Here’s something you don’t usually want to say to a professional wrestler.

“So this is fake, right?”

Even though pro wrestling impresario Vince McMahon let the cat out of the bag in the late 1980s in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid regulation by a state athletic commission, there remains a strong element within the spandex-clad community that hangs onto “kayfabe,” or “fake” in pig Latin, wrestling lingo for not breaking character, even after the show.

In the year 2009, many pro wrestlers still take umbrage with being called mere actors or stuntmen. They don’t appreciate the suggestion that they aren’t athletes, that wrestling isn’t sport. Sure, they acknowledge, showmanship is involved, but so is a high tolerance for pain and a high level of athleticism.

I attended several local independent wrestling shows in recent months, hoping to explore those intersections between fake and real, sport and entertainment, tradition and modernism.

What I found was an industry striving to remain relevant — and financially solvent — but possibly shooting itself in the foot by not fully embracing a modern view of what professional wrestling could, or perhaps should, be.

***

Most wrestling shows in the Mahoning Valley are produced by Championship Wrestling Experience. The CWE is the brainchild of Kyle Tererri and Nick Volinchak. The two life-long wrestling fans started CWE in 2007, putting on small shows featuring independent wrestlers from around the region, and, occasionally, bigger name stars like Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

I first met Tererri, 25, of Canfield, over coffee at a café in Boardman. After a few warm up questions, I got straight to the point: Just how scripted is wrestling? He took an audible breath that carried the connotation that this was not a topic he really wanted to deal with.

“Less than you think and more than I’m gonna go on the record and say,” Tererri said, an odd answer for a secret that’s been not very secret for about two decades.

Some of his answers drifted into kayfabe territory — a common occurrence even with wrestlers who seem comfortable talking about the real aspects of this fake sport.

Later, I pressed him on the issue again.

“Fake…” He drifted off, sentence unfinished. He breathed in, pondered his words. “The athleticism…” He stopped again.

The mat isn’t soft, he diverted, not like a trampoline at all, despite what some people think. And there isn’t time for choreography, he said, as most wrestlers don’t meet up until a couple of hours before they wrestle.

Finally, his defense broke down a bit. “Wrestling has a real knack for mirroring society,” Tererri said. “The point of it is to tell a story. You give people an escape from reality, but tell a story that parallels things that are actually going on — people are going to identify.”

***

I caught up with Tererri about a week later, several hours before a CWE show in Austintown at the Wedge nightclub. Providing visual testimony as to how small his organization is, Tererri was putting the entire ring together by himself, carrying large metal beams, interlocking them, occasionally dropping them, until the familiar shape of the squared circle was discernible.

After about an hour of working by himself — with the occasional assist by me — one of his partners, Joey Buffone, showed up and helped finish the assembly. Buffone and Tererri then started to talk about the troubles CWE has had with finding sponsorships and support from the local community.

“Basically with the popular opinion of wrestling currently, you should hear some of the phone conversations we’ve had with some people,” Tererri said. “Some people are at least willing to listen before they call you names and throw you out. Other people just hear the word wrestling and they see red.”

“It’s basically just trying to get accepted,” Buffone said. “I mean, you’ve got a lot of people who don’t know what wrestling is. They think wrestling is the stuff you see on TV. We’ve got local guys wrestling in the local community. Why wouldn’t you want to help?”

“A lot of people aren’t ready to sit down and give it a serious consideration and see it as a legitimate business,” Tererri said.

In recent years, the Mahoning Valley has seen a sort of resurgence in cultural nightlife, from bands, to art, to theater. At the coffee shop, I asked Tererri if he saw CWE as part of that movement.

“I don’t think we’re a recognized part of it,” he said, adding it should be.

I didn’t say anything at the time, but I couldn’t help but thinking that the reluctance to market local wrestling in a manner similar to local theater or rock concerts, to fully embrace the artifice of it all, was perhaps one of the reasons wrestling was having trouble being accepted in Youngstown.

***

Just before bell time, I caught up with Nick Volinchak, the CWE’s co-owner with Tererri. While Tererri serves as a behind-the-scenes promoter, Volinchak appears in the shows, conducting in-ring interview segments with the wrestlers. Volinchak is also CWE’s booker, which means he decides who wrestles who, in addition to writing the scripted portions of the show.

It’s his wrestling character who answers my first question, not the real Volinchak. I have to ask him to please drop kayfabe. But aside from getting him to spell his real last name for me, he provided very little in the way information that couldn’t apply to both his character and real life.

Such blurring is not uncommon in wrestling. As many wrestlers I talked to said, their in-ring characters are just amped-up versions of themselves.

“The best way to develop your character is to magnify yourself by a million,” said wrestler Justin Silvestri, 27, of Austintown, who goes by the ring name J.C. Slick. “I’m pretty calm and quiet, but I like to say that I have an alter ego, which would be J.C. Slick. And he is loud. He’s obnoxious. He’s cocky. He thinks the world owes him something. He’s God’s gift to everything.”

Though Silvestri was quite open about the behind-the-scenes aspects of wrestling, wrestler Hobo Joe wouldn’t even break character long enough to give his real name. A sample exchange: How did you develop the Hobo Joe character? “I smelled bad, so I ran with it.” Tererri insists Hobo Joe is a “surprisingly intelligent guy.”

And while a slavish dedication to kayfabe might seem harmless enough, it can reach absurd levels. The BBC reported last year on WWE wrestler Kofi Kingston, who’s wrestling gimmick is a Bob Marley-like Jamaican. However, Kingston, real name Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah, is of Ghanan descent. When asked in a legitimate interview with a BBC reporter about his roots in Ghana, he denied his nationality. His family was reportedly quite upset.

One CWE wrestler who has no problem differentiating fantasy from reality is Justin Nottke. Nottke, 24, of Lorain, who wrestles as “The Mega Star” Marion Fontaine, approaches wrestling from a fundamentally different way than most in the business. Rail-thin, with a hilarious mustache on his upper lip (and a tattoo on his bicep of the Batman logo with a mustache on it), Nottke’s performance as Fontaine has all the dripping comedic irony of a Will Farrell character. Outside of wrestling, the college educated Nottke is a graphic designer and does freelance rock photography.

“I guess I’m trying to make it hip,” Nottke said. “Trying to do something a little bit different.” He said one of his primary goals is to make his opponent laugh. Here’s a guy who’s not that worried about kayfabe.

Back at the coffee shop, Tererri said he’s not quitting his day job any time soon. But for now, CWE is surviving.

“Pro wrestling has a knack for surviving,” Tererri said. “There’s always gonna be pro wrestling.”

(Some interviews in this story were conducted alongside Michael Bury, who wrote a different story about the CWE for The Yo Magazine.)

By Leonard Crist

YOUNGSTOWN — At least they keep it interesting.

The Youngstown State University men’s basketball team relinquished all but two of a 22-point lead in the final 9 minutes of Thursday’s game against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay before pulling it together with seconds to go in a nail-biting 77-73 upset victory at home.

It was the first time since joining the Horizon League in 2001 that the Penguins (9-15, 6-8 HL) won three straight league games.

“I don’t care what the score is,” YSU Coach Jerry Slocum said in the post-game press conference. “If you watch college basketball, nobody is blowing anybody out this time of year.”

The win means something, Slocum said, because it comes against what he considers the best team in the league. The Phoenix (19-7, 11-3 HL) had won five in a row prior to Thursday’s loss, including a Feb. 2 victory over nationally ranked Butler.

“They’ve been the hottest team in the league,” Slocum said. “Our guys have a real confidence right now.”

Junior guard DeAndre Mays, who led the Penguins with 21 points, agreed.

“It’s a big game for us to win,” Mays said. “It gives us great confidence going in to make a push for a run in the conference tournament.”

The Penguins jumped out to an early lead in the opening minutes of the first half thanks to strong three-point shooting and a foul-happy Green Bay team. Tom Parks, Ashen Ward, Vytas Sulskis and Kelvin Bright all hit three pointers within the first twelve minutes of the game, contributing to YSU’s 16-point lead at the half.

Youngstown State shot 52.2 percent in the first half, besting the 32 percent output from an anemic Green Bay. However, those numbers nearly flipped in the second half as Green Bay got hot and the Penguins struggled to hold on to their sizable lead.

With 9:19 left on the clock, the Penguins began a downward slide they almost failed to recover from. The Phoenix chipped away at their lead until, with 42 seconds left in the game, Green Bay’s Troy Cotton hit a clutch three pointer, reducing YSU’s advantage to only two points.

“I think guys got tired and we just lost our focus,” Mays said, attempting to explain the second half of the second half.

The Penguins managed to scrape together a five-point lead with 15 seconds left, but again were reduced to two points with only 5 seconds remaining.

YSU senior forward Zach Rebillot was intentionally fouled with 2 seconds left, and came through for the Penguins with two big free throw points to secure the 77-73 victory.

Mays said of the hard-fought victory: “We just gutted up.”

On Saturday, the Penguins face a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee team that, on paper, is nearly as tough as Green Bay.

“In this business you’re only as good as your last ballgame,” Slocum said. “And we’ve got a tough Milwaukee team coming in.”

Mays added, “We’re gonna have to grind it out just like we did tonight.”

