2020: Pandemic, natural disaster and upheaval
December 24, 2020
Megan Whitermore celebrates graduation from the back of a truck on Main Street during Tuesday s parade. The ceremony was altered due to COVID-19 restrictions.
As I sat down to write the 2020 Year in Review, I thought: I don t want to relive this year, nor should anyone else. But tradition dictates an annual recap, which if left unwritten, would end my positive relationship with CVN bookkeeper Jane Pascoe. Plus, the newspaper is a weekly black hole of white space that must be filled. So here it goes:
A January 2020 blizzard that brought 50 inches of snow in two days prompted then-borough manager Debra Schnabel to declare a public safety emergency. She told the CVN she hoped the public would hunker down while public works crews cleared roads. The term would soon reappear in a different context two months after the severe weather event that, in hindsight, seems miniscule.
How Trump Made a Tiny Christian College the Nation’s Biggest Prison Educator His administration has funneled $30 million to Ashland University in Ohio. Critics say the school’s tablet-based program fails incarcerated students. Juan Bernabeu for The Marshall Project
Six years ago, Ashland University, a small Christian college in the north-central region of Ohio known as the “Buckeye Bible Belt,” was in trouble. The school was $70 million in debt, was given a “junk” rating by the investors’ service Moody’s, and was later cited by state officials for transcript manipulation, records show.
But under Donald Trump’s Department of Education, led by Betsy DeVos, Ashland’s fortunes have turned around. After being selected to participate in a federal financial aid initiative for incarcerated people, the university’s correctional education program was able to spread to more than 100 prisons and jails in 13 states, from Louisiana to Minnesota. Since 2017, it