The Kings Board of Education is made up of members, from left, Robert Hinman, vice president; Kim Grant; William Russell, president; Bonnie Baker-Hicks; and Todd Overturf. Provided photo

A new face will be heading the Kings Board of Education.

William Russell was elected president of the five-member board, replacing Bonnie Baker-Hicks. First elected to the board in 2011, Russell was also selected to be the board’s representative on the governing board of the Warren County Career Center.

A retired owner of a consulting business, Russell replaced board member Bonnie Baker-Hicks on the career center’s governing board.

Assisting Russell this year is Robert Hinman, who was elected vice president. He is replacing Hale Husband who lost his bid for re-election in last November’s election.

The board agreed to continue to hold its regular meetings at 6:30 p.m., on the third Tuesday of each month at the Kings Education Center.

The next meeting will be Jan. 21.

Gary Woodward with Cohen Recycling wraps a pallet of computer CPUs in plastic at an e-waste recycling event at the Anderson Town Center in 2013. The Enquirer/Glenn Hartong.

Area residents will have a chance to reduce their carbon footprint and help people with disabilities this month by recycling their old and unwanted electronics.

The Warren County Board of Developmental Disabilities will accept electronics between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday through the end of January.

Drop off electronics at Production Services Unlimited at 575 Columbus Ave. in Lebanon.  The office is closed Jan. 20 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Items collected at no cost include: telephones, printers, computer equipment, speakers, stereos, VCRs, laptops, remote and small home appliances. All personal date stored on hard drives will be safely and securely destroyed.

Items not accepted include TVs or computer monitors with cathode ray tubes, stoves and refrigerators.

The drive is in partnership with Cohen Recycling, who will employ people with disabilities who receive services from the agency to disassemble items collected.

For more information, call 513-502-5015.

On Jan. 7, 2014, returning board member Matt Steele, new board member Randy Andrews and returning board member Connie Yingling took the oath of office during the Mason City Schools Board of Education’s organizational meeting. Provided photo

By Tracey Carson, Mason Schools

The Mason City School Board welcomed its newest member Tuesday. But Randy Andrews is no stranger to Mason City Schools.

The former Mason Middle School teacher graduated from William Mason High School in 1972 and spent a career mentoring Mason students. Andrews was elected to the school board in November, and will serve for four years.

“I feel honored to have been elected to the Mason City School Board. I look forward to serving the students, staff and the residents of Mason,” said Andrews.

Andrews taught eighth grade social studies for 25 years and was a middle school athletic director, high school assistant baseball coach, and middle school basketball coach. He retired from Mason City Schools in 2013.

Currently, Andrews works part-time for Liberty Bible Academy teaching fifth through eighth grade history. A Miami University graduate, he and his wife, Debra, have one child, Randy – a 1997 Mason graduate who like his father is a former MHS homecoming king.

During the organizational meeting, treasurer Richard Gardner also administered the oath of office to Matt Steele and Connie Yingling, who will serve through 2016.

Steele was elected in November, after being appointed to the Board of Education in November 2011 to fill the position left vacant after the death of school board member, and retired educator, John Odell. First appointed in 1999, Yingling was subsequently elected in 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013.

During the organizational meeting, the board reappointed Kevin Wise as president, and appointed Yingling as vice-president for 2014. Steele was reappointed as the legislative liaison to the Ohio School Boards Association and Courtney Allen was reappointed as the student achievement liaison to the Ohio School Boards Association.

Ethan Bennett, right, and his classmates pay attention during the presentation “Fossils at your feet: Ancient creatures of the Queen City” by the Cincinnati Museum Center at the Montessori Academy of Cincinnati in Mason on Tuesday, January 7, 2014. The kids learned about ancient creatures that lived in the area and how fossils were created. The Enquirer/Leigh Taylor

Students at the Montessori Academy of Cincinnati in Mason got an up-close look at ancient fossils on Tuesday.  Representatives from the Cincinnati Museum Center visited the school to teach students about ancient creatures that lived in the area and how fossils were created.  The Enquirer’s Leigh Taylor captured these moments.  Click on a photo below to see a larger resolution version.

Warren County families with low incomes that are in danger of having their utilities turned off this winter may be able to get some assistance.

Help is available through the E-HEAP Winter Crisis program, a federally-funded program administered by Warren County Community Services.

Applicants must be income eligible (for example, a gross annual income of $41,212 or less for a family of four) and either have had their gas and/or electric service turned off, be facing a disconnection of their service or have less than 10 days supply of bulk fuel.

