) to Sleep.”

Some books thrived on the Internet alone. Amanda Hocking’s vampire romance novels were self-published, ebook million sellers. So were John Locke’s crime novels and Darcie Chan’s small-town story of a secluded widow, “The Mill River Recluse.”

Ebooks have grown to around 20 percent of the market and the percentage should keep rising in 2012 as millions of ever-cheaper devices are purchased. The e-pull proved strong enough to persuade a famous holdout, J.K. Rowling, and a nearly as famous resister, Ray Bradbury, to go digital. The e-library of older works expanded greatly in 2011, with additions including Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and Jim Collins’ business favorite “Good to Great.” Expect digital versions of Tennessee Williams’ plays in the near future.

But the e-revolution remains in its early stages and books can still sell big through paper alone.

Mansbach’s “Go the (Bleep) to Sleep,” the summer’s forbidden pleasure, was a sensation before an e-edition was available. Jeff Kinney’s latest “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” sold 1 million copies in its first week, all on paper.

Meanwhile, some key works remain untouched by digital times, including a few likely to appear on reading lists for the foreseeable future: “The Catcher in the Rye”: J.D. Salinger’s death nearly two years ago has yet to unlock any mysteries about his life or his career.

No new Salinger works have been authorized and his published works remain available only in paper.

Literary agent Phyllis Westberg of Harold Ober Associates, which helps manage Salinger’s literary estate, says no e-editions are planned.

• “To Kill a Mockingbird”: Harper Lee’s only novel is a favorite of reading groups and civic programs, but don’t look for it on your Kindle. Lee’s publisher, HarperCollins, said in a statement: “Currently there are no plans to release it as an ebook, though conversations are ongoing about doing so.”

• “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”: Sherman Alexie has said a lot of nasty things about ebooks, worrying especially about piracy, the power of Amazon.com and the decline of independent stores. Much of his work is unavailable for downloads, including this popular young adult novel, winner of the National Book Award in 2009.

• “Gravity’s Rainbow”: Thomas Pynchon is an avatar for the Information Age, but his books must be read the old-fashioned way.

A spokeswoman for his publisher, Penguin Group (USA), said she had no information on any ebook plans.

• “Where the Wild Things Are”: An e-book from Maurice Sendak?

Why not ask him to dance in “The Nutcracker”? Or as he told The Associated Press in September: “It’s not a book. It’s a tchotchke.

It’s a toy.”

Sunday, January 1, 2012

SUNDAY CROSSWORD

B7

FIRST THINGS

ACROSS 1. Buckle 5. Eyeglasses 10. Damage, in a way 15. Pitiable 19. Asian gelatin 20. Major and minor arcana 21. Good 22. French cleric 23. New Year’s Day: 2 wds.

25. A thousand thousand: 2 wds.

27. Some children 28. Russian river 30. Tell 31. Gen. Robert — — 32. Time off 33. Broccoli — 34. Double chin cousin 37. — Carlo 38. Like storage roots 42. Succulent plants 43. Brant 44. Cool 45. Letters on a dial 46. Scoot 47. Transport for POTUS: 3 wds.

49. — -Paul Belmondo 50. Part of NATO: Abbr.

51. “American Pie” songwriter Don — 52. Goofs 53. Shoes 54. Albee and Elgar 56. Paradise 57. Having wings 58. Items for sale 59. Plinths 61. Fabric weave 63. Trace anagram 65. “— No Mountain High Enough” 66. Wisecrack, e.g.

68. Charters 69. Wild plum 70. Slump 72. Garment part 74. Madman’s assistant 75. Ring maneuver: 3 wds.

77. Fizzy drink 78. Cal. abbr.

79. — Comique 80. Carried 81. Vehicle with blades 82. Do a laundry chore 84. Cheerful 85. Small plants 86. Outright 87. Spars 88. Marine phenomenon 89. Keyboard key 92. Parts of some shoes 93. Divided 97. Condo type: Hyph.

99. Auto-race class: 2 wds.

101. End 102. One of Kirk’s crew 103. Star sign 104. Painter’s subject

105. If not 106. Pretender 107. — Dame 108. Stepped on

DOWN 1. — California 2. Oath of old 3. Start for second 4. Raspberry part 5. Actress Meryl — 6. Name on a check 7. Singer — Ramazzotti 8. Swindle 9. Jekyll and Hyde’s creator 10. Develop 11. Gamut 12. Olive genus 13. Shadowy 14. Like some online content 15. Equivocate 16. Sad news item 17. Greek coin 18. Magritte or Auberjonois 24. Architectural column 26. Record company

29. Western 32. Bath sponge: Var. 33. Archaeologist’s find 34. Art movement 35. Cheer 36. Event commencing July 1914: 3 wds.

37. Customs 38. Spine 39. Comedy club offerings: 3 wds.

40. Dull 41. Import 43. Decorates, in a way 44. First found asteroid 47. Survey measure 48. Yield 49. “1984” heroine 51. Farm denizens 53. PC-program fix 55. Irrigate 56. Superlative suffix 59. Plant and animal life 60. Freshly 61. Gravy 62. Bridge support 63. Early NASA space traveler

64. Exactness 65. Inform, in a way 66. Don Corleone’s boy 67. Battle royal 69. Stoolie 70. ESPN viewer: 2 wds.

71. Stays hidden 73. Impairs 75. Spoke freely: 2 wds.

76. Corpulent 77. Trig function 79. — fratres 81. Prototype 83. Increase threefold 84. Of part of the hand 85. Ill-treat 87. Clayton or Dudley 88. Sandglass 89. Venetian magistrate 90. Lab compound 91. Pastures 92. — -chef 93. Part of BTU: Abbr.

94. Trip 95. Within: Prefix 96. Exploit 98. Greek letter 100. Gold, in Granada

BOOK REVIEWS

Espionage agent Munroe returns in ‘The Innocent’ numbered is arguably matched only by James Bond (and possibly Batman).

“The Innocent: a Now Vanessa “Michael” Vanessa Michael Munroe Munroe is back in “The Novel” (Crown Innocent,” having agreed to Publishers), by Taylor rescue a child who was Stevens: Taylor Stevens’ abducted eight years earlier 2010 debut, “The and brought into a secretive Informationist,” was a and well-protected cult smartly written action known as The Chosen, thriller featuring a freebased in Argentina. The lance espionage agent people who have hired her whose survival skills and are survivors of that cult. intellect were wrought out They understand the mindof a violent past, and whose ability to extract herself AP PHOTO/CROWN PUBLISHERS set, and while their insights from harrowing situations “The Innocent,” by Taylor are a boon for Munroe, their participation threatens a in which she is heavily out- Stevens, is shown.