SHARON — In addition to a second Super Bowl ring in four years, Ben Roethlisberger may have earned the honor of having a sandwich named after him at Billy’s Black and Gold, a Sharon, Penn., bar and grill.

The restaurant, exclusively Pittsburgh themed since owner Bill Novosel bought it from his father in 1987, serves items such as Franco’s Italian Hoagie, named after former Steelers’ running back Franco Harris, and Lambert’s Lunatic Chicken, after former linebacker Jack Lambert.

“Win another one,” Novosel said a few days before the big game when asked if he might consider creating a Roethlis cheeseburger. “Then he’s worthy of a sandwich of his own.”

Novosel has a direct stake in Big Ben’s performance. When the Steelers win, Billy’s Black and Gold sees more customers, he said. (That same rational holds true for the other Pittsburg sports teams, Novosel said, noting a spike last year when the Penguins were winning. The long suffering Pirates are another story.)

In years when the Steelers aren’t playing at their peak, he might get 30 people in his bar on a game day. On the other end of the scale, he had about 450 customers show up during the Steelers’ Super Bowl winning performance four years ago. He was expecting the same size crowd for Sunday’s game.

Friends and relatives were expected to be on hand to help Novosel and his roughly 15 employees handle the Super Bowl rush on IC Light, a Pittsburg brewed beer, and Billy Burgers, the signature item on the menu.

“We’re gonna hold onto our seats,” Novosel said.

So what happens if someone walks into the bar on game day wearing an Arizona Cardinals’ jersey? After all, the Arizona team has a lot of connections to Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, including Sharon-native Teryl Austin, a defensive backs coach for the Cardinals.

“It won’t happen,” Novosel said. “Too many nuts in here wouldn’t approve of it.”

Billy’s Black and Gold, 514 Sharpsville Avenue, Sharon, Penn., is open 7 days a week. They have a web site located at www.billysblackandgold.com.

C. Reid Schmutz is the president of the Youngstown State University Foundation, a non-profit organization separate from the university that primarily funds university scholarships through planned giving in an individual’s will. In this interview, conducted in late October, Schmutz discusses diversity and gender stratification within the YSU Foundation.

Leonard Glenn Crist: What role does diversity of race and sex play when choosing new trustees?

Reid Schmutz: Basically, I would say it’s not considered. We’re looking for objectivity. We’re not looking to do it that way. We got an award for diversity from the Diversity Council, so I think your actions probably speak louder than some of the things that you do. Some other things: we matched probably over $600,000 in matching scholarships for minorities at this point in time, which means there is about $1.5 million now in minority scholarship endowment that’s here. We’ve authorized, first it was a half-million dollar chunk, second, it’s another half-million dollar chunk. We started a minority loan program. It’s a revolving loan program, $50,000 we throw in. We started a minority work experience program.

Crist: At the foundation, of the 45 trustees, only three are women. Is that accurate?

Schmutz: I think that’s probably right.

Crist: And yet all of your subordinate staff members are women. When you hear those kinds of numbers, what are your thoughts on that?

Schmutz: I would say this. As this thing grew from— How many women trustees are at the university? Three out of nine. Over the course of things, not as many women are connected to finance. Not as many control the money in their families. So they don’t necessarily bring that knowledge and objectivity to the board. We have had more women, but some of them have gotten off for health reasons or passed on. We have had more than this. Again, it’s not, criteria-wise, trying to fill slots according to gender.

Crist: Is it difficult to find qualified women in this area?

Schmutz: First of all, you have to have interest in the university, so that eliminates people. There are people who would like to be on this board because maybe they think it’s prestigious. I don’t know why. Because we’ve got a lot of money, I suppose. People at banks might like to, but they might have other agendas, like we should do our business with their bank. So again, its just plain simply, not a criteria. We’re looking for objectivity and some knowledge of finance. There are again, a lot of women who serve on boards, but when you look at them, they might serve on a marketing committee in this community, but they don’t serve on the finance committee.

Crist: Coming from a fundraising standpoint, you said men control the money in families more often. Are they predisposed to trust a man more?

Schmutz: Look down the list of— Who’s in charge at Huntington Bank? It’s not a woman. There are plenty of women who work there that are very capable, but in this foundation, we want to have the president. So we pick the president of that bank, we don’t pick somebody down below. Same thing is true at National City. Look at Butler Wick. There are plenty of capable people. We got the president. Home Savings and Loan, we’ve got the president.

Crist: You’re representative of the leadership in the area.

Schmutz: Yes, and if the leadership isn’t gender diverse, then we’re not going to be gender diverse because we want those leaders that are recognized as capable and as leaders because the board sets the policy for the foundation. So those people are setting the policy for us. They set the policy in their own company; they set the policy for us. It’s a hard question.

