The year 2008 will be remembered as one in which the word "staycation" entered our vocabulary, layaway came back in style and we looked past food expiration dates if it meant saving a buck or two at the grocery store.

Times were tough.

By the same token, though, the year gave tens of thousands of people here hope: They played an important role in electing Barack Obama the first black president of the United States. And long-suffering fans of Philadelphia's sports teams witnessed something they didn't believe possible — a championship.

So 2008 wasn't all gloom and doom.

But it did have its share of senseless tragedy and violence: a funeral director was accused of killing his wife, a mother of four children, in what became one of the highest profile cases in recent memory here; and a young driver, later determined to be drunk, drove her sport-utility vehicle the wrong way on Route 30 and crashed into a carful of people.

Those stories were among the 10 biggest of the year as ranked by New Era reporters and editors.

Here's a look back.


1. The economy


The economy was heading south for quite a while before this year. But consumers really started to feel the pinch over the summer, when the price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline hit the $4 mark for the first time in mid-July.

Instead of taking vacations in far-flung locales, many of us chose to stay at home and save money instead; the so-called "staycation" became hip. But the ripple effect was wide and deep.

Many middle-class workers sought part-time jobs for a second income; more homeowners here were unable to make mortgage payments, meaning that foreclosure filings were on the rise. And a growing number of shoppers, worried more about rising grocery bills than packaging and expiration dates, turned to discount stores.

Related topic: Economy


2. Lancaster County and the election


John McCain, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama spent a considerable amount of time trying to woo local voters in the run-up to November's election. Obama's campaign rally at Buchanan Park on Sept. 4 was the first trip to the county by a Democratic presidential nominee since John F. Kennedy campaigned in Penn Square on Sept. 18, 1960.

Obama's popularity helped fuel big gains in Democratic voter registration here, helping the party chip further at the GOP's dominance. The U.S. senator from Illinois won big in the city and made inroads in the suburbs and rural areas. Though Republican John McCain won the county, it was the smallest margin of victory here for a GOP presidential candidate in 44 years.

Related topic: Election 2008


3. The Roseboro homicide


Residents of northeast Lancaster County were stunned by news that a well-known, 45-year-old mother of four had been found dead at her Reinholds home in July. An autopsy concluded that Jan E. Roseboro had been severely beaten and drowned.

Her husband, Michael A. Roseboro, was later charged with killing her. Michael Roseboro is a director of the Roseboro Funeral Home in Denver, which has been a family business for more than a century.

At a hearing in September, a Denver woman named Angela Funk testified that she had been having a secret, seven-week-long affair with Michael Roseboro — and that the two had sex and talked about divorcing their spouses just hours before he allegedly killed his wife.

Roseboro's trial is scheduled for 2009.

Related topic: Michael Roseboro


4. Armstrong's retirement


State Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong, a 65-year-old Republican widely credited as being a tireless champion of the city, retired after 32 years in the Legislature.

Republican Lloyd Smucker, of West Lampeter Township, is succeeding Armstrong in the 13th Senate District, which covers Lancaster and much of the southern part of the county. He is slated to take the oath of office on Jan. 6.

In a candid interview before leaving office, Armstrong was by turns humble, passionate and emotional as he reflected on his career in both the House and Senate since 1976.

"I guess the lesson is that you're probably not as important as you think you are," he said. "The job's important, but the day you leave office you'll be forgotten pretty quickly, easily. Ask Charlie Smithgall. Ask Art Morris. It didn't take long."

Related topic: Gibson E. Armstrong


5. Mortgage fraud


Wesley Snyder, a Berks County mortgage broker, was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for tricking 800 borrowers into getting costlier loans than they thought they had and pocketing $26 million of their payments. His victims include 300 Lancaster County residents.

Borrowers were stuck with the costlier, longer mortgages, pushing some to the brink of foreclosure. Nearly 50 victims filled a federal courtroom in Harrisburg in July to see Snyder sentenced. Snyder had pleaded guilty last November to cheating more than 800 borrowers and investors out of $29.3 million.

"The American justice system did its duty," said Irene Anderson of Landisville, one of Snyder's victims.

Related topic: Wesley Snyder


6. End of an era


Doneckers, an Ephrata institution since 1961, shut its restaurant at the end of June and closed its fashion store and furniture store in October. With the demise of those three ventures, the only surviving part of the once-bustling retailing conglomerate is the Inns at Doneckers.

Doneckers blamed the closings on the weak economy, which has caused many retailers to struggle.

Related topic: Doneckers


7. Triple-fatal crash


Sarah Timblin, a 23-year-old Washington Boro woman with alcohol problems, got behind the wheel of her sport-utility vehicle on March 11 and, driving the wrong way on Route 30, crashed head-on into a car carrying three York men on their way to work.