BY MICHELLE WIENER Associated Press

successful extraction.

Munroe is also plagued by nightmares in which she relives the violence from her last mission, and she’s turned to self-medicating to combat them. While the nightmares are depicted just as terrifyingly as the waking dangers that Munroe faces the toll they take on her psyche is vividly described the dangers inherent in her drug use never quite materialize in the same way.

And maybe they’re not supposed to. Munroe is trusted by readers. Her

team may protest and worry, but we know she’ll emerge victorious.

Fans of thrillers who haven’t yet discovered Stevens are in for a treat, though starting with “The Informationist” is recommended. Those who have eagerly awaited this sequel will be delighted to find the same intelligent writing, masterful pacing, and tense and fluid action scenes that feel ready-made for the cinema, and an intensely emotional core that lends Stevens’ novel a depth not often found in the genre.

‘Death Benefit’ slow-paced read, but worthwhile

BY JEFF AYERS Associated Press

ical student at Columbia University Medical Center. Her colleague “Death Benefit” George Wilson idolizes (G.P. Putnam’s Sons), her every move, but Pia

by Robin Cook: Robin is focused on her studies.

Cook’s “Death Benefit” is She carries a lot of mena slow-paced, but ultital baggage, and sees mately rewarding reading working with Dr. Tobias experience.

Rothman, who is Pia Grazdani is a med- researching the growth of

organs with a new stem cell process, as the key to finding peace and happiness.

Meanwhile, two men have created a company that buys life insurance policies from the elderly and sick for a fraction of their worth. They stand to make a financial

killing when the insured dies. They learn of Rothman’s research and realize that if his process succeeds, they will default on billions of dollars.

Stem cell research for replacement organs for the critically ill is fascinating. Add using life

insurance policies as a way to make money and the result is an intense read that raises thoughtprovoking questions.

The beginning of “Death Benefit” is a bit hard to get through, but digging through the first 100 pages proves worthwhile in the end.

BESTSELLERS FICTION 1. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever” by Jeff Kinney (Abrams) 2. “11/22/63” by Stephen King (Scribner) 3. “Inheritance” by Christopher Paolini/Alfred A. Knopf (Books for Young Readers) 4. “Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press) 5. “The Litigators” by

John Grisham (Doubleday) 6. “Mockingjay” by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press) 7. “Locked On” by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney (Putman) 8. “Kill Alex Cross” by James Patterson (Little, Brown) 9. “Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James (Knopf) 10. “The Best of Me” by

War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”

by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House) NONFICTION 4. “Guinness World 1. “Steve Jobs: A Records 2012” by Guinness Biography” by Walter World Records (Guinness Isaacson (Simon & World Records) Schuster) 5. “The Elf on the Shelf” 2. “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that by Carol V. Aebersold, Chanda A. Bell (CCA & B) Changed America Forever” 6. “Being George

by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (Henry Holt and Co.) Washington: The Indispensable Man, As 3. “Unbroken: A World

Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central)

You’ve Never Seen Him” by Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions) 7. “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero” by Chris Matthews (Simon & Schuster) 8. “Through My Eyes” by Tim Tebow (Harper) 9. “The Wimpy Kid Do-ItYourself Book” by Jeff Kinney (Abrams) 10. “The LEGO Ideas Book” by Daniel Lipkowitz (DK Publishing)

B8

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Sunday, January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

ANNIVERSARY

Breaking the pacifier habit Tips make quitting easier

BY SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE St. Petersburg Times There are some tot-sized junkies out there, and it takes more than the tough talk of intervention to get them to give up the stuff. We’re talking pacifiers. Binkies. Baby’s bahbah. The fuss plug. Like all habitforming behaviors, it starts as an easy way to feel better. But breaking that habit can bring on a harrowing case of withdrawal.

“Sesame Street” just launched a “Put Down the Pacifier” initiative to help kids through the difficult milestone. If you go to the

sesamestreet.org parent’s corner and click on “Topics and Activities” you’ll see tips and clips from Elmo.

The online promotion coincides with the release of “Bye-Bye, Pacifier! Big Kid Stories with Elmo.”

The DVD sells for $14.98 from Warner Home Video. Elmo shows preschoolers how to deal with difficult emotions and puts giving up the pacifier in the same context as learning to ride a tricycle or getting a first haircut.

As cynical as I like to be about shilling products, I do have a soft spot in my heart for “Sesame Street,” so I think the motivation is good.

This is a tough thing for parents and they could use all the positive help they can get.

Here are tips from moms I’ve known who have handled the transition well:

• Ease in by setting down some rules, such as the child can only have the paci if he is lying down. But if his feet hit the floor, he has to hand it over. That is a good way of breaking him out of the daylong noshing habit.

• Have a countdown. Pick a day and plan something special together to celebrate the occasion. One mom I know picked a day the paci was going away and declared it would be taken by the Paci Fairy, who was going to give it to a baby who needed it.

• Replace it with other soothing habits. A cuddly blanket or cloth can be a logical replacement. Gradually use the blanket more and the paci less.

• Having a consistent bedtime routine is also helpful. Add something like soft music or a cool nightlight.

Clays celebrate 60 years CASSTOWN — Jim and Mildred (Bowling) Clay of Casstown are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

They were married Jan. 5, 1952, in Ashland, Ky., by the Rev. A.L. Jackson.

Their children include Timothy Clay of Troy, Pam Clay Martens of Houston, Texas, and Shirley Clay Al-Jarani of Troy. They have six grandchildren.

They are members of Cornerstone Baptist Church, Troy. He is retired from Defense Electronic Supply Center in Dayton. She is retired

from Marsh Supermarket.

Their family plans a celebration at a later date.

Tuesday — Chicken noodle soup, yogurt, salad, crackers, apple slices, milk.

Wednesday — Hot dog/coney, baked beans, peaches, oatmeal cookie, milk.

Thursday — Grilled cheese, mixed vegetables, applesauce, milk.

Friday — Ham, green beans, potatoes, cheese stick, butter bread, grapes, milk.

• TROY CITY SCHOOLS Monday — Tony’s cheese pizza, corn, bug bite snacks, fruit, milk.

Tuesday — Chicken fryz, mashed potatoes with gravy, dinner roll, fruit, milk.

Wednesday — Yogurt, soft pretzel, cheese cup, green beans, fruit, milk.

Thursday — Cheeseburger on bun, baked beans, fruit slushie, milk.

Friday — Grilled chicken on wheat bun, steamed broccoli, fruit, milk.

• TIPP CITY HIGH SCHOOL

Monday — No school.

Tuesday — Cheeseburger on a bun, baked french fries, choice of fruit, milk.

Wednesday — Pizza, steamed green beans, choice of fruit, milk.