Crist: Does the abundance of male voices bias decisions made by the foundation?

Schmutz: No. Most of our scholarships are decided by the university. They have a program. Lets say you are in the top 25 percent of your class and have an ACT of 21-24: you get $1,500 on a Red and White scholarship. I don’t see how you can— That’s pretty objective. That’s the bulk of our money. There are probably— I’ve got two or three gender specific scholarships where some man said, ‘I want it to go to a man.’ And some woman said, ‘I want it to go to a female.’ So it’s hard to do that. For the most part we look at need.

Crist: What could be done to increase the number of women serving on the board?

Schmutz: I think that’s going to have to come from— Again, if we’re going to be a board of community leaders, then women are going to have to rise up in the community. We invited two university scholars several years ago to start coming to our meetings to represent— That [the University Scholar’s program] is a big chunk of our budget. [Former YSU President Leslie] Cochran wanted us to do that so we did that. I think it’s been successful for the university. We invited a man and a woman, male and female. The male lives in Cleveland, expressed an interest and was very faithful in coming to our meetings, in snow, in the winter, the summer, sometimes he had conflicts. The female, I think she came once, and she’s still invited. The male was recently elected to our board as a full trustee. It’s interests. In that particular case we tried to— We’re saying, ‘Hey, the old families and community leaders, Youngstown is not that big anymore.’ We’re used to having Cushwas on here. No Cushwas in town anymore. We used to have Beeghleys. You can see that some of the old families in town are not going to be here. We’re interested in trying to find people who would be interested and qualified to be trustees, because we can see that there aren’t enough slots to fill up.  So, will this change? Will the gender thing change? I don’t know where they will be in positions in their companies. Again, you go through these banks. All the banks in town have men presidents. If they had a woman president, we’d probably take them, but I don’t see one.  It’s kind of the way, unfortunately. We’re not that much more a reflection of society.

By LEONARD GLENN CRIST

Few women in the Mahoning Valley have the financial clout, knowledge and objectivity required to serve on the board of trustees at the Youngstown State University Foundation, the non-profit organization’s president said in a recent interview.

“Not as many women are connected to finance. Not as many women control the money in their families. They don’t necessarily bring that knowledge and objectivity to the board,” C. Reid Schmutz, YSU Foundation president, said.

Less than six percent of the YSU Foundation’s leadership is female. Three females — Jocelyn Kollay Linsalata, Eleanor Beecher Flad and Eugenia Atkinson — serve on the foundation’s 45-member board of trustees. Of the three paid employees who serve in subordinate positions to Schmutz, all three are women.

Unlike the university, the foundation has no official diversity goals or policies, Schmutz said, and diversity considerations play no role in choosing trustees.

Anne McMahon believes the foundation will eventually be forced to change its practices. A management professor in the Williamson College of Business and the founder of Partners for Workplace Diversity, McMahon said the foundation should have diversity goals. If they don’t become more inclusive, they will eventually begin to feel ill effects in the organizational pocketbook, she said.

“At some point it will become clear to the foundation that they are missing out on some money,” McMahon said. “Why they are kind of not working very hard on it [diversity], I’m not sure. It makes me think they have lots of money.” 

Though housed on the second floor of the Alumni House on the YSU campus, The YSU Foundation is a non-profit organization separate from the university. The foundation had net assets of $166 million at the end of 2006, according to Internal Revenue Service tax records. The primary source of foundation money is planned giving in an individual’s will, Schmutz said.

C. Reid Schmutz, YSU Foundation president

Last year, the foundation provided $6.2 million in funding for various university programs and scholarships, Schmutz said. He touted a $1.5 million endowment the foundation has for minority scholarship as evidence of the foundation’s commitment to diversity.

Increased diversity was one of three primary initiatives (the other two were increased enrollment and increased partnerships) that YSU President David Sweet called for when he first came to the university in 2000, said George McCloud, YSU’s vice president for university advancement.

Asked if the university has made these priorities clear to the foundation, McCloud said Sweet “has always been very clear and public on those themes. We make very clear what our institutional priorities are.”

Though the university and the foundation have a close relationship and meet informally on a bi-weekly basis, the university is “mindful of the independent status of the foundation,” McCloud said.

Ultimately, McMahon said, the university has relatively little leverage over the foundation.

Schmutz agreed, noting that over the course of the 19 years he has been with the foundation, there have been attempts by the university to exert pressure, but the foundation is able to resist those pressures because it remains autonomous. The foundation tries to be responsive to the university’s needs, but with prudence, he said.

The gender stratification within the YSU Foundation reflects society, Schmutz said. The top financial institutions in the Mahoning Valley from which the foundation culls its membership have only men in their highest positions, he said.

