I am writing to express my deep concern that the Governor's Executive Budget will eliminate the Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG) for students enrolled in career colleges. Career colleges provide their students with contemporary, up-to-date knowledge, training and critical thinking skills to meet today's challenging needs in business, industry and government, while enriching the personal lives of students. This is a great advantage to our area businesses. Students attending career colleges are not traditional 18-year-old students. Many of these individuals have families and are single parents. In many cases public education is impossible for them. They have earned the right to choose the education that will benefit them and their families in terms of employment training and job opportunities.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This letter was addressed to the Norwalk School Board Members. Thank you for making time to address an important issue in our school system this year, abstinence and sex education. I understand the health curriculum is or has been reviewed by a selected committee, which will make recommendations for improvements and possibly adopting new curriculum.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This letter was addressed to the Norwalk School Board Members. I know you have people in place trying to formulate an approach to sex education. I absolutely support an abstinence based education, and it is the desire of parents and students that this be the new curriculum implemented for health education in our school system.

A Tiffin man was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison for jumping out of a Bellevue motel window during a fall drug bust. Derek W. Good, 29, was caught Nov. 21 by the Bellevue Police Department with 12 grams of cocaine and was apprehended soon after escaping, Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler said.

Who pays attention to the illustrations in children's books except kids? Well, librarians, teachers, home schooling parents, other authors and illustrators as well as the judges of the Caldecott Medal Award look carefully at words but also illustrations in books for kids. This panel of children's and school librarians has been awarding the medal to the artist who had created the most distinguished picture book of the past year since 1938. This year's winner, "Flotsam" was written and illustrated by David Wiesner. Two honor books were also selected: "Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet" by David McLimans and "Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom" written by Carole Weathford and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Check out these and other Caldecott Medal winners from the Children's Room, soon.

Research on embryonic stem cells has been a political ping pong ball since President Bush took office. In 2001, the president restricted testing to only those strains of stem cells already in the lab. Immediately members of the scientific community criticized the ban on one of medicine's most promising fields of inquiry.

The good concert news just keeps pouring in for this summer. Bryan Adams will perform with George Thorogood and the Destroyers at three area venus.

NORWALK - The following cases recently went through Huron County Common Pleas Court: Chase Home Finance LLC, San Diego, Calif., vs. Stephen G. Bryant aka Stephen Bryant, 2624 Laylin Road, Norwalk; Jane Doe, unknown spouse if any of Stephen G. Bryant aka Stephen Bryant, 2624 Laylin Road, Norwalk; Creditors: Deutsche Bank National Trust Company fka Bankers Trust Company of California NA trustee, Santa Ana, Calif.; Treasurer of Huron County, 16 E. Main St., Norwalk; plaintiff's notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice; costs to plaintiff.

Now is the time for one of Norwalk's many wonderful, civic-minded organizations to step up and go above and beyond the normal scope of their work. Norwalk is in danger of going through the Fourth of July celebration without fireworks this year. The Jaycees announced in January that because the burden raising the $13,000 it takes to put on the fireworks display is too great (even with $3,000 guaranteed from the city) it would be moving in a different direction. Since then, the city has contacted several service organizations in hopes their patriotic sensibilities would be stirred and they would serve as the cavalry, riding to the city's rescue.

A Wakeman woman pleaded no contest Wednesday to a sexual crime with a 15-year-old male relative. Read the rest of this story in Today's Reflector...