Applications are accepted through March 31. For more information or to apply, call 866-747-1042 for an appointment or go to www.wccsi.org.

Jessica Brown reports:

Some local students may have their school year extended thanks to an early deluge of winter weather this year.

Schools in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky have already canceled classes several times this school year due to ill-timed snowfalls or sub-zero temperatures. The latest round of closures came Monday as arctic temperatures hampered bus transportation, iced over parking lots and posed a frostbite danger for kids waiting at bus stops or walking to school.

A repeat is expected on Tuesday. A few districts decided Monday afternoon to remain closed as forecasts predicted temperatures would continue to hover in negative territory.

The closures this school year have come earlier and more often than normal, superintendents say. Some districts are already planning for summer makeup days.

“This is the first year in all of my career that we’ve had two snow days prior to Christmas, and I’ve always said if we have school closed … before Christmas we will be going to school in the summer,” said Clermont Northeastern schools Superintendent Ralph Shell.

On Monday the district used its third of five allotted “calamity” days because of cold weather and icy roads, Shell said.

Ohio and Kentucky handle snow days differently. In Ohio, the state allows schools to cancel up to five days due to severe weather or other emergency situations without requiring makeup days. These are called “calamity” days and are often made up during spring break or in the summer.

In Kentucky, school districts decide how to make up canceled classes, which are calculated based on hours instead of days. Most tack the hours on into the summer.

Another deciding factor in the closure was the district’s diesel school buses.

“We do not have plug-ins for our buses to keep them warm, and according to (Environmental Protection Agency) rules we aren’t allowed to idle buses to keep them warm,” Shell said.

“Even if kids jump from mom and dad’s car into the bus they are going to be cold until the bus heats up.”

The district can shorten its school calendar to avoid additional days in the summer by conducting a public hearing – but that’s not something Shell wants to think about.

“That’s way down the pipeline,” Shell said. “In this particular situation we are operating on ‘let’s get through this one day at a time.’”

Several other Ohio school districts, including Little Miami, Milford and Loveland,said if they use up all their allotted snow days, they’ll extend the year further into the summer.

The Little Miami school district in Warren County has only one left as of Monday, whereas for the past three years it used few snow days or none. The Milford district was in the same boat Monday with only one snow day left.

“I think the only time we were close to this was when the hurricane came in and we had a lot of days off about five or six years ago,” said Milford Superintendent Bob Farrell.

Loveland used its third snow day Monday.

The region’s largest school district, Cincinnati Public Schools, will make up snow days this summer if needed. But that would be extremely rare for the district of 33,000 students. So far, it’s used only two snow days.

Monday was the fourth day Campbell County canceled school for weather, compared to three cancellations all of last year. It will start making up days May 22. The last day of school was initially scheduled to be May 21.

Same with the Fort Thomas. Snow makeup days will be tacked onto the end of the year. Monday was its second missed day. “That’s unusual, but this is a real winter,” said Superintendent Gene Kirchner. Last year the worst it had was a one-hour delay. The many students walking to school in Fort Thomas was the reason for canceling classes Monday, Kirchner said.

“When you’re talking about wind chills of 20 and 30 degrees below zero, that’s a safety concern,” Kirchner said.

This is the last year Ohio will have calamity days. Under a new Ohio law, when schools start the 2014-2015 school year they will switch from instructional days to instructional hours if their collective bargaining contracts with teachers were initiated after July 1, 2014.

Only a handful of Southwest Ohio school systems may be able to exercise the new option because of the law’s July 1 launch date and the usual labor contract terms of two or three years. For those that do make the switch, they will be allowed to make up the lost time by extending school days, rather than adding entire days to the school year.

Kentucky is already on an hours-based system. According to the 2012 budget bill, the school term shall include, at a minimum, the equivalent of 177 six-hour instructional days (1,062 hours). If a school closes due to weather, the individual districts decide how best to make up that time. District calendars specify when makeup days will occur, often in the summer.

School officials throughout the region say this is has been a particularly bad year so far for closures.

“We are definitely ahead of the game in using snow days. Often we get through December without having used any,” said Mason school district spokeswoman Tracey Carson. “During 2011-12 and ‘12-13, we only used one day. This is definitely not a ‘normal’ year. Between the fast-falling snow we saw in December at the most inconvenient time (snows beginning around 6 a.m.) and this arctic blast that makes the salt useless, we are experiencing a tough winter.”

The 14,000-student Kenton County district has already used four snow days. Superintendent Terri Cox-Cruey said they’ve taken off more days so far this year than in the past two years combined.