Thursday — Popcorn chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, choice of fruit, milk.

Friday — Fish sandwich, steamed broccoli with cheese, choice of fruit, milk.

• UPPER VALLEY CAREER CENTER Monday — No school.

Tuesday — Ravioli or cheese sticks and sauce, side salad, assorted fruit and milk.

Wednesday — Pizza or quesadilla, baby carrots and dip and milk.

Thursday — Walking taco or chicken fajita, red beans and rice, assorted fruit and milk.

Friday — Grilled chicken or hot ham and cheese, baked potato, broccoli and cheese, assorted fruit, multi-grain bun and milk.

SCHOOL MENUS • BETHEL Monday — No school.

Tuesday — Burritos, corn, choice of fruit, milk.

High school only — pizza.

Wednesday — Pulled pork sandwich on wheat bun, potatoes, choice of fruit, milk.

Thursday — Beef and noodles, wheat roll, California blend vegetables, choice of fruit, milk.

Friday — Chicken strips or nuggets, wheat dinner roll, California blend vegetables, choice of fruit, milk.

• COVINGTON SCHOOLS Monday — No school.

Tuesday — Chicken nuggets, green beans, pineapple, Teddy Grahams, milk.

Wednesday — Nacho Grande with meat and cheese, refried beans, peaches, milk.

Thursday — Hamburger or cheeseburger sandwich, tater tots, mixed fruit, milk.

Friday — Stuffed crust pizza, peas, applesauce, milk.

Monday — No school.

Tuesday — Soft pretzel with cheese sauce, green beans, yogurt, strawberry • SENIOR RESOURCE CONNECTION OF DAYsidekick, milk.

TON MEALS ON WHEELS Wednesday — Chicken Lunch is served Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. and noodles, whole wheat to seniors 60-plus at Trinity Episcopal Church, 60 S. dinner roll, mashed potaDorset Road, Troy. To reserve a meal, call (888) 580toes, diced peaches, milk.

3663. A suggested donation of $2 is asked for meals.

Thursday — Barbecue pork rib sandwich, tater tots, mixed fruit, milk.

Thursday — Hamburger • MIAMI EAST Friday — Stuffed crust or cheeseburger on a bun pizza, Doritos, salad, SCHOOLS with pickles, tater tots, fruit, applesauce, milk.

Monday — No school. milk.

Tuesday — No school.

• PIQUA SCHOOLS Friday — Stuffed crust Wednesday — Chicken Monday — No school. pepperoni pizza, green tenders, fries, bread stix, Tuesday — Chicken beans, fruit, milk. pineapple, milk. patty sandwich, seasoned • MILTON-UNION HIGH curlies, green beans, fruit Thursday — Popcorn SCHOOL chicken, green beans, turnover and milk.

Monday — No school. bread, peaches, milk.

Wednesday — Tuesday — Chicken Friday — Pizza-cheese, Hamburger, lettuce, tomato, quesadillas with salsa, potato sticks, apple pickle waffle fries, pears turnover, nutrition bar, milk. green beans, fruit, milk. and milk.

Wednesday — • MILTON-UNION ELEThursday — Nachos Peppered chicken strip MENTARY AND MIDDLE with cheese, refried beans, wrap with lettuce, cheese SCHOOLS corn, applesauce, giant and sauce, fruit, milk.

Monday — No school.

Goldfish Crackers and milk.

Thursday — Tuesday — Chicken Friday — Coney dog, Cheeseburger, french fries, tater tots, buttered carrots, nuggets with sauce, roll, fruit, milk. broccoli, fruit, milk. peaches and milk.

Friday — Pizza stix, Wednesday — Hot • ST. PATRICK broccoli, mixed fruit, milk. dog/coney dog on a bun, Monday — Pizza, peas, • NEWTON SCHOOLS pudding, pineapple, milk. french fries, fruit, milk.

SENIOR MENUS

Wishing You A Happy New Year!

THE SARVER FAMILY OF FUNERAL HOMES

JACKSON - SARVER Family Funeral Home

HALE - SARVER Family Funeral Home

JACKSON - SARVER Family Funeral Home

Covington

West Milton

Pleasant Hill

Brian Sarver - Owner

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Brian Sarver - Owner

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West Milton's Funeral Home's Complimentary "Hale House" Bed & Breakfast available for out of town funeral home guest.

Pleasant Hill's Offices, New Casket Selection Room and Lounge will be completed March 2012

We are available at our Covington office, Pleasant Hill office or West Milton office or in your home for at need or pre-need arrangements 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For Home Delivery, call 335-5634 • For Classified Advertising, call (877) 844-8385

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Serving our local communities with dignified and compassionate service for over 5 generations.

APARTMENTS • AUCTIONS • HOMEPAGE FINDER • NEW LISTINGS • OPEN HOUSES

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C1

TODAY

January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

Organize with style in new year

Discover the

Advantage “Custom Built Quality At An Affordable Price.” www.keystonehomesintroy.com

937-332-8669

BY MARY CAROL GARRITY Scripps Howard News Service

2240780

MORTGAGE WATCH

Fixed rates end year above record lows WASHINGTON (AP) — Fixed mortgage rates rose slightly this week off their record lows. The year ends much like it began, with few people able to take advantage of the best rates in history.

Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average on the 30-year home loan increased to 3.95 percent from 3.91 percent. Last week’s rate was the lowest average on records dating to the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.24 percent. That’s up from 3.21 percent, also a record low.

Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks in 2011. Even so, this year is shaping up to be one of the worst ever for home sales.

Previously occupied homes are selling just slightly ahead of last year’s dismal pace. And new-home sales appear headed for their worst year on records going back half a century.

Next year could be better. More than 5 percent of households said this month they plan to purchase a home within the next six months, according to the Conference Board.

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE PHOTO COURTESY OF NELL HILL’S

You can transform the look of your furniture simply by switching out the fabric and pillows.

When you make your New Year’s resolutions for 2012, don’t forget to include a few that will help your home become its stylish best. Here are a few ideas to inspire you.

1. Organize with Style If you have storage space in your home that is open to public view, make it look its absolute best.

It’s easy to make hard-working shelves as beautiful as they are functional by using lovely storage containers and interesting accents. A friend of mine made a built-in bookcase in her kitchen look amazing by putting old coal grates in front of her cookbook collection.

2. Need a place to store Grandma’s silver?

Instead of burying it away in a box in a drawer in a cabinet, include the silverware in a lovely display so you can enjoy it every day.

3. Reupholster a Chair or Ottoman Are you tired of the look of one of your chairs or an ottoman, but you don’t want to get rid of it because it’s a good, quality piece? Have a family hand-me-down sofa or chaise with great lines but atrocious fabric? Sounds like it’s time to reupholster! You can transform the look of a piece simply by switching out the fabric and pillows.

4. Add Interesting Artwork I am stark raving mad about great artwork, and

• See ORGANIZE on C2

HOUSE HUNTING

Know risks when forgoing inspection contingency Surprise defects can compromise deposit Think again if you’re considering buying a home without having it inspected. This particularly applies to first-time buyers who have little, if any, experience with home defects and repairs. Even professionals can make mistakes when buying homes without having them thoroughly inspected.

In one example, an experienced contractor bought a home to fix up and resell. The contractor looked over the property carefully before he bought it, but he did not have it inspected by an impartial home inspector. After the contractor took possession of the property, he discovered that the furnace was shot.

It needed to be replaced. The cost of a new furnace was not included in his renovation budget.

Homebuying is an emotional experience no matter how hard you try to keep it strictly business.

You have high hopes that nothing will go wrong and the transaction will close. The appeal of a home could cloud your objectivity about the real purchase price when you consider the work that needs to be done to repair defects and deferred maintenance.

In some areas, the home-sale market has picked up. One example is California’s Silicon Valley where job growth is strong. There is far more demand than there are homes for sale, which tends to drive prices up. In some cases, buyers will waive contingencies in order to outbid the competition.

Buying without including an inspection contingency in the purchase contract can be an expensive strategy if you later find defects that are expensive to repair.

The risk is minimized if the sellers provide the buyers with copies of recent presale home inspections done by reputable local home inspectors before they write an offer. However, most home inspection reports recommend further inspections. Diligent sellers take the extra step and

Home loans from a name you already know and trust

Dian Hymer For the Miami Valley Sunday News have further inspections done, like a roof or furnace inspection. Many do not.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: A second opinion from a highly regarded home inspector can’t hurt. The reason to have inspections at all is to find out as much as possible about the property’s condition before you go through with the sale. Don’t skip an inspection to save money.

Sometimes buyers who are satisfied with the report they received from the seller’s home inspector will hire that inspector to do a walk-through inspection based on the seller’s report. This means a second home inspector isn’t involved. But, at least the buyers have an opportunity to spend time at the property with the seller’s inspector, ask questions, and find out more about what works and what doesn’t.

Inspection contingencies protect the buyers and, depending on how the clause is written, can allow the buyers to withdraw from the contract without losing their deposit.

This is why sellers are often drawn to an offer that doesn’t have an inspection contingency. However, accepting such an offer can create problems.

Inspection contingencies also protect sellers from future legal entanglements with the buyers over items that weren’t discovered before closing. It’s much easier to resolve inspection defect issues before, than after, closing.

Inspection contingencies can

National lender MetLife Home Loans is a division of MetLife Bank, N.A., a MetLife company. Our reputation is built on serving people with integrity and honesty while helping them build real financial freedom through home ownership.

When you choose MetLife Home Loans, you’ll be working with people who know you’re making a major life investment and understand your concerns.

For more information, or to apply for financing, contact:

Teresa A. Tubbs Branch Manager 1808 W. Main Street Troy, Ohio 45373 Direct: 937-552-0960 Fax: 866-770-0483 Cell: 937-760-2073

Rob Helman Mortgage Consultant 1808 W. Main Street Troy, Ohio 45373 Direct: 937-552-0959 Fax: 866-879-0487 rhelman@metlife.com www.robhelm.com

All loans subject to approval. Certain conditions and fees apply. Mortgage financing provided by MetLife Home Loans, a division of MetLife Bank, N.A. Equal Housing Lender. 1108-2736 © 2011 METLIFE, INC. L1010135001(exp1011)(All States)(DC) PEANUTS © 2011 Peanuts Worldwide

• See HYMER on C2

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For Home Delivery, call 335-5634 • For Classified call (877)info@Vecner.com 844-8385

C2

REAL ESTATE TODAY

Sunday, January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

Renovation rookies tackle project Couple build new home inside old walls

BY LYNN UNDERWOOD Minneapolis Star Tribune Family members tried to talk Natalie and Bryce Quinn out of buying their early 1920s Mediterranean-style fixerupper in Minneapolis.

“My dad said, ‘You don’t know how much work this will be,’” said Natalie.

And Dad was right, Bryce conceded. “But we bought it anyway.”

The Quinns, who had never remodeled a home before, thought it would take just a few months to repair and update the neglected home. Instead, they spent more than a year on a whole-house renovation, ultimately rebuilding a modern interior within the Old World concrete and stucco shell.

When Bryce first stepped inside the multilevel Mediterranean, he dismissed it as another DIY special they would be fools to take on.

“It was rundown, the windows were nailed shut and it hadn’t been touched in 50 years,” he said. Still, Natalie was seduced by its Mediterranean charm, especially the curved archways, vaulted-ceiling sunroom and three graceful Juliet balconies across the front.

“It had a good energy,” said Natalie. “And I felt like it really had potential.”

Bryce got on board because of the home’s great location — plus it was in their price range. In the fall of 2009, the Quinns bought the 2,800-squarefoot house “as is.”

“After we closed on the house, we were handed the keys, and none of them worked,” recalled Bryce.

“Not a good sign.”

They had planned on making typical cosmetic improvements — new lighting and paint and rehabbing the outdated bathrooms before they moved in. Their biggest project was remodeling the tiny servants’ kitchen, which was on another level off the living room. “If people on HGTV can do it, why couldn’t we?” said Natalie.

But when Bryce tore down plaster walls to move a bathroom, he discovered rusted leaky pipes. When they pulled up carpet, they unearthed uneven floors.

Rotting windows would have to be replaced. The red metal roof had been improperly installed, and water was dripping into an upstairs room.

“We got in way over our heads,” said Bryce. “We had bought a house that needed 100 times (more) work than we wanted to do.”

The couple reassessed the home’s condition and

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS BY MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE/TOM WALLACE

Bryce and Natalie Quinn’s 1925 Mediterranean-style home was gutted and remodeled in an edgy, contemporary style. The couple did most of the work themselves with friends. decided to demolish all three levels of the interior, retain the concrete block and stucco shell and start from square one.

Bryce took time off from his job at his family’s business to serve as general contractor. He hired experts to hang drywall, do plumbing and lay tile. He did the demolition himself, with the help of friends.

Natalie, meanwhile, launched a blog, Quinn + Co Urban Design (quinnandcompany.blog spot.com), to document their progress and vent about the “highs and lows of construction.”

When every last wall was down, “it opened up all these possibilities,” said Natalie. “That’s when we started to have fun. We got out a ruler and drew a new floor plan.”

But after six months, the Quinns had run out of renovation money. With just the framing and floorboards completed, they had to re-evaluate whether it was worth it to continue or whether they should sell.

