My first live interview! Good news from Madison, OH. New fire station headquarters.

Charles Ramsey Interview with Anderson Cooper, hero who saved kidnapped women in Cleveland

3 women Found Alive in Cleveland After Disappearing More Than 10 Years Ago 911 Call

'Cash mob' in Chagrin Falls lends a hand to 155-year-old hardware store

Published: Wednesday, January 25, 2012, 9:32 AM

CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio (AP) -- It began quietly, as an email to 40 friends.

But when a steady stream of customers began coming through the door before the family-owned Chagrin Hardware had even opened for the day on Saturday, it was clear that it had turned into much more than that.

The idea started with Jim Black, a resident of Chagrin Falls, a close-knit village in Cleveland's eastern suburbs that is part artist colony and part bedroom community. Black posted the email to a group of his friends. "Let's show our support for one of our local businesses," he wrote. "I challenge everyone to spend AT LEAST $20 at the hardware on the 21st."

Although his email referred to the idea of a "Cash Mob" or the notion to "Occupy CF Hardware," he really had no political agenda. And it wasn't meant as a protest against the big-box stores that have created an ever-tightening circle around the community.

It was just a way to thank Chagrin Hardware's owners for a beloved shop that has been a fixture in the village since 1857.

"These are good people who needed our support," Black said. "It's just that simple."

The store, overlooking meandering Riverside Park and the Chagrin River in the middle of town, has been run by the Shutts family for the last 72 years. It passed from uncle to father to older brothers Rob and Kenny and the three youngest, Steve, Susie and Jack, who run the store today.

Black's note was forwarded and forwarded and forwarded again. Calls started coming in from folks out of state who wanted to make a purchase over the phone.

And when the day came, so did the shoppers -- one by one, with dogs on leashes and children in tow, hour after hour until the hardware was teeming with customers.

"This is small-town America," said resident Martine Scheuermann, a bag of pet-safe ice melt in her arms and her Springer Spaniels tapping their toes on the worn wooden floor at her feet. "This is a special family business in a town where everybody knows you."

The store has seen its share of tough times. Road construction on Main Street at the store's front door some years back crippled business for a time. More recently, the weakened economy and the big boxes have stolen away customers.

On this day, though, those storylines were forgotten.

By 10 a.m. the place was jammed. By 1:30 p.m., the credit card machine was overloaded and had to be reset. "This is so cool," said Steve Shutts, a mix of joy, wonder and happy exhaustion spread across his face. "I've seen people today I haven't seen in years."

The line at the checkout stretched in two directions as people with snow shovels and light bulbs and fireplace grates and vintage movie posters and horse shoe caulk -- yes, horse shoe caulk -- waited to pay.

Chad Schron, 38, came with his 8-year-old son Robert. "We didn't have anything we had to get, but we found things we had to get," he said. As he spoke, Robert clutched an Ohio State desk lamp and two flying monkey toys to his chest.

"When I was a kid, my Mom would send me down here with a note to let me buy BB's," Schron recalled. "Lots of kids did that back then. The notes still are in a drawer over there," he said as he pointed past the register to a wall of wooden drawers containing everything from old springs to screws. In the drawer still labeled "BBs" were stacks of crumpled notes dating to the '50s, from mothers just like Schron's

When the final customer had finally left well after closing time with her fuzzy dice and floodlights, Schwind and Steve Shutts tallied the day's receipts. Shutts shook his head at the wild and unexpected ride.

He wouldn't say how much the store made that day, but was clearly pleased with the outcome.

"Thanks to Jimmy Black," he said. "Thanks to everyone. Thanks to Chagrin Falls.

"What a place to live."

AMY SANCETTA, Associated Press

Pay It Forward

My friend Michelle was selected by FOX 8 News in Cleveland to...Pay It Forward...because of her and her families personal sacrifice in order to run an inn for several homeless woman of Cleveland. Scroll down and check out her story right here.

Hundreds of volunteers 'Give Back to America'

EAST CLEVELAND -- There's no ulterior motive here. Hundreds of volunteers gave up part of their Saturday to help out their neighbors.

Home builder Michael Audrick came up with the concept of "Give Back America Day" and members of the Concord Baptist Church got the ball rolling with the project.

Volunteers went around to the homes of senior citizens in East Cleveland, offering to do repair projects.

Organizers hope the idea will catch on with other communities.

Posted By: Channel 3 News Updated: 5/16/2009 7:21:21 PM Posted: 5/16/2009 7:12:49 PM

Spreading the Good Word

April 2, 2009, 2:01 pm
Spreading the Good Word
By Catherine Rampell Published in the Economy and the Economics of Everyday Life-Economix Blog- NYTimes.com

Attitude is (almost) everything.
That’s the message Paul Ganshert is mailing to hundreds of friends, family and business associates, inside an envelope containing the button pictured at left.
( I Choose Not To Participate in the Recession)

Mr. Ganshert owns a landscaping company in Madison, Wis. He said in a phone interview that he started the button campaign about two months ago because he was tired of hearing bad news all the time.

