Monday at the Fair I got a chance to catch up with Delbert and Diane Mohrman.

Delbert is the father and Diane is the wife of longtime Chronicle-Telegram reporter and Lorain County Fair fixture Jeff Mohrman. Jeff Mohrman, who was a friend and colleague of mine, died March 12, 2007, at age 43, two years and two surgeries after he was diagnosed with brain cancer.

The Chronicle collected donations to place a bench in honor of Jeff. It sits outside the fair offices.

Jeff grew up in Wellington, attending the fair yearly, and covered the fair religiously and passionately during his 20-plus years reporting for The Chronicle.

Diane Mohrman, wife of Jeff Mohrman, and Delbert Mohrman, Jeff's father, with the bench honoring Jeff at the Lorain County Fair. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

Chronicle Managing Editor Julie Wallace said she learned the hard way how Jeff felt about the fair.

In what she calls “one of the worst moments of my editing career,” she took Jeff off fair duty one year.

He cried, she recalled.

“I really, really crushed him so much, so I had to send him back,” Wallace said.

“As a kid he came all the time, as a reporter, the fair was magical for him,” Diane Mohrman said.

Jeff knew tons of people at the fair, so the bench is a fitting tribute to him, Diane said.

“This is where it belongs. Jeff’s spirit is here,” she said.

In September of 1986, Mohrman — then a spry 23-year-old — began a newspaper career that would set him apart from any other reporter in the most unusual of ways.

“In a newsroom filled with cranky journalists, Jeff was cheery,” said Patti Ewald, managing editor at The Chronicle at the time of his death. “When we were all too busy to talk, Jeff wanted to chat.

“We couldn’t find the time to get ourselves a drink from the water cooler, yet Jeff found time to go around the newsroom asking everyone if he could bring them a pop from the basement,” Ewald said. “It’s almost as if he always knew that life — short as it may be — is for living.”

Mohrman started as a part-timer at The Chronicle on Sept. 15, 1986, and his first article — a short story on a property purchase in Grafton — was published Sept. 17, 1986.

Jeff was joined in death by his mother, Alice, 76, who died just nine days later.

“He’s only been buried for nine days,” Delbert said of Jeff, just hours after his wife’s death. “We think she stayed alive until Jeff was gone.”

Contact Rona Proudfoot at rproudfoot@chroniclet.com, (440) 371-0792 or stop by to see her at the fair. She’s based at the WEOL booth and will be wondering the fairgrounds in a bright gold Chroniclet.com T-shirt.

I can’t come to the Lorain County Fair and NOT have a Midway Oh-Boy — or so I’ve been told.

For Jim and Peggy Strang, whom I interviewed for a story for the Chronicle and who I bumped into several times yesterday at the fair, the Midway Oh-Boy is part of the love story. They came to the fair and ate Oh-Boys the night before they got married in 1974, and they’ve come back to celebrate their anniversary with Oh-Boys and the fair every year since. Today is their 35th anniversary.

So I knew the Oh-Boy was something I had to try.

And my boss, Chronicle-Telegram Editor Andy Young, who was out at the fair in the Chronicle tent this afternoon, nodded in approval when he saw me returning with a ball of foil the size of my hand.

“A Lorain County classic since at least the ’50s,” hes said.

My Midway Oh-Boy and fresh lemonade. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

And while I know that Midway Oh-Boy is a restaurant (and I’m even friends with several people who work there), I really had no clue before today what “a Midway Oh-Boy” as a food item was.

I found out once I visited their booth underneath the grandstand — a double-decker burger with lettuce, sauce (seemed like just plain mayonnaise to me) and cheese.

I’ll admit I was tempted to get a single hamburger or cheeseburger. (I was in hurry, it was hot out, and I really wasn’t THAT hungry.

But I wanted to say I had a Midway Oh-Boy, and I wasn’t going to say I had a Midway Oh-Boy unless I had the real thing.

The first thing I learned about the Oh-Boy — it’s not easy to eat gracefully. It wasn’t long before I had mayo dripping down my face. Good thing I abandoned my post at the front of the CT tent and was hiding back in the radio trailer.

Chronicle-Telegram Editor Andy Young with his funnel cake. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

The Oh-Boy was great — albeit, greasy — and had about three times as much mayo as it needed.

But getting my mouth around a fair classic? You can’t put a price tag or a calorie county on that.

I washed my Oh-Boy down with a fresh-squeezed, or at least freshly shaken, lemonade.

And my editor Andy? He came back from a walk around the fairgrounds with a funnel cake.