After consulting with real estate agents, they were assured that finishing the home would be a good investment and took out another loan.

The Quinns finally moved into their nearly finished home 13 months after the closing. “It’s exceeded our expectations,” said Bryce.

Instead of a kitchen center island, Natalie chose a long granite-topped Parsons table that doesn’t obstruct the elevated view from the dining room. “It’s a community table where you can pull up a stool on both sides,” she said.

The Quinns decided to

The laundry room is off the kitchen. Bryce splurged on a wine refrigerator for his wine collection. salvage the original staircase, and refinished the dark oak steps as an homage to the home’s history.

But they added a modern touch — a wall made of glass to let in more light.

“It looks like something you’d see at a car dealership,” said Bryce.

The upstairs level holds two bathrooms, a guest bedroom, office and a master suite with a walk-in closet the size of a luxe dressing room. The couple meticulously chose every material and finish, from the chunky bar-style faucets to the quartztopped walnut cabinets, which are duplicated in other rooms.

“Repeat elements,” advised Natalie, who

LEFT: The Quinns display a favorite painting by local artist Hiromi in their new gray-tiled living room. They kept the original wood-burning fireplace but added a sculptural concrete surround. designed the interior. “It gives a home continuity and unifies the spaces.”

In the end, they spent about $350,000 to essentially build a brand-new house, which includes new stucco exterior and landscaping.

“In hindsight, it would have been easier to tear it down,” said Bryce. “But we were naive and wanted a challenge. Now we’re glad we saved it.”

Organize • Continued from C1

HAS ITS OWN PATCH OF GRASS AT PNC MORTGAGE,

we’re committed to making the buying process simpler and getting you into a home faster. We’ll walk you through the steps one by one, bringing clarity to the process and to your home financing experience with PNC. With more confidence in your lender, there’s no telling what you can achieve.

PNC is a registered service mark of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (“PNC”).

PNC Mortgage is a division of PNC Bank, National Association, a subsidiary of PNC. All loans are provided by PNC Bank, National Association and are subject to credit approval and property appraisal. ©2010 The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

2240786

Find out Find out more more at at www.pncmortgage.com/troy or or contact contact the Troy Mortgage office at at 937-339-6600

I’ve nearly covered every single inch of wall space in my home with it. Any why not?

Artwork is what gives a home personality. Look around at your walls and pick out a spot where a piece of artwork would enliven the room.

5. Use Flowers to Make Every Day Beautiful Why not resolve this year to enjoy the beauty of flowers more often?

6. Update Your Glassware Life takes its toll on our drinking glasses. Through the years, water glasses take tumbles and break or they get dingy and chipped. This year, do an assessment of your glassware.

Do you have enough wine glasses for a party? Are your water glasses still clear and beautiful?

You can find stunning glasses today for a good value.

7. Remake a Side Table Sometimes it’s overwhelming to redesign an entire room. But everyone has time to take on a

Hymer simple table. Find a side table in your home that could use a bit of decorating magic then let your creative juices flow.

8. Add a New Lamp Simply updating a lamp can change the look of a room. Look around at your rooms. Do the lamps look outdated? Are they too small for the tables they are standing upon? Are they giving you the correct lighting for the spot? If not, it’s time to be out with the old and in with the new.

9. Repaint a Room Do you have a room that needs a new look? Turn it into a cozy cocoon by painting it a rich, dark color. Or make the space light and bright by selecting a clean white or pastel.

10. Roll Out an Accent Rug Many of us have lots of open hardwood floors in our homes.

They are beautiful, but during the winter, they can also be a bit cold to the toes. If you have an open expanse, maybe in an upstairs hallway, your entry or kitchen, add a lovely accent rug for the cold winter months.

• Continued from C1 create an opportunity for buyers to ask sellers to fix defects, lower the price or credit money at closing to cover the cost of repair work. When buyers ask sellers to make concessions after they bought the house “as is” with respect to certain disclosed defects, it can be a deal-breaker. However, reasonable sellers will often attempt to negotiate an acceptable solution regarding newly discovered defects rather than put the house back on the market.

If you’re buying in a competitive market and find you’re losing out because you won’t waive an inspection contingency and others are willing to take the risk, consider having inspections done before making an offer.

THE CLOSING: Make sure to ask permission from the seller through the listing agent.

Dian Hymer is a real estate broker and author.

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM

REAL ESTATE TODAY

Sunday, January 1, 2012

C3

How to choose a winter-gardening light system

BY JOE LAMP’L Scripps Howard News Service Lots of folks bring their gardens inside over the winter months. All kinds of delicate perennials, tropicals, citrus, and even herbs and salad greens, not to mention countless new seed starts, can wait out the cold indoors if they have the right conditions.

The most important condition is light. By understanding how plants use light, and the many lighting options available today, you can put together a lighting system that’s right for the plants you want to grow indoors — or at least sustain — until they are able to venture outside again.

Things to consider: • Color. Bright sunshine contains the full spectrum of light wavelengths from red through yellow and green to blue and violet. Plants use all of these wavelengths for photosynthesis, but red and blue are two of the most important. The blue spectrum promotes vegetative growth so young plants build robust, full foliage. The red wavelengths promote flowers and fruits. • Intensity. All plants need light to thrive, but some plants can get by on lower intensities than others. Native tropicals, shade-loving forest plants and houseplants like ivy and philodendron don’t need as much light as Mediterranean succulents or desert cactuses.

Flowering plants of all kinds, such as orchids and gardenias, generally need brighter light to flower and produce fruit. • Duration. No matter how much light they use to grow, plants need a rest now and then, to accomplish their other functions of metabolism. Plants’ preferences for light to dark are divided into short-day, long-day and day-neutral.

Short-day plants thrive on less than 12 hours of light in a 24-hour period. Most will also need to have a stretch of even shorter days to signal them to set buds and flower. Azaleas, chrysanthemums, poinsettia and Christmas cactus are short-day plants.

Long-day plants need 14 to 18 hours of light per day. Vegetables and most garden plants are long

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE PHOTO COURTESY OF GLEN SEIBERT

Put together a lighting system that’s right for the plants you want to grow indoors — or at least sustain — until they are able to venture outside again. day, and get pale and stretched when they don’t get enough light.

Day-neutral plants like geraniums, coleus and foliage plants are happy with eight to 12 hours of light throughout the year. • Kinds of grow lights. There are many kinds of artificial lights that will support plants indoors, from ordinary bulbs and tubes to super-efficient LED lights. Most are available in multiple color spectrums.

Fluorescent tubes put out three to four times the light of incandescent bulbs for the same energy. Their color frequencies run from reds to blues, so you

can mix and match to suit your preferences. Full-spectrum or sunlight fluorescents are great for all plants and for starting plants from seeds. They’re often even marketed as grow lights.

Industry standard, T-4-size tubes fit in ordinary shop lights and household fluorescent fixtures. New, smaller T-8 and T-5 tubes need fixtures with special ballasts, but use less power and last significantly longer. Coolwhite and warm-white fluorescent bulbs can be mixed in a twobulb fixture to get a good balance of red and blue light. Metal halide lamps and mercury vapor lamps have a strong blue spec-

trum, high-intensity light good for developing dense, stocky foliage. High-pressure sodium bulbs emit yellow-orange light that’s better for the flowering and fruiting phase of a plant’s lifecycle.

The newest technology for grow lights uses Light Emitting Diodes. LEDs are extremely energy efficient; they average 50,000 hours of useful operation, and generate very little heat, making them safe for plants and people. You’ll spend a good bit more upfront but you can expect to save 40 percent to 75 percent on your energy costs.

Regardless of which kind of

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MIAMI COUNTY

HOME BUYER’S GUIDE

Joe Lamp’l, host of “Growing a Greener World� on PBS, is a Master Gardener and author. For more information visit www. joegardener.com.

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lighting system you use, rotate your plants one or more times each week to balance the amount of light each plant receives.

Replace fluorescent tubes when the ends start to blacken to keep adequate light levels for your plants. Keep the plants far enough away from the light to prevent burning yet close enough to maximize the exposure these supplemental sources provide.

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Sunday, January 1, 2012

MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TDN-NET.COM

Hidden kitchens conceal clutter

BY CANDICE OLSON Scripps Howard News Service For some, the ideal kitchen is a big, noisy place where soup bubbles on the stove and everyone assembles around a big table. But for others, the perfect kitchen is one that is completely hidden away: no unsightly stovetop grill, no coffee machine on the counter, no imposing stainless steel fridge.

Creating hidden kitchens is a challenge, but it is one I recently accepted while working with my clients, Doug and Keith. The couple lives in a beautiful, historical house that they renovated in an uber-modern fashion. But, somehow their renovation hammer missed their small, pink, ’80sstyle kitchen that stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise streamlined home.

Doug and Keith wanted a seamless path from their front door right through to their outdoor patio, and that meant a kitchen that didn’t obstruct the flow. Don’t get me wrong, they still wanted a fridge and a stove and a dishwasher — they just didn’t want to see them.

For a tiny space, it would be a massive renovation. But I knew that by applying the principle of hidden design, I could serve up a delicious, contemporary kitchen that was simply out of sight!

To start, I had the whole space gutted, the electricity reorganized and the plumbing rerouted. I also put down a stunning dark hardwood floor and painted the walls in bright white. Then, since a big part of this project was to connect this tiny kitchen with the patio, I blew out the back wall and installed two huge sliding glass doors surrounded by beautiful zebrawood. This creates the illusion of not having a wall between the two spaces.

Next, I concentrated on the kitchen’s two main walls. The first wall was all about function; here, I stacked an oven and microwave on one side and hid a stainless steel fridge, freezer and wine cooler behind custom white panels on the other side. In the middle is a white crystalline sink with a glass cutting board that slides across when it’s not in use.

Below the sink I put some hidden storage, as well as a pullout trash and recycling bin.

I chose bright white quartz countertops and a back-painted glass backsplash (and the half

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE PHOTO COURTESY OF HGTV

Now this kitchen has everything: tons of storage, state-of-the-art appliances and plenty of modern conveniences. wall/pantry adjacent to it). This ups the glamour factor and helps reflect the light in the kitchen, rendering the small space visually larger.

Across from this functional wall, I created a wall that is all about beauty. I constructed an archway of wood, housing recessed lights, around horizontal panels of more back-painted glass. This stunning wall is highly reflective and adds a huge amount of depth to the little space.

In the middle of the kitchen, I installed a magnificent kitchen island with a solid glass countertop. This island can be used as an extra prep surface, a casual dining table or — with the help of the integrated LEDs — a funky, illuminated cocktail bar. Hidden in this island are storage and a dishwasher, in addition to an induction cook top that sits flush with the countertop. Even the cook top’s ventilation stays out of This small, pink, ’80s-style kitchen stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise streamlined home. sight until needed.

‘Color of the Year’ packs a bright citrus punch

BY KIM PALMER Minneapolis Star Tribune The hue gurus have spoken, as they do every year, scanning the spectrum to anoint one color that they predict will make a splash in the months ahead.

And for 2012, they’re bullish on bright orange — or “Tangerine Tango,” as the Pantone Color Institute has dubbed its “Color of the Year.”

300 - Real Estate

For Rent

Tangerine Tango is a “spirited reddish orange” that will give us “the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward,” according to Pantone.

There was a lot of bold orange on display at the recent High Point Fall Furniture Market in North Carolina, according to Robin Strangis, author of “The Color Idea Book.”

“Orange has been around for a few years, but now

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we’re seeing more products for the masses,” she said.

“There’s more acceptance.”

Strangis said the market showed orange-on-orange displays, “as an attentiongetter, but that’s not how you’d really use it.”

While bright orange is dominant in fashion, it’s generally toned down a bit for home use, or used with a calmer color, she said. “What you put with orange can make it traditional and safe

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or wild and funky,” she said.

Pair it with green — lime green if you’re feeling frisky or a softer botanical green for a calmer look. Or use orange as an accent color — in big pots, pillows or throws — against a gray backdrop.

Of course, orange isn’t everyone’s cup of citrus. But for those who love it, it’s a juicy pick-me-up.

“I love it! It’s a happy color,” said Cy Winship, of Cy

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MCGOVERN RENTALS TROY 2 BR duplexes & 2 BR townhouses. 1.5 baths, 1 car garage, fireplace, Great Location! Starting at $625-$675.

(937)335-1443 PIQUA, 2 bedroom carpeted, in Parkridge, A/C, stove, fridge, $400 month, $400 deposit. NO PETS! Call (937)418-6056.

Winship Design.

Winship, who has an orange living room, cautioned that it can be a tricky color to work with, because lighting can nudge the color in strange directions.

“It’s an oddly dangerous color,” he said. “It needs plenty of natural light to work. It’s unforgiving in bad light.”

Winship suggests picking the orange you like best — then dialing it down a shade

or two before painting.

“When you paint the one you want, it’s blinding. Color has a way of multiplying on the wall.”

Orange works best with crisp white, he said. “With wood-colored woodwork, orange can be deadly.”

And if you like bright orange, a little goes a long way. “Try it on an accent wall,” he said. “A whole room will slap you around every time you walk into it.”

