Weekend in Review: Tuition skyrockets, man found dead, On the Town, Crystal Bowersox,

5/17/2010

After her scholarship money dried up, Bowling Green State University student Kaitlin Turner started to feel the sting of tuition and fees. She pays her own college expenses and has held jobs her entire teen and adult life. Frustrated, she wrote a question on a piece of paper in 2008: “How am I going to do this?”

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It's Tuesday evening in Elliston and one suspects all eyes in the tiny town in Ottawa County, about 20 minutes southeast of Toledo, are glued to the TV. It's American Idol night, and Elliston's most famous resident, Crystal Bowersox, is performing on the show. In the neighboring community of Martin, Bowersox's biggest fans — her family — crowd into a small living room in the home of an uncle and aunt to watch the popular Fox program. Conversation is boisterous until Bowersox takes the stage — and the room falls silent and still.

PHOTO GALLERY: Crystal returns home

PHOTO GALLERY: Crystal returns home (Part II)

PHOTO GALLERY: Crystal Bowersox's journey to the top

VIEW PDF: Crystal's journey to the top

View the new Crystal Bowersox page

The Advertising Club of Toledo's AdBID, held recently at Toledo Country Club overlooking the Maumee River, had something for everyone. The event, hosted with the assistance of the BeInstrumental Foundation for music education in the community, offered al fresco dining amid the acoustic stylings of Ad Astra, made up of members of Resonant Soul.

PHOTO GALLERY: OTT: Charity's the goal when some folks go out and party May 16, 2010

It's been a long road from Jane Charette's graduation from St. Ursula Academy 51 years ago to Sunday's commencement ceremony. On the way to becoming St. Ursula's first principal who was not a religious sister and later its first lay president, Mrs. Charette was for 15 years an Ursuline sister and teacher and later, a wife and mother. She and her husband, Everett, have two grown children, but it's apparent she's mothered many hundreds of girls in her 27 years at St. Ursula.

It was a homecoming to rival that of a head of state. It's also one Crystal Bowersox and her fans won't soon forget.In a whirlwind trip of parades, performances, and family reunions, the 24-year-old American Idol Top 3 finalist from Elliston, Ohio, was met with cheers by thousands of well-wishers throughout Toledo and Ottawa County Friday, part of a pipeline of local support that has helped advance her in the competition.

A jury Friday night found an Ottawa Hills police officer guilty of felonious assault for shooting a motorcyclist in the back during a traffic stop. The Lucas County Common Pleas Court jury reached its decision six hours after beginning deliberations in the case of Thomas White, 27, who was indicted on one count of felonious assault with a firearms specification for the May 23, 2009, shooting of Michael McCloskey, Jr.

A 42-year-old man was found early Saturday morning in East Toledo near Raymer Elementary School. The body of Gabriel Morales was discovered at the intersection of Raymer Boulevard and Nevada Street with "major injuries" by fire and police crews at 2:43 a.m. authorities said.

It was a homecoming to rival that of a head of state. It's also one Crystal Bowersox and her fans won't soon forget.In a whirlwind trip of parades, performances, and family reunions, the 24-year-old American Idol Top 3 finalist from Elliston, Ohio, was met with cheers by thousands of well-wishers throughout Toledo and Ottawa County Friday, part of a pipeline of local support that has helped advance her in the competition.