“If the leadership isn’t gender diverse, then we’re not going to be gender diverse,” Schmutz said. “Who’s in charge at Huntington Bank? It’s not a woman. There are plenty of women who work there that are very capable, but in this foundation, we want to have the president. So we pick the president of that bank, we don’t pick somebody down below.” If local banks had female presidents, the board would probably be interested in them, he said.

McMahon said Youngstown is not on the leading edge of diversity. The YSU Foundation is anchored around a community that functions somewhat like “an old boys network,” she said. The influential people in this network use their knowledge of each other’s income and their shared commitment to the university and the community to accomplish their goals, McMahon said.

“They believe they are doing a good job and they have done a good job,” McMahon said, but the network’s lack of diversity means powerful women and minorities are often not included or are treated differently by the “old boys.”

Source: YSU Foundation

“There are certainly women in this community with money,” McMahon said. “And those women are very generous with their money. Now whether they want to participate in this organization is another matter, but if I were the first woman on, I’d be a little worried. It’s not easy to break through those barriers.

“Women do not have to fight those battles to give their money away,” she said. “And at some point it will become clear to the foundation that they are missing out on some money. Now whether it’s the money they worry about, I don’t know. But when you create a definition of, ‘These are the people in town that are rich,’ and you exclude women from that category, at some point, somebody’s going to say, ‘That’s not accurate.’ Apart from whether it’s wise, it’s just not accurate.”

Schmutz said it comes down to qualifications and interest in serving the YSU Foundation.

“If we’re going to be a board of community leaders, then women are going to have to rise up in the community,” he said.

Leonard Glenn Crist can be reached at lgcrist@student.ysu.edu

After the jump, a list of the trustees on the  YSU Foundation board. 

A list of the 45 trustees who serve on the YSU Foundation Board:

Peter J. Asimakopoulos, Regional President and CEO, First National Bank

Eugenia Atkinson, Executive Director, Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority

Dr. A. Gary Bitonte, Retired Physician

Alan Brant, Retired, President of Second National Bank of Warren

William J. Bresnahan, President, Hynes Industries

Lee Burdman,             Redstone Investment

Anthony M. Cafaro, Sr., President, The Cafaro Company

Donald Cagigas, President, United Way-Youngstown/Mahoning Valley

Thomas J. Cavalier, President, Butler Wick & Co., Inc.

Dr. Y.T. Chiu, Jr., Physician

Alan W. Cope, President, Cope Farm Equipment, Inc.

Rex Ferry, President, Valley Electrical Consolidated

Eleanor Beecher Flad              

Thomas Fleming, President, AIM Leasing

Thomas D. Y. Fok, Ph.D., Thomas Fok & Associates, Ltd.

Frank Hierro, Regional President, Sky Bank

Ben Keck, Director of IT, Performed Line Products

Jocelyne Kollay Linsalata, YSU Alumna

Douglas McKay, CEO, The Home Savings & Loan Company

Richard P. McLaughlin, Attorney, McLaughlin and McNally

Garry Mrozek, Area President, North East Region National City Bank

Thomas E. Naughton              

Joseph S. Nohra, Retired

Carl Nunziato, Attorney

Robert O’Leary, CEO, Patterson Buckeye, Inc.

Anthony Payiavlas, AVI Foodsystems, Inc.

John L. Pogue, Attorney, Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell Ltd

William R. Roesti, Realtor

Gene Rossi, Rossi Insurance Agency, Inc.

William A. Russell, President, Canteen Service of Steel Valley, Inc.

C. Reid Schmutz, President, YSU Foundation

Herbert F. Schuler, President, General Extrusions, Inc.

Joseph M. Schwebel, President, Schwebel Baking Company

Scott R. Schulick, Vice President, Butler Wick Trust Co.

James H. Sisek, President & CEO, Butler Wick Trust Co.

C. R. Smith, Jr., President, Compco Metal Products

William L. Spencer, Spencer & Associates Insurance

Richard B. Thompson 

E.C. “Ted” Thornton, Attorney, Newman, Olson & Kerr

David Tod, Retired President, Torent, Inc.

Frank C. Watson, Retired

Jay Williams, Mayor, City of Youngstown

Paul J. Williams, Vice President, Smith Barney

Warren P. Williamson III, Retired Chairman of the Board, Wilcom Cellular

G. Leo Winger, Retired

Source: YSU Foundation

For my investigative journalism article, I am tracking down a lead I got from Dr. Gerardo, a Latin American history professor at Youngstown State University. Apparently, there is a trend locally (probably nationally, too, but I intend to focus my story on the local situation) of crimes committed against Latino immigrants that often go unreported (for fear of being deported) and unsolved (a lack of cooperation with police, or a lack of concern by the police is how it was put to me). Specifically, there was a Guatemalan immigrant who was murdered in the area last year with no follow through by the police. Or so the story goes. I have a couple of leads to start me on my investigation, including a couple of local non-profit aid workers who are familiar with the situation.  Once I get a better idea of what the real story is, I plan to talk with the appropriate police officials, prosecutors, and once I have all my primary reporting done, experts on illegal immigration issues. And of course, I hope to speak with illegal immigrants themselves, though I imagine I may have to do much of this with pledges of anonymity. 