He dug right in but realized a little too late that he was used to sharing his funnel cake with several other people.

“I’m starting to feel sick,” he said, not even halfway through.

What fair food should I try next? Leave me a comment or contact me directly, and your suggestion could be my lunch!

Contact Rona Proudfoot at rproudfoot@chroniclet.com, (440) 371-0792 or stop by to see her at the fair. She’s based at the WEOL booth and will be wondering the fairgrounds in a bright gold Chroniclet.com T-shirt.

The Lorain County Fair is synonymous with farm animals, amusement rides and delicious, guilty foods.

What you might not imagine are beautiful stained glass works, decorative candy dishes, funky votive candle holders, distinctive root beer mugs and fanciful fish bowls.

Eleven members of the Pitchfork Pals 4-H club entered self-determined projects in glass painting this year.

Each year, Amy Jackson, co-adviser of the Pitchfork Pals, gathers her members and asks what projects they would like to work on. In the past, they’ve done everything from cake decorating and candy making to creating pottery and doing card stamping. Next year, the group will be freezing and canning and learning to make jelly and jam.

Along with glass painting, the Pitchfork Pals also did self-determined projects of scrapbooking and candle making this year.

Kyle Kudela, 12, decided to take part in the Pitchfork Pals’ glass painting project because the Firelands Middle School student “thought it would be different and fun.”

He enjoyed going to the stores and comparison shopping for materials, as well as the actual painting. His favorite piece? The stained glass.

“We got to choose the colors we wanted to stain on there, and it made it really cool,” he said. “Mine has lots of designs like squiggly lines, boxes and squares.”

His favorite self-determined project was one he did two years ago that dealt with electricity, but this one gave him a charge, too. He said he may just have finished his Christmas shopping early.

Kyle said he might give his mom a few of the pieces he made as gifts.

Emma Northeim, 14, agreed that working on the glass pieces was a lot of fun. She particularly liked making the root beer mug, which has her name on it and “lots of polka dots.”

“We got to paint how we wanted and it didn’t matter what it looked like because it was our own,” Emma said when asked why she enjoyed the project.

The Firelands High School freshman has done a self-determined project just about every year she has been in 4-H. While she doesn’t have a favorite project, the mug is definitely high on the list, she said. She plans on keeping it to use after the fair.

Her other work may be gifted to some lucky family members.

Haley Strong, 14, also intends on keeping the mug she made, but she isn’t sure if she’ll use it. With pink, yellow and orange polka dots, the piece may just end up being a decoration.

Like Emma, Haley does a self-determined project every year. But unlike Haley, the Firelands High School freshman does have a favorite — scrapbooking.

“It’s just a lot of fun,” she says. “You can do whatever you want.”

Judging for the competition takes place Aug. 21. Winning items will be on display in the 4-H Home Economics booth and in another 4-H barn.

Other pieces also will go up for sale at the dairy auction held Aug. 28 and at the 4-H Endowment Auction held at a later date.

The money raised from the sales will go to the respective groups.

Contact Christina Jolliffe at 329-7155 or ctnews@chroniclet.com.

Catch Buffo The World’s Strongest clown in his show several times each day at the Buffo state or riding around the fairgrounds.

Buffo’s patriotic show is a salute to veterans and the USA. He walks a tightrope, juggles standing on a big ball, chops a cement block in half and balances a large flag and flag pole on his chin.

How does he know he’s the world’s strongest clown? He won a contest. Events included “who could juggle the heaviest objects, who could unicycle with the most weight on their back,” Buffo said.

“Well, let me put it this way, most clowns are sissies,” according to Buffo.

Buffo says he also excells in “strength of stupidity,” proven by some of the feats he’s attempted in the past, such as lying on a bed of nails with cement blocks on his chest.

Does his strength impress the clown women?

“They go, ‘Buffo, you are … stupid,” Buffo said.

Times for Buffo’s “Buffo Salutes America” show:

• Wednesday: Noon, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Thursday: Noon, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Friday: Noon, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Saturday: 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
• Sunday: Noon and 2:45 p.m.

Listen to a WEOL interview with Buffo.

Buffo The World's Strongest Clown shows off his strength Tuesday at the Lorain County Fair. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

Check back at Chroniclet.com for a video of Buffo once it becomes available.

Contact Rona Proudfoot at rproudfoot@chroniclet.com, (440) 371-0792 or stop by to see her at the fair. She’s based at the WEOL booth and will be wondering the fairgrounds in a bright gold Chroniclet.com T-shirt.