Woollybear Festival is one of the best events in the state

BOUQUETS >> To the organizers of the 47th annual Woollybear Festival where about 100,000 people enjoyed the festivities Oct. 6 in downtown Vermilion.

There were multiple vendors, food, music and other activities for what is considered the largest one-day festival in Ohio.

Sandy Coe, executive director of the Vermilion Chamber of Commerce, said this year’s festival was a good one.

Coe said, “It’s one of those things where you plan for something and visualize a dry erase board as you check things off as they happen. I feel everything has gone really well. The big thing was the rain missing us.”

There are a lot of logistics involved, including the parade route through some of the main roads in downtown Vermilion.

The parade started at the Ritter Public Library and proceeded to Sandusky, South, Decatur and Ohio streets.

The festival, however, is centered around the titular woolly bear, which is a striped caterpillar, and was started by retired local TV personality Dick Goddard.

And if woolly bears are to be believed, the surrounding areas will have a cold, snowy and long-lasting latter half of the winter season.

Hopefully, the woolly bears are wrong.

But we applaud the Woollybear Festival organizers for putting on another good show. BOUQUETS >> To Lorain High School senior Trent Jackson who was named Oct. 4 a semifinalist by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Jackson is one of nearly 16,000 semifinalists recognized in the corporation’s 65th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

He will compete for some of the 7,600 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $31 million offered during spring 2020.

For consideration of a Merit Scholarship award, Jackson must fulfill several requirements, put forth by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.

Jackson must submit a detailed scholarship application with his academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received.

Over 90 percent of semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing.

Last year, as a junior, Jackson was recognized by the district for scoring a perfect 36 on the ACTs, placing him in the top one-tenth of 1 percent of all test-takers in the nation.

This accomplishment — along with all of Jackson’s numerous academic and civic accomplishments — earned him a place in Lorain High history, as he was named the inaugural inductee into the Lorain High School Academic Hall of Fame on April 24, 2019.

We congratulate this young man for all of his accomplishments.

BRICKBATS >> To Delmar R. Board Sr., the 42-year-old Elyria man who will spend the next 18 months in prison for a vehicle crash that killed a 49-year-old Lorain woman.

In August, Board pleaded guilty before Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Mark A. Betleski to not stopping after an accident and driving under suspension in the incident that killed Roslyn Arroyo.

Board was driving a 1995 Chevrolet Suburban that struck Arroyo at the intersection of state Routes 57 and 254 around 9:17 p.m., Dec. 2, in Sheffield Village, while she attempted to cross the north travel lanes of Route 57.

After striking Arroyo, Board continued north on Route 57.

It’s not clear why Board didn’t stop, but for what he was convicted of, the punishment fits the crime. BRICKBATS >> To the 67-year-old Elyria man who was arrested Oct. 6 after allegedly brandishing a large knife to children and threatening to shoot them for being in his yard.

The man was charged with inducing panic and aggravated menacing and disorderly conduct while intoxicated.

An Elyria police report said officers responded at 4:39 p.m. to the 100 block of Hillsdale Court for a woman who said the man had threatened her children, while holding a large knife, for being on his property.

While officers were en route, the man called dispatch and said if police did not arrive soon, he was going to take out his rifle and shoot the children.

The woman told officers she heard yelling and then her children and their friends ran into her house and said the man issued the threats.

Police said the woman opened her window and saw the man holding the 6-inch knife.

The report said he told the woman he was going to kill her children if they did not stay off his yard.

Officers met with the man, and said he smelled like alcohol, had glossy eyes and slurred speech.

He told officers he didn’t own a rifle and he just said that so officers would get there faster.

The man said the children often jump his chain-link fence to retrieve items and he was highly upset they did it that day.

He is innocent until proven guilty.

But this was the wrong way to handle the situation.