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TIPP CITY 2 bedroom, deluxe duplex, 11/2 car garage, C/air, gas heat, 2 full baths, all appliances, $705 month + dep.

937-216-0918 TIPP CITY, DUPLEX, nice 3 bedroom, 2 baths, garage, appliances included. $725 month.

(937)667-5045.

TIPP CITY, Nice 2 bedroom, 1 bath, AC, appliances included, W/D hookup, garbage disposal, dishwasher. $490 month, $450 deposit. No pets, Metro accepted, (937)902-9894.

WEST MILTON Townhouse. 2 Bedroom 1.5 bath. $475 month, Lease by 12-15, FREE GIFTCARD, (937)216-4233.

TROY, 1 & 2 Bedrooms, appliances, CA, water, trash paid, $425 & $525 month. $200 Deposit Special!

(937)673-1821

315 Condos for Rent TROY, 2 bedroom exquisite cobblestone townhouse, 1300 sqft, fireplace, garage, loft, vaulted ceilings. $795.

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320 Houses for Rent 3 BEDROOM, 2 bath, 3214 Magnolia. $1000 a month plus deposit.

(937)339-1339 802 SOUTH Clay Street, 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 2 car garage, no pets. Metro accepted. $650 month, deposit, application required. (937)335-2877.

TROY - Newer duplex home. Fireplace. 3 Bedroom, 2 Bath, 2 car garage, no pets, 875-0595, $750.

330 Office Space DOWNTOWN, TROY Executive Suite. Utilities, kitchenette, included.

Nice (937)552-2636

340 Warehouse/Storage STORAGE TRAILERS, and buildings with docks.

Reasonable rates.

(800)278-0617

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Miami Valley Sunday • Classifieds That Work • Sunday, January 1, 2012 • C5

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PLACE YOUR CLASSIFIED AD ONLINE-24/7 www.tdnpublishing.com

100 - Announcement

QUALITY MANAGERTS-16949 MACHINISTS

125 Lost and Found FOUND EYEGLASSES. Mens, in front of museum on Water Street.

(937)307-6916 LOST DOG! 12-20-2011 pit bull mix, black with white, male, 6 months old, 50 lbs. Answers to Crush.

Wearing blue collar. Last seen around Lincoln Ave. REWARD! (937)451-2086

135 School/Instructions AIRLINES ARE HIRINGTrain for high paying Aviation Career. FAA approved program. Financial aid if qualified - Job placement assistance. CALL Aviation Institute of Maintenance 877-676-3836

200 - Employment

Concept Machine & Tool, Inc. a growing & progressive company has immediate openings for the following positions: QUALITY MANAGER Proficiency with TS-16949 Quality system, including program implementation, manuals, and procedures.

CNC MILL, CNC LATHE & TOOL ROOM MACHINISTS

280 Transportation

FLEET MANAGER Continental Express Inc., a local transportation company, has an immediate need for Fleet Manager. This person will communicate with drivers and customers. Requires someone with excellent computer and telephone skills.

Must also be able to handle multiple tasks simultaneously and possess good decision making abilities. Must be flexible to work various hours. Prefer candidate with prior supervisory experience and some college coursework. We offer excellent salary and benefit package.

Please apply at: Continental Express Inc. 10450 State Route 47 Sidney, OH 45365 or email resume to:

CNC Positions: Doing own setups and program editing required.

Programming experience a plus!

DEADLINES/CORRECTIONS:

GENERAL INFORMATION

All Display Ads: 2 Days Prior Liners For: Mon - Fri @ 5pm Weds - Tues @ 5pm Thurs - Weds @ 5pm Fri - Thurs @ 5pm Sat - Thurs @ 5pm Miami Valley Sunday News liners- Fri @ Noon

Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8-5

Professional Driver wanted for dedicated route (OH/MI).

Local Owner/Operator.

Two years Steel Hauler experience required. For more information please call 937-405-8544. ◆❍◆❍◆❍◆❍◆❍◆❍◆

OTR DRIVERS ◆ Class A CDL required ◆ Great Pay and Benefits!

CDL Grads may qualify Call Jon Basye at: Piqua Transfer & Storage Co. (937)778-4535 or (800)278-0619 ◆❍◆❍◆❍◆❍◆❍◆❍◆

500 - Merchandise

235 General

AG EQUIPMENT SALES Koenig Equipment Anna Ohio We have an opening for an agricultural equipment sales professional in Miami and Shelby counties.

Candidates must live in the territory or be willing to relocate.

Job duties include, developing and maintaining a business relationship with agricultural producers in an assigned territory, calling on all key and assigned accounts on a regular basis and offering equipment solutions to those accounts.

Job requirements include experience in an agricultural related field with a strong background in direct sales, time management and customer relations. A bachelor's degree or equivalent experience is desired. Knowledge of John Deere agricultural equipment is a plus.

For more information on the position or to submit an on-line application/resume visit:

Day Shift & Night (4:30pm to 5:00am Monday-Thursday 10 hour shifts with OT) Shift positions are open. Concept Machine & Tool, Inc. provides excellent wages & benefits including 401K & uniforms in an AIR CONDITIONED facility.

Apply in person!

2065 Industrial Court Covington, Ohio 45318-0009 (937)473-3334

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Respect.

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250 Office/Clerical

PART TIME Position available in busy professional office. Must have good phone skills and knowledge in Word, Excel, and general computer programs.

People skills and teamwork a must.

Please send resume to: BOX 881 c/o Troy Daily News 224 S. Market St. Troy, Ohio 45373

You are looking for it, we have it.

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LANE GRADER, 6 Foot King Kutter rear mounted blade, above average condition, always kept inside, $250 obo, (419)233-4310

545 Firewood/Fuel

• •

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

245 Manufacturing/Trade

SEASONED FIREWOOD $165 per cord. Stacking extra, $135 you pick up.

Taylor Tree Service available (937)753-1047

PRODUCTION TEAM LEADER RevWires, a growing manufacturer of cored welding wire located in Troy, is now hiring experienced machine operators and a production team leader. Qualified candidates will have a solid work history in a manufacturing environment along with excellent safety and attendance records.

Applicants must pass a drug screen and background check. We offer a competitive wage and benefits package including 401(k) and health benefits.

Email your resume to: jobs@ nationalstandard.com or fax to: (937)573-3211

RADIO, ANTIQUE, 1942 Philco floor model, AM/SW/police, $125 firm.

28" Schwinn balloon tire men's bicycle, 6 speed, $200. Overhead Projector, new condition, $75.

Epson NX110 printer/ copy/ scan, like new $75.

Toshiba 27" color TV, $50.

Cash only.