I’m thinking I might also be able to tie this to the recent bust of illegal immigrants working at Casa Fiesta on Youngstown’s South Side. It’s possible that events like that cause immigrants to clam up further when they are victims or witnesses in a crime because of a heightened sense of being deported.

I’m not sure where this will all lead me. I may end up with a great story. I might end up with no story at all, I suppose. Hopefully not the latter, as I’d like to get a good grade, but investigative reporters will tell you that for every great story they nail, they follow numerous trails that lead them nowhere. We’ll see what happens.

By Leonard Glenn Crist
Youngstown State University

MALVERN — Like most parents, Sonny Mitchell wants his daughter to have a better life than he did.

Holding the young girl in his arms, Mitchell, 27, a resident of Malvern, in Carroll County, said that after learning the hard way — through his own mistakes — he now realizes the importance of a good education. A demolitionist by trade, Mitchell described his past life decisions with regret and said he hopes his daughter does not make the same mistakes he did.

Though she’s barely a toddler, Mitchell already has her path to adulthood mapped: she will attend public school, participate in extra-curricular activities, and then go to college where she will apply herself and succeed.

He has some practical experience in this area.

“I helped my wife through college,” Mitchell said. “Without her getting a good job, I’d really be screwed.”

In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama called this “the American promise” — the idea that the hard work of one generation will allow succeeding ones to live better and follow their own dreams.

In Carroll County, where incomes have always been low compared to the national average, it is increasingly difficult to argue that times are better now than in the past.

Per capita income in Carroll County compared with the rest of the nation reached an all time low in 2005, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data. That year, income per capita was 31 percent lower here than nationally. While the average individual in the U.S. earned $34,471, the average Carroll County resident made just $23,701.

Despite tough times, spirits remain high for residents like Mitchell.

“I’m definitely poor,” Mitchell said. “I’m rich in life, though.”

Mitchell spoke on a Saturday afternoon in early September while attending the Dancing on the Bridge street fair in Malvern.

Located just south of Canton in eastern Ohio, Malvern (population 1,218) has an old-fashioned, all-American feel to it, the kind of town that once resembled a gauzy Norman Rockwell painting but now feels more like the weather-beaten mid-west heartland songs of John Cougar Mellencamp.

Throughout the day, a modest but steady crowd of fair-going Jack and Dianes ate food from street vendors, sang little ditties for each other on a karaoke machine, watched country music bands and received pitches from local politicians.

The race for Carroll County commissioner was on full display at the fair. Not 30 yards apart, both the Democratic incumbent and the Republican challenger manned booths for their respective political parties.

Tom Wheaton, the Democratic commissioner running for reelection, described the county of about 29,000 people as largely a “bedroom community” that has been hit hard by job losses.

Carroll County has no major highway going through it, Wheaton said, taking it off the radar of many. The county also suffers from limited broadband access to the information super-highway, making it difficult to attract the modern businesses that require such high-speed connectivity to the Internet.

Many residents must commute for work to cities like Canton, New Philadelphia and Youngstown, he said. “With the price of gas,” Wheaton noted, “what does that do to their wages?”

His Republican competitor, Phil Pavick, a farmer and small businessman from Delroy, agreed the economy was a top issue for voters. But instead of radically transforming the rural landscape of Carroll County, Pavick believes the county should stick with what it’s good at, while constantly being on the look out for innovative ideas.

“We need to understand our strengths and weaknesses and do the best working with what we’ve got,” Pavick writes on his campaign Web site. “Sometimes I get the feeling that Carroll County is a seven-foot tall guy who’s really good at basketball but sees his neighbors doing well as jockeys so he decides to get into horse racing. Let’s not make that mistake. Let’s keep our eyes and ears open for that next great idea.”

This outlook also translates to a core Republican value that Pavick subscribes to: low taxes.

Handing out McCain/Palin signs to passersby, fellow Republican Dennis Strickler, a vice chair for the county central committee and the treasurer of Pavick’s election campaign, asserted, “No nation on earth has ever taxed itself into prosperity.”

Though Democrats have a slight edge in registered voters in Carroll County, President Bush came out on top by slim margins here in 2000 and 2004.

The county is certainly in play this year and, according to Wheaton, the Obama organization has representatives in Carrollton, the county seat, and Minerva, a northern village that straddles the line between Carroll and Stark counties.

The not-as-well-funded McCain campaign has no operatives on the ground here, Pavick said, however, former Sen. Mike DeWine visited the area recently to help get the ball rolling for the party’s grassroots efforts.

After Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, spoke at the Republican convention, the party headquarters saw an influx of volunteers, Pavick said.

Palin can appeal to independent voters, but also pleases the conservative base because she “walks the walk and talks the talk” on issues such as the second amendment and the right to life, Pavick said.

And, in a county that fell for Sen. Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, Palin might appeal to former Clinton voters, Strickler said.

“I think she can pull a fair number of Hillary backers just ‘cause she’s a woman. That factor can never be discounted,” Strickler said.

One voter who wasn’t impressed with Palin was Gary Lewis, 52, of Carrollton, who said the so-called “troopergate” scandal should be investigated further.

Lewis, a member of the Carroll County Amateur Radio Club, sat at a booth with other members of the club.

“We’ve got a good mix,” Lewis said. “We’ve got Republicans in our club. We got Democrats in our club. We even have some independents in our club.”

Despite the diverse political views, talking politics over the radio is a “no-no situation,” Lewis said. “You just don’t do that.”

He was more than happy to talk politics in person.

“Ohio might be close, but I think Obama is going to take Ohio,” Lewis, a self-described conservative “blue dog” Democrat, said. “People are fed up with the last eight years of [President Bush] lying to us. At least I’m fed up with it.”

Sonny Mitchell, the young father from Malvern, said he also plans to vote for Obama, but he doesn’t feel McCain is all that bad.

To better accomplish the change both candidates so often talk about, he suggested Democrats and Republicans “should all work together as a team to get something done.”

Yet even with bi-partisanship, meaningful change remains difficult.

“You can’t change stuff people have messed up for the last 16 years in four,” he said. “It would be nice if they tried, though.”

By Leonard Crist
Youngstown State University

STEUBENVILLE — Quarterback Dwight Macon stepped into the pocket, the luxury of a strong offensive line, and fired a short pass to receiver Sage Cutri. Eight yards. No defense in sight. Touchdown, Steubenville Big Red!

Before Cutri had much chance for an end zone celebration, the loudspeaker began to roar with the sounds of a stampede. On top of the professional-looking scoreboard, a blood red mustang, muscular and not inconsiderable in size, breathed fire — twice. The flames shot at least a yard into the sky and flickered in the wind.

Steubenville High School football games are played in Harding Stadium, a 10,000 seat venue locals menacingly call “Death Valley.” The Big Red has not lost a home game there in years. No different this early September Friday night. The Big Red steamrolled its competition, earning a 45-13 victory against the rival East Liverpool Potters.

“This valley, football is a big deal,” said Melissa Brown, a 36-year-old Steubenville resident with a niece in the high school marching band. “They love their high school ball.”

If, as Sen. Barack Obama infamously said, voters in small-town America sometimes cling to guns and religion because they’ve lost so much else, perhaps high school football can be added to that controversial list.

The people of Jefferson County, located along the Ohio River just south of Youngstown with Steubenville as its county seat, could certainly use something to cling to. Since the late 1970s, both the economy and the population have been on the decline here.

In the late 1970s, per capita incomes in Jefferson County were virtually on par with the national average. But during the Reagan and Clinton administrations, as the U.S. economy boomed, the residents of Jefferson County increasingly lagged behind.

An economic low point was reached in the late 1990s when the per capita income in Jefferson County was roughly 27 percent less than the national per capita income, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The situation had improved only slightly by 2005, when the county per capita income was 23 percent less than the national figure; in dollars, per capita income nationally was $34,471, in Ohio, $31,860, and in Jefferson County, $26,458.

Jefferson County’s population peaked in 1960 at just below 100,000 people and has declined ever since. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated roughly 70,000 county residents lived here, a nearly 30 percent drop from its Baby Boom zenith.

Population projections show the decline is expected to continue at least through 2030, bringing the county population down to about 56,000, lower than it was in 1917, the year Rat Packer Dean Martin was born in Steubenville.

***

As John McCain and Barack Obama run, pass and tackle through the final quarter of their own political football game, voters in Jefferson County said improving the economy and increasing healthcare availability are the top issues on their minds

Melissa Brown, the Steubenville resident at the football game, said the local economy is “terrible.” But for her, the more important issue is healthcare.

“My father is 60 years old and he’s diabetic,” Brown said. “Working where I work at, at Wal-Mart, I see a lot of people there that are my dad’s age or older, looking for work. And a lot of them need it just for the medical benefits. I think that’s sad. I don’t think you should have to be 68, 70 years old trying to find work just to have medical benefits.”

Mitchell Grim, a 22-year-old security guard who was working at the football game, had similar concerns about affordable healthcare. Grim, who lives in Jewett, in nearby Harrison County, said he cannot afford health insurance with his $7.15 per hour job. It was the only job he could find, he said. 

Grim recently suffered a shoulder injury, he said, and was forced to pay the medical expenses out of pocket.

“I had an x-ray and some prescription pills and it ended up costing me $756,” Grim said.

Grim does not have much faith that the Social Security system will be in place when he reaches retirement age.

“When we retire, when we get older, we don’t really have much to look forward to,” Grim said.

***

A few days before the big game, Obama visited Smithfield, in the southern part of Jefferson County, hoping to shore up support in a traditionally blue county that favored Hillary Clinton in the primary campaign.

McCain has yet to make an appearance in Jefferson County, though Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who unsuccessfully sought his party’s nomination in 2008, recently served as a McCain surrogate during a speech given at Franciscan University of Steubenville, a staunchly conservative Catholic school. 

Both visits garnered coverage in the county’s largest paper, the Steubenville Herald Star, which published an editorial a few days after the Obama visit proclaiming the area “in play.”

“Where once there was a take-it-for-granted support for Democrats or an avoidance-because-it-won’t-matter attitude for Republicans [there] is now a free-for-all,” the paper wrote.   

Democrats in Jefferson County have a distinct edge in total registered voters over Republicans, but a strong base of unaffiliated independent voters has kept recent presidential elections close, according to data from the Jefferson County Board of Elections. The county swung Democrat in 2000 and 2004, choosing both Al Gore and John Kerry over President Bush. Bush, however, came up no more than 2,500 votes short in each race.

In the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton received 67 percent of the county vote, crushing rival Obama by nearly 40 percentage points. Obama would, of course, go on to narrowly win the Democrat nomination. McCain had effectively secured the Republican nomination before Ohio’s primary and sailed through with 59 percent of the county vote in a five-candidate field.

Because of the strong preference for Clinton over Obama in southeastern Ohio, McCain campaign strategists believe the area is key to keeping Ohio a red state. Ohio is crucial for the Arizona senator because, as is often repeated, no Republican since Abraham Lincoln has captured the White House without winning Ohio.

In a strategy briefing released on John McCain’s Web site in June, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, called southeastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania “strong Clinton country.”

“There are strong indications in exit polls now that these Democrat primary voters are not supporting Barack Obama,” Davis said in June. “These were areas that were marginal for Bush, areas where he only won by slight margins or lost by slight margins. But with the influx of disaffected Democrats into this election cycle, our pathway to victory in both states could be clear.”

During the briefing, a map of the targeted counties was shown, including Jefferson County.

 ***

Brian Wilson, the young and untested new chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party (he’s only been on the job a couple of months and said his interview for this article was the first interview he’s ever given), has modest hopes that his county will turn red in November.

Wilson, a 34-year-old chiropractor from Bloomingdale, said he is “trying to establish the Republican Party more as a viable entity.”

Though there are no McCain operatives stationed in Jefferson County, Wilson has “been in strong contact” with McCain’s Ohio headquarters in Columbus, “working mutually together,” he said.

Wilson agreed that Jefferson County voters are most concerned about the economy and healthcare. He believes McCain has what it takes to address those issues.

“I think [McCain] has been shown to reach across party lines before and to get things done,” Wilson said. “I believe he’ll do the same if he is so privileged to become the president of the United States.”

Though Wilson certainly wants to deliver Jefferson County for McCain, he is not willing to guarantee it.

“It all depends on voter turnout,” Wilson said, noting 78 percent of voters are expected to cast a ballot on Nov. 4.

And don’t count out the volatile and unpredictable “October surprise.”

“Voters are fickle,” Wilson said. “Something could come out two weeks from now that could change the race dramatically one way or another.”

***

Back at the football game, both Melissa Brown and Mitchell Grim said they are Democrats who initially supported Hillary Clinton but have since come to accept Obama.

Brown said she “always loved Hillary Clinton.”

“If [Clinton] had that opportunity to be in office, I think she’d be good,” Brown said. “But she didn’t make it. I’m definitely going to be voting for Obama.”

Grim said he voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary only because of her husband, Bill.

“When [Bill Clinton] was president, the only downfall that he had in his presidency was he had a Republican House and a Republican Senate and he couldn’t get nothing passed. He tried to get universal healthcare in, but it wouldn’t pass. Now this year, we actually have a Democratic Senate and House. If we get a Democratic president, we can actually do some change.”