“Two years ago we had zero (snow days). Last year we used three,” said Cox-Cruey.

“It’s unprecedented, meaning that we have not used this many days so early as long as I can remember, which is since 2000,” said Ed Theroux, director of student services for Princeton City Schools. “The extreme conditions are hazardous for all children. We could not guarantee that all students would be safe coming in, due to those conditions.”

Most schools said Monday’s decision was easy – the frigid temperatures simply made it too dangerous for students to walk to school or wait on buses. For previous snow days, the timing or amount of snowfall were the deciding factors. Districts make the decisions with student safety in mind, they said.

“It’s too cold for our students to be walking to school,” said Mount Healthy Superintendent Lori Handler. “At these temperatures, frostbite can happen in minutes. We cannot have students walking a half hour up Hamilton Avenue to school.”

The district decided before 4 p.m. Monday to also cancel classes Tuesday.

Reporters Keith BeiryGolick, Chris Mayhew, Amy Scalf, Kelly McBride, Jennie Key and Michael Clark contributed

Mike Dyer reports:

McDonald’s announced its list of 984 high school basketball players from the 2014 class nominated to play in the McDonald’s All American Games this spring.

The list has players from 44 states and the District of Columbia who have been selected by high school coaches, athletic directors, principals and members of the McDonald’s All American Games Selection Committee.

There are 26 players from the Greater Cincinnati region – 22 male and four female players.  Mason’s Jenna Gunn made the list.

• Grant Benzinger, Moeller;
• Tyler Bowling, Lakota West;
• Sydney Brackemyre, Clinton-Massie;
• Kevin Daniels, Hughes;
• Vincent Edwards, Middletown;
• Tim Fleming, Fairfield;
• Jenna Gunn, Mason;
• Tre Hawkins, Moeller;
• Carlas Jackson, Roger Bacon;
• Martin Jones, Winton Woods;
• Jeff Larkin, La Salle;
• Zach McCormick, Turpin;
• Roderick Mills, St. Xavier;
• Kelsey Mitchell, Princeton;
• Dwight Nared, Hughes;
• Aaron Oden, Taft;
• Imani Partlow, Winton Woods;
• Devin Pike, Elder;
• Montrail Roberts, Withrow;
• Tyonte Robertson, Withrow;
• Ronnie Rousseau, Winton Woods;
• Blake Simpson, La Salle;
• Latrell Tidwell, Lakota West;
• Tyler Williams, Lakota West;
• Antonio Woods, Summit Country Day.

The final roster of 24 boys and 24 girls selected will be announced during the McDonald’s All American Games Selection Show on ESPNU on Jan. 29 at 6 p.m.

The 37th annual boys’ game is April 2 at 9:30 p.m. from Chicago’s United Center and will be televised on ESPN. The 13th annual girls’ game is at 7 p.m. April 2 and will televised live on ESPNU.

Ally Marotti reports:

About two months after he pleaded guilty to felonious assault and gross sexual imposition in an attack on a woman, a Mason man was sentenced Monday to four years in prison.

Family members of the woman William F O’Leary Jr. attacked found her severely beaten, with head trauma, nose and facial fractures and other injuries sustained from sexual assault. The woman, also from Mason, was hospitalized for several days and didn’t remember the attack, according to a news release from the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office.

When O’Leary, then 42, was indicted in January 2013, Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell called the incident the worst rape case their office had seen.

He said O’Leary allegedly raped a woman both vaginally and anally with “some type of object” during the attack on July 15, 2012

“The type of injuries she suffered were some of the most severe we’ve ever seen with a sexual assault,” said Fornshell.

Assistant Prosecutor Teresa Hiett wanted a more severe sentence due to the nature and extent of the injuries, according to the release. But because O’Leary didn’t have much of a prior record, Judge Donald Oda imposed the lesser sentence.

O’Leary, a Liberty Township businessman, accepted a plea deal with prosecutors Nov. 20. He pleaded guilty to felonious assault, a second-degree felony, and gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony, and is required to register as a Tier I sexual offender.

Prosecutors dropped the four first-degree felony counts of rape and two counts of sexual battery.

In court documents, O’Leary’s attorneys claim he and the woman – both married at the time – had an ongoing six-year affair. Both were intoxicated on the night of the incident and neither fully remember what transpired, said one of O’Leary’s attorneys, Stephan Madden.

“Something happened to this woman, no doubt about that,” he said. “(O’Leary) has accepted responsibility for the fact that something happened to her while they were out at some point.”

Rachel Richardson contributed to this report.

Alexander Coolidge reports: