A Norwalk truck driver died Thursday after his tractor-trailer went off the Indiana Toll Road and into a homeowner's back yard before hitting a tree. Frank W. Epperley, 55, of 251 W. Main St., was heading west about 12:30 p.m. two miles east of Indiana 49 when his tractor-trailer left the road. The truck, carrying several passenger vans, careened into the back yard before coming to a stop about 100 feet from the road.

JUNE 7, 1956 The top stories in the Norwalk Reflector-Herald on this date 51 years ago:

Do you think you have the lungs that could compete with the likes of actresses Janet Leigh or Jamie Lee Curtis? If so, you need to come to the Ghostly Manor Thrill Center, 3319 Milan Road, Sandusky, to audition in the "'Curse of the Flesh' Scream Queen Competition." The contest will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday and again June 15.

SANDUSKY Harlequins Community Theatre in Sandusky will present a 30-minute excerpt from Charlie Cox Runs with Scissors at the Northwest Regional OCTAfest, the Ohio Community Theatre Association's annual competition. The performance will take place at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at the Performing Arts Center at Port Clinton High School.

The Huron Playhouse will hold open auditions for four of its five productions of the 2007 season. Auditions for the season opener, "Kiss me Kate" will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to noon Saturday in the auditorium of McCormick School on Ohio Street in Huron. The "Kiss Me Kate" auditions will be for male and female singers, as well as dancers of high school age and above.

GREENWICH - As a reward for making good behavior choices during the fourth grading period, the students at South Central Elementary were treated to a special assembly program. Bill Gang from Dynamic School Assemblies Inc. is a professional magician who travels within a five-state area to deliver a message which is close to his heart, "Do not waste our natural resources."

Few topics are as distressing to state officials right now as the looming onslaught of home foreclosures in Ohio. Our rate of home foreclosure is the highest in the nation, and experts expect the problem to grow as the variable interest rates on many sub-prime mortgages increase upon their reset dates. Too many people are on the verge of being priced out of their homes and too many more are only one job-loss, one divorce, or one unexpected illness away. Gov. Ted Strickland recently established the Foreclosure Prevention Task Force to address this topic in Ohio. As a member of that task force, I can tell you that we are working hard to find solutions to help as many people as possible to save their homes.

I read with amusement Joe Centers' column earlier this week. I, too, have experienced being in the passenger seat during a harrowing journey with a big city taxi driver at the wheel. In my case, the taxi driver was taking me to La Guardia Airport, and he was listening to the traffic report blasting on the radio as we approached the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey and New York, changing lanes rapidly while he decided whether to go on the upper level or the lower level of the bridge based on which one had fewer accidents blocking traffic. I, too, am not surprised by the statistic that the average household now has slightly more cars than drivers. When I first came to Norwalk, I was amazed by the fact that we have no mass public transportation system here no buses, no trains, no subways, though there's some taxi service and those county transit vehicles now. But it's still important to have a car preferably at least one car for each driver, if not more.

The Ohio Graduation Test is a five part exam that, starting with the class of '07, all students must pass in order to graduate. The test covers reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies. Students first take the OGT spring of their sophomore year and can continue to take it in the fall and spring of their junior and senior years and during the summer. Students have two and a half hours to complete each section, which consists of about 35 multiple-choice questions and up to eight written response questions.