Five Things You Might Have Missed: 7-28

Top articles from this weekend's editions of The Blade

Bryan Edwards, public relations manager for Cedar Point, said there has been no determination as to what the amusement park — which has 17 roller coasters — would do to honor its offer to LeBron James.

BLADE ILLUSTRATION/ WES BOOHER

President Baldemar Velasquez, left, discusses the working condition differences between documented and undocumented migrants with AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre, center, and U.S Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio), right, while leading a tour Saturday organized by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (FLOC), of a tobacco worker's home and a tobacco field near Dudley, North Carolina.

1. FLOC, Kaptur, British allies see woes of migrants in North Carolina

It’s hot and cramped inside the bright blue trailer where tobacco farm worker Santiago Garcia lives with four others.

A single box fan whirls in a main room window, barely cooling the small space that holds two cots. In the back, fabric blocks light from the small windows above two more beds.

Signs of hard labor litter the floor: hats to shade the blazing North Carolina sun, work boots, bug spray, and soiled gloves.

“It’s one of the nicer places,” said Baldemar Velasquez, president and founder of the Toledo-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

The trailer was the first stop Saturday of a multiday fact-finding mission to see migrant camps and probe what the union considers human rights abuses that victimize vulnerable tobacco field workers in North Carolina.

The binational delegation accompanying him includes U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) and Ian Lavery and Jim Sheridan, members of the British Parliament. READ MORE

Bryan Edwards, public relations manager for Cedar Point, said there has been no determination as to what the amusement park — which has 17 roller coasters — would do to honor its offer to LeBron James.

2. Cedar Point has a lot riding on promise to LeBron James

On July 9, Cedar Fair LLP’s Matt Ouimet succeeded in grabbing more than 15 minutes of fame by reaching out through social media outlet Twitter to NBA superstar LeBron James, who was deciding which team would become his new employer.

“Hey @KingJames - come back to the @cavs and we’ll rename one of our coasters, “King James!” Ball in your court, sir. RT, #Ohio!” the amusement park chief executive officer tweeted to the two-time NBA champion and four-time league most valuable player.

Then, on July 11, James called Mr. Ouimet’s bluff by announcing he would sign a two-year contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team with which he spent seven years before departing in 2010 to join the Miami Heat.

To his credit, Mr. Ouimet said the same day that the company’s Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky would honor the original offer and would rename a coaster in honor of the Akron-born basketball legend. READ MORE

Bishop Michael Pitts in front of the Eastwood Theatre in East Toledo where he is remodeling to accommodate Cornerstone.

3. Eastwood Theater to host Cornerstone Church revival

It's not quite a case of deja vu. Revival is the more appropriate term.

The Maumee-based Cornerstone Church has returned to East Toledo and will preview its “new,” old location at the Eastwood Theater by hosting the annual WOW Jam as a street party at the Eastwood, 817 E. Broadway St., at 2 p.m. today, then having an open house Sunday at 5 p.m. with live music from country singer Johnny Rowlett and WOW Jam leaders Stephen and Linda Tavani (Linda was Peaches in the '70s and '80s duo Peaches & Herb). The Tavanis will also perform Saturday at WOW Jam.

Cornerstone at the Eastwood Theater is a revival because Cornerstone held services there from 1993 to 2004, its bishop, Michael Pitts, said. Moving back to the Eastwood a decade later is “too big of a project to do for sentimental reasons, for sure. But there is a sentimental part of it because there's so many great memories,” Bishop Pitts said. “I just felt like we've got to do something [in East Toledo for] people in Oregon, Northwood, all throughout this side of the river.” READ MORE

Scott High School football coach Mike Daniels stands atop Scott High School by the continuing construction on its $1.1 million budgeted football field. The Bulldogs play their first home game on the new field August 29, 2014.

4. No place like home for 3 local schools

When the 2014 high school football season kicks off on Aug. 29, two local teams will be back to playing on campus for the first time in several seasons, and a third will have its first true home games ever.

Scott, which played its last on-campus game at the former Penn-Webb Stadium in 2009, is hoping to open its new field-turf stadium that Friday night against Fostoria. If not, the home-field debut will be on Oct. 2 against Start.

Woodward, which last used a stadium that was adjacent to the former high school in 2006, will play host to Cardinal Stritch at its new field-turf stadium on Aug. 29.

That is the same night that — for the first time — Southview will play an on-campus varsity game at its new Mel Nusbaum Stadium, which will have a natural grass surface.

For each school — although their respective football fates have played out much differently in recent decades — the new stadiums represent a rebirth. READ MORE

5. Travel Channel series 'The Dead Files' looks to answer if E. Toledo home is haunted

The Dead Files is a popular hour-long docu-series on the Travel Channel that pairs Steve Di Schiavi, a retired New York homicide detective, with Amy Allan, a Denver psychic who says she sees and communicates with dead people. The two conduct separate investigations and walkthroughs of the locations, and later report what they find to the owners.

In February, The Dead Files came to East Toledo to assist a homeowner and her family who said they were troubled by multiple apparitions. The episode, titled "Demon War -- Toledo, OH,” airs at 10 p.m. Saturday, and can be seen locally on Channels 48 and 656 on Buckeye Cablesystem.

The homeowner and her family had stories of multiple sightings of apparitions, scratches and burns, objects mysteriously being moved around rooms, and being physically pinned down and assaulted in bed by an unseen force. Were these experiences tied to that horrific inferno a century earlier? READ MORE