Given his positive nature, he said, he has chosen “not to participate” in the recession. For him, that means discounting the media’s barrage of negative economic news, working hard and being optimistic about his company’s future.

“You could pull all your money out of stock market, put what little’s left under your mattress, and cry, but that’s not going to do anybody any good,” he said. The current economic troubles are a crisis of confidence, he reasons, and he says he believes his “grass-root” efforts to bolster local optimism can help restore that confidence.

Members of a national landscaping group he belongs to have also been taking the message, and buttons, to their own communities. Marty Grunder in Dayton, Ohio, for example, has started a radio show called “Good News in Dayton.” The show’s goal is “to communicate the good things going on in and around the Dayton area that we may not have heard about,” according to its Web site. Mr. Ganshert is contemplating starting a similar show in Madison.

And in the meantime, his button has become quite the conversation piece. When he meets with clients, he said, they generally spend 10 to 30 minutes talking about their landscaping needs, and then another half-hour talking about his unusual pin. He says he has distributed “a couple hundred” buttons so far, and is hoping the next batch will total 500.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” he said.

Man ignores friends, wins $26M on Friday the 13th

NEW YORK -- Ignoring his friends has paid off big for a New York man.

He won $26 million in a Friday the 13th lottery draw.

New York state lottery officials said Monday the winner is from
Wyandanch, on Long Island. The identity of the El Salvador native was not revealed.

Officials said the man didn't heed the warnings of well-meaning friends who told him to stay away from the lottery on Friday the 13th.
© 2009 The Associated Press From the channel 3 Cleveland News Room

'Ashamed' Madoff Pleads Guilty, Goes To Jail

'Ashamed' Madoff Pleads Guilty, Goes To Jail
Sentencing Set For June 16 From newsnet5.com out of Cleveland, OH

NEW YORK -- A New York judge had to rein in a courtroom packed with seething fraud victims Thursday during the hearing in which Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to what may be Wall Street's biggest ever scam.

Spectators cheered when the disgraced financier was led off to jail immediately following his guilty pleas. He had spent the past three months under house arrest in his $7 million Manhattan penthouse.

When his lawyer described the bail conditions and how Madoff had, "at his wife's own expense," paid for private security, loud laughter erupted. The judge warned the crowd to remain silent.

Madoff said he is "deeply sorry and ashamed" for the Ponzi scheme that wiped out savings accounts worldwide.

"I am painfully aware that I have deeply hurt many, many people, including the members of my family, my closest friends, business associates and the thousands of clients who gave me their money," Madoff said.

He said that as he engaged in his fraud, he knew what he was doing was wrong but that he believed "it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from the scheme."

"However, this proved difficult, and ultimately impossible, and as the years went by I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come," Madoff said.

The judge revoked bail Thursday after Madoff pleaded guilty to all 11 charges against him, including securities fraud and perjury. He was accused of engineering one of the largest investment scams in U.S. history.

The judge said the 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman has the means to flee and an incentive to do so because of his age.

A sentencing date of June 16 has been set. He could face up to 150 years in prison.

Madoff told the judge in U.S. District Court in New York that his Ponzi scheme began in the early 1990s in response to that era's recession.

Madoff's plea came three months after he admitted that his once-revered investment fund was all a big lie -- a Ponzi scheme that defrauded billions of dollars worldwide from retirees, charities, school trusts and even Holocaust survivors.

The scam quickly turned Madoff into one of the most vilified men in the world, as thousands of investors came forward to say they were defrauded.

Madoff Avoids Victims' Eyes

Three victims of the fraud confronted him in court, one trying to address Madoff directly saying, "I don't know if you had a chance to turn around and look at the victims."

Madoff avoided eye contact with the three investors who spoke. The judge directed him to speak directly to the bench.

Two investors said they opposed the guilty plea. One said she wanted it to wait until the lost money is found.

At least 25 Madoff investors asked to speak under provisions allowing victims of crime to appear at a plea hearing.

Some victims in the scandal want the accused Wall Street swindler to name any possible accomplices who helped him pull off his multibillion-dollar securities fraud. They also want Madoff to apologize and turn over family assets that might be used to pay bilked investors.

Alexandra Penney said she's furious with Madoff. But she's just as angry with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 60-year-old artist and former magazine editor said Madoff took everything she had saved from the age of 16.

Penney wasn't in court for the guilty plea. She's in Florida.

In addition to prison time, Madoff faces mandatory restitution to victims, forfeiture of ill-gotten gains and criminal fines.

Investigators are still unraveling how he pulled off the fraud for years without being caught. They suspect that his family and top lieutenants who helped run his operation from its midtown Manhattan headquarters may have been involved.

Good News In The Media From Your Neck Of The Woods-- Northeast