(937)773-7858

877-844-8385 We Accept

235 General

235 General

580 Musical Instruments GUITAR, 80’s American Kramer, Pacer deluxe, Seymour Duncan pick ups, original Floyd Rose trem with case, $650, (937)418-1527.

583 Pets and Supplies BEAGLE PUPS each.

5 (937)492-3583

$250 total.

BOSTON TERRIER puppies, 8 weeks old. (2) Females $350 (937)726-0226 2246670

WE PAY cash for your old toys! Star Wars, GI Joes, He-Man, Transformers and much more.

(937)638-3188.

245 Manufacturing/Trade

245 Manufacturing/Trade

597 Storage Buildings OFFICE TRAILER, 12 x 60. (3) Air conditioning units, bath with sink and toilet. $2500 OBO. (937)606-0918

800 - Transportation

577 Miscellaneous COREVOLUTION EXERCISER, Great for back, core muscles. $100 OBO. (937)418-6336 DESKTOP COMPUTER, Nobilis, 17" monitor, HP 3-in-one printer, keyboard, mouse, XP Microsoft office, and many other programs, $275 OBO. (937)418-6336 NASCAR DIECAST collection. Over 225 1/24 diecast. Some autograph cars, Autograph picture cards. NASCAR card collection and lots more. 3 curio cabinets.

(419)629-2041 POP MACHINE, 7-up with 6 selections, good working condition. Nice machine for workplace or investment location. $350 OBO. (937)418-6336 TONNEAU COVER, Aluminum, retractable, fits F-150, 6.5' bed. Fits 2005-2008 trucks. Locks, lighting connections, in nice condition. $350 OBO. (937)418-6336

245 Manufacturing/Trade

Street Department Maintenance Specialist II The City of Tipp City is accepting applications for (1) full-time Maintenance Specialist II position in the Street Department.

This is an entry level position starting at $14.38 per hour.

MACHINE OPERATORS

POLICY: Please Check Your Ad The 1st Day. It Is The Advertiser’s Responsibility To Report Errors Immediately.

Publisher Will Not Be Responsible for More Than One Incorrect Insertion. We Reserve The Right To Correctly Classify, Edit, Cancel Or Decline Any Advertisement Without Notice.

592 Wanted to Buy

mgoubeaux@ceioh.com

Tool room Machinists: manual mill, lathe & grinding experience desired!

Troy Daily News

Duties include but are not limited to: Operation of light and medium trucks and/or specialized equipment utilized in the maintenance and repair of City streets. Examples include pick-up truck, dump truck, snow plow, & trailers. The Maintenance Specialist II will be responsible for plowing snow, de-icing streets, hauling debris/materials, patching/repairing/sweeping streets, and cleaning/repairing storm sewers and catch basins. Additional duties include maintenance and repair of streets, pruning of trees, simple building repairs, and routine vehicle maintenance; assists other City personnel and Departments as required, or assigned.

The successful applicant must possess a valid Ohio Driver’s License and a valid CDL, or able to obtain a valid CDL within 4 months. Work in inclement weather and outside normal working hours will be required. The City of Tipp City offers an excellent wage and benefits package.

Applications are available at www.tippcityohio.gov or may be picked up at the City Manager’s office and submitted to: Jon Crusey, City Manager, Tipp City Government Center, 260 S. Garber Drive, Tipp City, Ohio 45371 by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 19, 2012. Tipp City is an Equal Opportunity Employer. 2247114

899 Wanted to Buy Wanted junk cars and trucks.

Cash paid. www.wantedjunkers.com Call us (937)732-5424.

Wanted junk cars and trucks. Cash paid. Get the most for your clunker call us (937)732-5424.

Send Resume to:

Greenville Technology Inc

Time to sell your old stuff...

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with

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C6 • Miami Valley Sunday • Classifieds That Work • Sunday, January 1, 2012

To Advertise In The Classifieds That Work Call 877-844-8385

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600 - Services

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Miami Valley Sunday • Classifieds That Work • Sunday, January 1, 2012 • C7

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Quick Credit Auto Sales

Ford Lincoln Mercury

1099 N. Co. Rd. 25-A Troy, Ohio 45373

2343 W. Michigan Ave. Sidney, Ohio 45365

575 Arlington Rd. Brookville, OH 45309

800-947-1413 www.boosechevrolet.com

CHRYSLER 2

1

937-339-6000 www.QuickCreditOhio.com

BROOKVILLE

6

13

14

866-470-9610

937-878-2171

www.buckeyeford.com

www.wagner.subaru.com

MERCURY

VOLKWAGEN 13

9

4

ERWIN Chrysler Dodge Jeep

8645 N. Co. Rd. 25-A Piqua, Ohio 45356 I-75 North to Exit 83

2775 S. County Rd 25-A Exit 69 off I-75 N. Troy, OH 45373

217 N. Broad St. Fairborn, OH 45324

11

DODGE

Chrysler Jeep Dodge

Wagner Subaru

Evans

10

Ford Lincoln Mercury

Volkswagen 7124 Poe Ave. Exit 59 off I-75.

Dayton, OH

2343 W. Michigan Ave. Sidney, Ohio 45365

1-800-678-4188

937-335-5696

866-470-9610

937-890-6200

www.paulsherry.com

www.erwinchrysler.com

www.buckeyeford.com

www.evansmotorworks.com

CHRYSLER

FORD

PRE-OWNED

VOLVO

9

8

4

FORD

ERWIN Jim Taylor’s Chrysler Dodge Jeep 2775 S. County Rd 25-A Exit 69 off I-75 N. Troy, OH 45373

937-335-5696 www.erwinchrysler.com

Troy Ford Exit 69 Off I-75 Troy, OH 45373

Ford Lincoln Mercury

339-2687

2343 W. Michigan Ave. Sidney, Ohio 45365

www.troyford.com www.fordaccessories.com

www.buckeyeford.com

866-470-9610

INFINITI 10

5

Infiniti of Dayton

Independent Auto Sales

866-504-0972 Remember...Customer pick-up and delivery with FREE loaner. www.infinitiofdayton.com

6

1280 South Market St. (CR 25A) Troy, OH 45373

Volvo of Dayton 7124 Poe Ave. Exit 59 off I-75 Dayton, Ohio

(866)816-7555 or (937)335-4878

937-890-6200

www.independentautosales.com

www.evansmotorworks.com

C8 • Miami Valley Sunday • Classifieds That Work • Sunday, January 1, 2012

To Advertise In The Classifieds That Work Call 877-844-8385

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

ERWIN 937-335-5696 2775 SOUTH COUNTY RD 25A

WE’RE JUST NORTH OF DAYTON ON I-75 EXIT #69 TROY

2242178

Thanks to all of our customers, friends and family! www.erwinchrysler.com