Sweeping up
When a former treasurer for the Youngstown, Ohio, school district was convicted of embezzling about $87,000 of school funds, he didn’t know that his sentence would include cleaning up his own mess.
Ralph Logozzo also probably never thought he would work for the Youngstown city schools again, until the judge sentenced him to perform six weeks of janitorial services for the district after spending three months in the Mahoning County jail.
Also as part of his sentence, Mr. Logozzo will have to compose and deliver a speech to all four of the senior high schools in the 12,000-student district. In the speech, he must apologize and admit that he violated and abused the trust given to him as treasurer of the district. The superintendent will schedule the speeches and confirm that they are done satisfactorily with Mr. Logozzo’s chief probation officer.
Mr. Logozzo was convicted in July and sentenced Oct. 1 after a state audit showed that he had diverted district money for personal use. The audit, which covered from January 1993 to December 1996, revealed that he opened two unauthorized bank accounts in the district’s name, using the money to pay off credit card debts and some loans.
Decked out
High school girls in Kitsap County, Wash., will have no shortage of pouf and lace to wear at local homecoming galas and proms this year, thanks to an influx of donated gowns to an area dress bank.
Brandy Duncan, a police sergeant in Poulsbo, a town across the Puget Sound from Seattle, started the dress bank last spring after noticing that her eldest daughter’s formal gowns were collecting dust in the closet. Ms. Duncan said she was never able to afford a fancy dress as a young girl, and wanted to do something to help out other girls whose families can’t swing the high cost of formal wear.
With donated services from area dry cleaners and a local storage company, Ms. Duncan said she now plans to offer the dress bank for all formal dances at each of the county’s six high schools. Any girl, regardless of income, may borrow a gown for a dance.
“We’ve got three teenagers, and I have trouble buying gowns,” Ms. Duncan said. “This way, nobody feels singled out.”
A collection that started with 80 dresses now includes 200.
For information about starting such a dress bank, write to Ms. Duncan via e-mail at b42779@aol.com.
--KAREN ABERCROMBIE & JESSICA L. SANDHAM
