EGYPTIAN ROYALTY B1
Oak Hills High School students recently visited the Cleopatra exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center.
Your Community Press newspaper Serving Price Hill and Covedale Email: pricehillpress@communitypress.com Website: communitypress.co m We d n e s d a y, M a y 1 1 , 2 0 1 1
Volume 84 Number 20 © 2011 The Community Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Rosary rally
The annual Family Rosary Rally will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday, May 15, in the Pit at Elder High School. In case of rain, the rally will be moved to the Elder Field House. Parking is available in Elder’s lot or in the Seton High School parking garage.
Mustang power
The Western Hills High School baseball team is seeking is its third league title in four years. They are 8-0 in he Cincinnati Metro Athletic Conference. – SEE STORY, A8
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Kiwanians honor servicemen By Kurt Backscheider
kbackscheider@communitypress.com
Members of the Price Hill-Western Hills Kiwanis Club took some time during their annual spring celebration to thank those who make it possible for the club to serve the West Side. The Kiwanis club recognized four military servicemen at its annual Mayfest fundraiser Friday, May 6, which took place at The Farm in Delhi Township. “We would not be here this evening if it weren’t for the sacrifices of our military,” said Tom Riggs, second vice president of the Kiwanis Club. “We wanted to add something to the program to recognize the folks who may not receive the recognition they deserve and the thanks they deserve.” Riggs said Mayfest is the club’s largest fundraiser. Each year the event raises about $13,000 for the organization, which members in turn give back to the community through several charitable programs. He said each year the club buys Christmas gifts for children at Oyler School in Lower Price Hill, they sponsor a shoe donation program for area children in need and they award scholarships to worthy graduating high school seniors – just to name a few of the ways the club serves the community. “What the members of our military do allows us to do what we do,” Riggs said. The club paid tribute to Green Township resident Mike Holzinger, who served as a petty officer 2nd class with the U.S. Navy; West Chester resident Master Sgt. John Chestnut, who serves with the U.S. Air Force; Union,
KURT BACKSCHEIDER/STAFF
Tom Riggs, far left, second vice president of the Price Hill-Western Hills Kiwanis Club, reads a poem honoring military service men and women. The Kiwanis Club recognized four members of the military at is Mayfest fundraiser this year. The servicemen honored are, from left, Air Force Master Sgt. Darren Veneman, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Mike Holzinger, Air Force Master Sgt. John Chestnut and U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Christopher Krusinski. Ky., native Sgt. Christopher Krusinski, who serves in the U.S. Marine Corps; and Dayton resident Master Sgt. Darren Veneman, who also serves in the Air Force. An Oak Hills High School class of 2000 graduate, Holzinger said he served six years in the Navy Seabees. He’s now majoring in liberal arts at the College of Mount St. Joseph and will earn his bachelor’s degree next spring. He said it was an honor the Kiwanis chose to recognize his service. “I was humbled,” he said. “I don’t feel like I deserve it as much as other guys.” Though modest, Holzinger served his country fulfilling deployments with the Naval con-
struction forces in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and Antarctica. “I’m glad I served,” he said. “The guys I was with were great, and it was a lot of fun.” Veneman thanked everyone in attendance, especially the mothers since it was two days before Mother’s Day, for their support. “The support of your community and your families allows members of the military to do our jobs every day,” he said. “Your support means the world to us.” For more about your community, visit www.cincinnati.com/local.
Fallen county deputy is finally honored Unity garden
Students from Mother of Mercy High School and the Islamic Center together pushed wheelbarrows of wood chips and shoveled at the Imago Earth Center on Enright Avenue in East Price Hill. – SEE STORY, A6
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Book e Onlin Now
By Kurt Backscheider kbackscheider@communitypress.com
Elmore David Pressley deserved more. He deserved more than being buried in an unmarked grave in the north section of the Union Baptist Cemetery in West Price Hill. He deserved the respect of a man who died proudly serving his community. Some of the region’s top law enforcement officers gathered at the cemetery on Cleves Warsaw on Wednesday, May 4, to make sure Pressley finally received the proper memorial service he deserved. “This man was killed in the line of duty,” said Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. “He should be honored and respected.” Pressley was a 41-year-old special deputy for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office who died Oct. 21, 1944, succumbing to the wounds he received while on duty three days earlier. His deeds and fate were lost to time until recovered in early 2010 by Phil Lind, registrar for the Greater Cincinnati Police Historical Society, who stumbled upon some
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CARRIE COCHRAN/STAFF
Hamilton County Sheriff’s Col. Ray Hoffbauer, center, Chief Deputy Sean Donovan, second from right, and Maj. Dale Menkhaus, far right, listen as bagpipes are played at the memorial service for Elmore Pressley, a Special Deputy for the county who died on Oct. 21, 1944, after a bullet tore through his abdomen while he was keeping the peace in Valley Homes, now in the village of Lincoln Heights. The Sheriff’s office and the Greater Cincinnati Police Historical Society made sure Pressley, who was buried in an unmarked grave, received the headstone and memorial service he deserved during a ceremony Wednesday, May 4. newspaper articles about Pressley’s death. Lind contacted Hamilton County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Barnett, who started researching Pressley. Barnett said on Oct. 18, 1944, about one year after being appointed a Special Deputy Sher-
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iff, Pressley responded to a late evening call about a group of boisterous people in the 9800 block of Douglas Walk near the Valley Homes, which is now a part of Lincoln Heights. “I’m sure when he put on that bronze Special Deputy badge and walked out the door he thought he
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would be home that evening,” Barnett said. “That wasn’t the case.” As Pressley approached the crowd of people a man walked toward him. When the deputy ordered the man to quiet down, the man responded by shooting Pressley in the abdomen with a .22 caliber rifle. Pressley died of his wound three days later at General Hospital in Cincinnati. An investigation into the deputy’s death revealed the killer as a man named Clarence Griffin. Five months after Pressley died, Griffin was shot and killed by police during an attempted arrest in Gary, Ind. “Justice was at least done,” Barnett said. Justice may have been served, but Pressley never received the burial he deserved as a fallen police officer. Barnett said he was interred in an unmarked grave along a fence line with no fanfare, no speeches, no 21-gun salute, no folded flag presented to his widow, Ellie Willie Lee, who was Pressley’s second wife. He remarried after his first wife, Maggie, died of tuberculosis in 1941. “He was brought here, buried
See HONORED on page A2