Akron’s Civic Theater

October 31, 2002- Akron’s Civic Theater reopens after a $23 million restoration that returns it to its former glory. The theater is the first in the nation to be built with sound equipment for talking movies. It has a night sky of twinkling stars and moving clouds as well as stunning Moorish and Mediterranean architecture.

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World’s largest milkshake

October 30, 1989 – Smith Dairy in Orrville makes the world’s largest milkshake at 1,575 gallons.
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John Glenn

October 29, 1998 – Buckeye Sen. John Glenn returns to space on the shuttle Discovery from a nine-day mission that included tests on the impact of space on aging.

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Jerome Dillon

October 28, 2005 – After a show at the Hollywood Bowl, drummer Jerome Dillon, a 1987 graduate of Northland High School in Columbus - Dwight Yoakam's school - quits Nine Inch Nails. He formerly played with Howlin’ Maggie on their Honeysuckle Strange album.
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Sarah Jessica Parker

October 27, 1973 – An eight-year-old girl hears destiny whisper as she heads to school in Cincinnati at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts. Living just above poverty, the girl finds her voice onstage at the downtown school. Sarah Jessica Parker has the pipes and thrives in the footlights, so her family heads to Broadway where she wins the role of Annie. The sun'll come out tomorrow....
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Bootsy Collins

October 26, 1951 – No. 1 funk soul brother Bootsy Collins is born in Cincinnati. His first bass guitar was a restrung electric guitar bought from Sears. James Brown let 17-year-old Bootsy into his band but would not let that converted guitar on stage. Bootsy would transform American funk as a member of the Original J.B.s, Parliament –Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band.
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The Heisman

October 25, 1869 – John W. Heisman is born in Cleveland. Heisman, who would become the head coach of football teams at Oberlin College in Oberlin, the University of Akron, Clemson, Rice, Georgia Tech and University of Pennsylvania, advocated legalization of the forward pass and was the first coach to have pulling guards lead sweeps. The Heisman trophy, given annually to the top collegiate player, is named for him.
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7,000 Ohioans

October 24 - About 7,000 Ohioans died in the Civil War. Say a prayer for them on this fall day.
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Dwight Yoakam

October 23, 2007 – Country music and film star Dwight Yoakam, who was the son of a gas station owner in Pikeville, Ky., moves to Columbus, where he graduates from Northland High School. He achieves international fame as an actor and with his Bakersfield Honky Tonk style. His Dwight Sings Buck – a Buck Owen tribute album – was released on this date. How big is Yoakam? Johnny Cash said he was his favorite country singer.
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Stiv Bators

October 22, 1949 – Steven John Bators is born in Youngstown, later changes his name to Stiv Bators and creates bands like the Dead Boys, the Lords of the New Church and The Wanderers. A regular performer at NYC's club CBGB, he died in London in the summer of 1990 when he was struck by a taxi. His ashes were spread over the Paris grave of the Doors’ Jim Morrison. Stiv's power move? Stick his head into the kick drum during a song.
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Peter Frampton

October 21 – Guitar slinger Peter Frampton picked up his mail today at his home in Indian Hill near Cincinnati. Hum a few bars of "I want youuuuu to show me the way....Everyday...."
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Deadly gales

October 20, 1916 – Hurricane-force winds blow up from Alabama and pick up energy off Lake Erie. The deadly gale sinks three ships including the James B. Colgate near Ashtabula, which was fully loaded with coal, and the Merida, bound for Buffalo with a load of iron ore. The storm kills 58 crewmen on those ships and others as it roars across the lake.
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The world’s oldest traffic light

October 19 – The world’s oldest traffic light is in the very strange but appealing Small Town Museum in Ashville at 34 Long St. George Jetson would have loved this light! Call 740-983-9864 for info.
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The Coyne Incident

October 18, 1973 – An Army Reserve helicopter crew of four spots a gray cigar-shaped aircraft with unusual lights and maneuvers while flying at night near Mansfield on a Columbus to Cleveland trip. The UFO approached on a collision course before pulling up to beam a green light at the helicopter. The close encounter is now known as the Coyne Incident and remains one of the most reliable and mysterious sightings of a UFO.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE October 17, 1914: Jerry Siegel is born. An artist and storyteller, he attends Glenville High School in Cleveland, befriends Joel Shuster and together they create the comic book character named Superman. The story of a bullet-proof man is created after Siegel’s father is killed in a store robbery. October 17, 1894 – The Ohio National Guard kills five would-be lynchers in Washington Courthouse while rescuing a black man.
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Frank Lloyd Wright

