It was an ordinary day. Getting ready to vote for the top story that appeared in the Lancaster Newspaper this past year. Every year LNP - LancasterOnline allows its readers to vote on what they thought was the top story in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that year. They allow you to vote either by mail or online. This year the newspaper staff picked 21 stories that they felt were the top stories of the past year. Each story that the staff felt was worthy of being nominated for the top story was described once again in a condensed form. Some of the nominated stories had only a sentence or two while others had a much larger description. I remembered all of the stories, but some seemed more newsworthy than others. I have listed the 21 stories, in no particular order, that the newspaper thought to be newsworthy, but in a much shorter version than the newspaper did. See if your city or town has some of the same newsworthy stories that the city of Lancaster did this past year.
(1) A local high school boy died of acute myeloid leukemia after his journey was highlighted in the newspaper. He underwent a successful stem-cell transplant, but the disease returned. He chose to return home to say goodbye to family and friends.
(2) 2021 gets off to a violent start when a mob attacks the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Several Lancasterians traveled by bus to Washington D. C. with some being arrested for their part in the melee.
(3) A school mask mandate has everyone taking a stand, with parents demonstrating outside of schools and facing off with school boards as well as Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Wolf.
(4) Lancaster County's mass vaccination center opens almost a year to the day that the county reported its first case of COVID-19
(5) Ten months after Amish teenager Linda Stoltzfoos disappeared while walking home from church, Justo Smoker tells investigators where he buried her body after he kidnapped and killed her.
(6) Vaccine mandates at local hospitals pit employees against their employers. Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health is the first health system in Lancaster County to require its employees to be vacinated against COVID-19, and many of the workers pushed back.
(7) Lancaster County officials eye a 75-acre Lancaster Township farm as the site for a new 45-acre county prison.
(8) Remnants of Hurricane Ida dump 8 inches of rain in parts of Lancaster County, causing major flooding in some areas including historic flooding of the Conestoga River.
(9) Businesses attempt to return to normal as the economy slowly improves in Lancaster County. Many businesses bump the minimum wage to $15 as they try to compete with unemployment benefits that pay workers more than they make to go back to work.
(10) Former funeral diretor Andrew Scheid pleads guilty to four counts of abusse of a corpse and no contest to four counts of tampering with public records.
(11) A chartered bus returning from a retreat in New York to the LCBC Manheim campus with 31 ninth and tenth grade girls and church volunteers crashes in Schuylkill County, Beverly injuring several of the girls as well as the driver.
(12) A shooting inside Park City Center leaves four people with gunshots wounds, including a 16-year-old boy who was eventually charged with attempted homicide when shot by a bystander.
(13) Foreign ransomware extortionists target Steinman Communications in an attack that disrupts the production of LNP and LNP Media Group's other publications.
(14) Tara Brazle is arrested and charged with homicide in the 2007 death of a newborn known as Baby Mary Anne.
(15) Twelve people are injured after hundreds of players and spectators suddenly flee from Spooky Nook Sports, causing some people to be trampled.
(16) Lancaster County commissioners vote to create a health advisory council that cannot make public health statements on behalf of the county and can only recommend strategies at the commissioners' request.
(17) Raymond "DJ Freez" Rowe who pleaded guilty in the 1992 murder of Christy Mirack, wants a new trial and claims he is innocent in the brutal crime that went unsolved for more than 25 years.
(18) Data from the 2020 census released in August by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the 6.5% increase in Lancaster County's population over the last decade came entirely from nonwhite populations, and the pace of growth was the slowest in more than 100 years.
(19) This year included several violent and unusual homicide cases including a murder-suicide home explosion in Mount Joy Township, a man accused of killing and beheading his father in Lancaster City, a man who used a crossbow to kill his father before killing himself in Mount Joy and a 14-year-old girl charged with stabbing her sister to death in Manheim Township.
(20) A Manheim mother of six is fatally shot in a North Carolina road-rage incident as she and her husband were on their way to vacation in South Carolina.
(21) A group of notorious white nationalists met secretly in a historic Lancaster County barn in 2020 to create a platform to preserve and protect the white and European majority in the U.S.
Well, I now have to vote for my top 10 stories and email my choices to Stephanie Sadowski, managing editor of content or mail my choices to her at LNP/LancasterOnline, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I've already picked 7 of my choices and will narrow the remaining 14 down to 3 more after I re-read some of the stories once more. So, now you can see the types of stories that are featured in my local newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The reporting and story construction is matched by the fabulous photography that illustrates the stories. I have digital access to Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York and various National newspapers, but my preference is my local LNP/LancasterOnline which covers national stories as well as all local stories and sports. I'm sure that many of you feel the same way about your local newspapers, but it's still one of the best ways to keep up to date with the local news in your neighborhood. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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