Lorain businessman Dominic Rebman, founder of Rebman Recreation bowling alley, died Saturday at age 84.

Rebman

Rebman was working with his father, owner of Lorain Meat Packing, after returning from World War II when the pair acquired a two-story building at 1040 Broadway to house their first bowling alley, a small eight-lane bowling alley and bar.

Rebman set his sites on expanding, and, in 1955, moved to Rebman’s current location on Oberlin Avenue. There, he built a 24-lane facility. In 1977, he expanded to 48 lanes, making Rebman Recreation the largest bowling facility in Lorain County.

Seeing a need for more recreational bowling, Rebman instituted the city’s first youth bowling leagues on Saturdays. He paid sanction fees for his junior bowlers and also paid entry fees for his junior bowlers who qualified to compete at the state level. He promoted bowling to seniors as well, and he became the first bowling proprietor in Lorain County to install a completely computerized scoring system.

In 1982, he was inducted into the Lorain Bowling Association Hall of Fame. In 1992, his name was added to the Ohio Bowling Hall of Fame. In 1995, he was inducted into the Lorain Sports Hall of Fame.

Dedicated to other sports, he sponsored numerous Lorain city baseball and softball leagues throughout the years. He also was a supporter of Lucy Idol Center for the Handicapped and the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky.

Mr. Rebman served as vice-president and director of the Lorain Young American Bowling Alliance for six years, as vice-president of the Greater Lorain Bowling Association, as president of the North Shore Bowling Proprietors Association and was an executive board member of the Bowling Proprietor’s Association of Ontario and a member of the Bowling Proprietors Association of America.

Additionally, he is a Founders Club Member of the National Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Mo., and a major organizer of squads for the Slovak Singles Local Annual Tournament andfor 20 years has served as a squad leader and organizer for the famous Peterson Classic Tournament in Chicago.

Rebman, a lifelong Lorain resident and member of the Church of St. Peter, was a 1943 graduate of Lorain’s St. Mary High School. He attended Oberlin Business School and graduated from Dyke and Spencerian Business College in Cleveland in 1947. He served in the U.S. Navy, building drydocks and landing strips in New Guinea in the closing years of World War II.

He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Mary, and two sons, two daughters and other relatives.

Pick up today’s Chronicle in print or read the “E”dition for Rebman’s complete obituary.

Contact Rona Proudfoot at 329-7124 or rproudfoot@chroniclet.com.

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LORAIN — A Lorain woman was shot in the leg in the aftermath of a fight following the end of a birthday party early Sunday morning.

According to Lorain police, Keeva Long, 34, of Lorain, was flown to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo after the shooting, which occurred shortly before 1:50 a.m. on the 2900 block of Oakdale Avenue. She was not at the hospital Sunday night, according to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center.

According to witnesses, the fight broke out after the party ended. As a red Oldsmobile Intrigue reportedly carrying four men was being backed out of the driveway, four shots were reportedly fired from the vehicle into the air. When the vehicle turned onto the street, two more shots rang out and Long was hit by one of them.

No arrests had been made Sunday night.

GRAFTON — Marilyn Riddle has been providing positive morale through care packages for hundreds of men and women who are serving overseas in the United States Armed Forces.

For nearly six years, Riddle has transformed her home in Grafton into a mini warehouse fully loaded with toiletries, gum, candy, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, lotions, magazines and stationery, which allows her to send nearly 10 care packages a week to troops stationed in the Middle East.

This all started with a letter to Riddle from her youngest son, Staff Sgt. 1st Class Gerry Mark, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2004.

“He wrote me a letter and told me that not a lot of soldiers were receiving packages or mail. He wrote one line, ‘Mom, can you help?’ ” Riddle recalled.

Almost immediately after receiving the letter from her son, Riddle began putting together box after box full of comfort items for the soldiers.

Many items are donated from Grafton VFW Post 3341, its Ladies Auxiliary and the Grafton United Methodist Church. The Blue Water Salon in Grafton, where Riddle is the manager, has allowed her to place a drop-off box for items on its premises.

Even during the tough economic times, Riddle said people still want to help the troops.

“I grew up a Navy brat. Right now, taking care of the soldiers is my main goal,” Riddle said. “The soldiers need to know that we in the United States care about them.”

Riddle said she knows not everyone can afford to send a care package overseas and she believes this is her way of helping others.

“A mom will sometimes have a son who will be deployed and she will ask me to send a box. Another mom was a single parent on a single budget and her son was sent overseas, so I sent him a package,” Riddle said.

In the beginning, soldiers would often send Riddle names of other soldiers who could use a morale boost and a care package would end up in his or her lap.

“Often times, the soldiers will share their package,” she said.

On occasion, Riddle has sent packages to hospitals when she learns a soldier has been wounded.

“I have sent care packages to Landstuhl Hospital in Germany because one (injured) soldier was picked up in a chopper and went there with only the clothes on his back,” she said.

Riddle will continue sending care packages to the troops overseas until they are all home.

“It’s something that should be done because the people that are over there are real people, not just a faceless person wearing a uniform,” she said.

Know a soldier?

If anyone has a loved one stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan that is in need of care package, call (440) 926-3387.

A donation box is at Blue Water Salon, 589 Main St., Grafton.

Send your Grafton/LaGrange/Columbia news to Melissa Linebrink, 329-7155 or mlinebrink@chroniclet.com.

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ELYRIA — County investment income dropped from $8.3 million in 2007 to $5.8 million last year and is expected to be $2.9 million this year, Lorain County Treasurer Daniel Talarek said Thursday.

In an attempt to squeeze every dollar possible from the public funds, the county’s investment advisory committee agreed to two of Talarek’s proposals, which he estimated will save the county at least $250,000.

First, the committee agreed to switch from Akron-based FirstMerit Bank to Minnesota-based U.S. Bank for help in administering its investment money, a move that will save $60,000 a year.

Talarek said the county would have liked to stay with FirstMerit, but the bank’s fees were constantly going up. He said U.S. Bank will do the same work for $25,000 that FirstMerit wanted $85,000 to do. U.S. Bank has a Cincinnati office that will process the paperwork, he said.

The committee also agreed to a proposal from Talarek and investment adviser Dennis Yacobozzi for the county to issue its own note and sell it to the county treasurer to fund about $1.3 million of remaining debt on sewers in Amherst and EPA-mandated improvements to several small sewer plants.

That way, the county will be paying the county treasurer 6 percent interest for the next five years instead of paying an outside entity, and the county will avoid the $200,000 to $300,000 cost of issuing the bonds, Talarek said.

The process is being reviewed by the county prosecutor’s office and meets all state investment laws, Talarek said.

He blamed the big drop in investment earnings largely on low yields on investments such as certificates of deposit.

Talarek said the county and other entities are at the mercy of the mortgage crisis and the resulting financial problems that prompted the passage of TARP — the Troubled Asset Relief Program that set aside $700 billion to rescue financial institutions.

“Banks got TARP money, so they don’t want our money anymore,” Talarek said.

He said some CDs are paying an interest rate as low as 0.15 percent. Talarek said he would like to continue to bring in big investment money for the county, but it is getting more and more difficult.

“When I make a lot of money, I’m brilliant, and when I don’t, it’s those darn rates,” he told the group.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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