October 15, 2005: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s only Prairie Style home in Ohio, Springfield’s Westcott House, 1340 E High St., opens to the public after a five-year restoration. The house was built for a prominent family in 1908, but had fallen on hard times – becoming a multi-unit apartment building – before the renovation. Call 937-327-9291 for tour information. Reservations are suggested.
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Ohio road trip

Nothing says autumn like an Ohio road trip, perhaps to the National Museum of Cambridge Glass at 136 South Ninth Street from April through October. Check out the incredible swans and tableware.
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The Judge

October 13, 1813 – Calvin L. Noble, later called “The Judge,” is born in Trumbull County. He founded a Democratic newspaper in Cleveland and because the type was too wide for his display headline title, he left out a letter and changed forever the spelling of “Cleaveland” to “Cleveland.” Cleaveland Rocks!
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John Vandevanter

October 12, 1802 – Maybe it was on this fall day, maybe on another, but in 1804 Belmont County’s John Vandevanter is paid $3 for a panther hide.
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Ring-necked pheasants

October 11, 1919 - Autumn was in full blaze across the Ohio landscape when the state begins its annual release of 25,000 ring-necked pheasants. Originally imported from China, about five million birds would be released in the program. By 1976, more than 98 percent of that population would be gone.
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Akron-Canton Aeros

October 10, 1996 – Michael Agganis moves the Akron-Canton Indians to Akron’s $32 million ballpark. He wants them named the Akron Blast, to honor the city’s contribution to the space industry - the most prominent was of astronaut Judy Resnick, who died in the Challenger shuttle. Even worse? Agganis wants a cat mascot Kaboom. Finally, a citywide contest offers the Aeros and a mascot named Orbit.
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Hang on Sloopy

October 9, 1965 – With Hang on Sloopy at No. 1 on the charts, the Ohio State University band plays the song for the first but not the last time thanks to band member John Tatgenhorst. He had to convince his band director to work it in. The crowd goes wild and the song has been played during games ever since with fans singing along loudly and making letters with their arms during a bridge in the chorus: O - H - I - O.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE October 8, 1950 – Robert “Kool” Bell is born in Youngstown. The bassist and singer would lead the funk, soul, disco and R&B group Kool and the Gang to global fame. October 8, 1965 - William Henry Hope, stone mason and father of Bob Hope, has a bridge named in his honor: the Carnegie Avenue bridge linking downtown Cleveland to the West Side. The art deco bridge joins the National Register of Historic Places.
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Turbojet Green Monster

October 7, 1964 – Akronite and Springfield Township resident Art Arfons, the “junkyard genius of the jetset” drives his turbojet Green Monster to a world land-speed record of 434.356 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The Monster was, essentially, a frame, four tires, a chassis, a seat and a jet engine.
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Contemporary Arts Center

October 6, 1990 - In a resounding blow to a conservative sheriff trying to enforce his standards on a community, a Cincinnati jury acquitted the Contemporary Arts Center art museum and its director, Dennis Barrie, of obscenity charges in connection with an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photos. The courtroom erupted in shouts and cheers when the verdict was announced.
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Maya Lin

October 5, 1959 – Maya Lin, born in Athens, wins a commission to create a Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is unveiled November 13, 1982 and bears the names of fallen soldiers from the conflict. The memorial becomes an instant Mecca for Americans who fought in the conflict.
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R.W. Apple, Jr.

October 4, 2006 – Hudson native, world traveler and New York Times journalist R.W. Apple, Jr., 71, dies from complications of thoracic cancer. He was a lifelong newshound and gourmand.
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Chris Campbell's Northern Pike

October 3, 1988 – Chris Campbell of Dayton fishes Lyre Lake and lands a freshwater shark: a 22.38 pound, 43-inch long Northern Pike. It's a state record.
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Elizabeth Degenhart Glass Art Day

October 2, 1975 – Ohio declares Elizabeth Degenhart Glass Art Day to honor the 4,000 glass paperweights at the Degenhart Paperweight Museum - behind a gas station in Cambridge at 65323 Highland Hills Rd. Check out the gear-shift-knob paperweight turned down by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's assistant secretary in 1933, and don’t miss three glass gravesite markers – a trend that never took off but remains a good idea.
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World Series fix

October 1, 1919 – Players on the Chicago White Sox fix the World Series with the Cincinnati Reds by conspiring to lose. George M. Cohan, the Broadway showman, was in the stands at Redland Field today. He lost a bundle on the White Sox, too.
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