Timblin's blood-alcohol level was 0.26 percent, more than three times the legal threshold. The three victims — Inocente Sanchez, 40, his brother, Luis Sanchez, 45, and Marlin Banks, 47 — died at the scene.

President Judge Louis J. Farina later sentenced Timblin to 9 to 18 years in state prison, saying, "We are going to make an example of you for others to see."

Timblin, speaking to families of the victim in the courtroom, said: "I've been trying for months to find a way to say I'm sorry, but I'm at a loss for words."

"I don't know why God has spared my life," Timblin said.

Related topic: Sarah Lynn Timblin


8. The road back


Jacy Good had just graduated from Muhlenberg College on that May day and already had a job lined up working for Habitat for Humanity in Brooklyn. But as Good's parents, Jay and Jean, drove her back to her Brunnerville home after graduation, a truck crashed head-on into their car. Good's parents died, and she was gravely injured.

When she first emerged from a coma, the 22-year-old was combative, hitting and biting people. But promising signs began cropping up. Her boyfriend gave her a pen and she started writing notes. Oddly, they were in German at first. She wrote, "My uncle only speaks German now" and "I wish to be back on the farm."

Then the Warwick High School graduate began saying simple sentences, often over and over again. There are no guarantees for a full recovery, but there is hope. "Because she's come so far, so fast, things look good," her boyfriend told the New Era in October.

Related topic: Jacy Good


9. Phillies Phever


Phillies fans here rejoiced in the team's first championship in 28 years. "Last night was just as insane as it was in 1980, actually," fan Jeff King of Willow Street said, remembering the team's last World Series triumph.

In winning the team's second world championship, the Phillies also showed that they've captured fans' hearts in Lancaster County, a good hour and a half west of Philadelphia.

Related topic: Phillies


10. Bad band directors


Todd Sheerer, a former Warwick High School band director, pleaded guilty in October to having a series of sexual trysts with a female student between 2006, when the she was 15, and 2008.

The high-profile case shed light on a little-known phenomenon in America's public schools — that music instructors, historically speaking, have been the most likely of their peers to engage in sexual abuse or pursue relationships with students.

While it sounds bizarre, the data is undeniable: Of the 126 teachers in Pennsylvania who lost their certificates for sexual-related offenses or faced such allegations in the past four years, nearly 20 percent — the largest group — taught music, Department of Education records show.

Sheerer's arrest was only one in a series of similar cases here in recent years. In November, Warwick band instructor Michael Gottier was charged with a similar crime. Police allege Gottier had intimate contact with a 16-year-old female band member.

So what's the explanation for all these cases?

In a word: opportunity.

"One of the primary reasons is access," Charol Shakeshaft, who chairs the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the New Era. "People who have access to children individually or in non-traditional or less highly supervised ways — such as with after-school programs, sports, plays — have more opportunity to abuse."

Related topics: Todd Sheerer and Michael Gottier


10 runners-up:


• The infamous "acid vandal," responsible for spraying a corrosive substance on almost 400 cars in Lancaster and the surrounding suburbs since January 2006, went underground — but only after police identified a person of interest. Since November of 2007, there have been no hits.

• Two would-be robbers, apparently lying in wait before daybreak, picked on the wrong victim in Manheim in July.

One armed suspect, a 19-year-old Lancaster city man, was shot in the chest by the Manheim business manager he had held up. The suspect died hours later at a local hospital. The other fled on foot — without any loot — and is still at large.

• A 28-year-old man made national news when he ran amok — stark naked — and caused $40,000 damage during a drug-fueled rampage at Darrenkamp's Market in Willow Street in March. He was stopped in his tracks by a 24-year-old bartender who shook his hand and calmed him down by talking to him.

• Floyd Landis, a Farmersville native and Conestoga Valley High School graduate, is the first winner of the 105-year-old Tour de France to be stripped of his title in the bicycle race. The Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the ruling of a U.S. arbitration panel that Landis cheated by using artificial testosterone in his come-from-behind victory. Landis has maintained his innocence.

• Alec Kreider was sentenced to life in prison after he admitted killing Tom and Lisa Haines and their 16-year-old son, Kevin, in the family's Manheim Township home May 12, 2007. Judge David Ashworth sentenced Kreider, 17, to three consecutive life sentences. Kreider would not tell the judge why he killed the family.

• Former county coroner Dr. G. Gary Kirchner, 74, was given one year of probation after he entered a plea of no contest to two counts of obstructing the administration of law, a misdemeanor. Kirchner had been accused of giving reporters from the Intelligencer Journal a password to a confidential county law-enforcement Web site.

• Voters in November, by a margin of 63-37, rejected a proposed home rule charter, which would have dramatically restructured Lancaster County government. The charter would have expanded the number of county commissioners from three to five and eliminated some row offices, among other changes.

• Tonya Fetrow, 28, was found dead in a driveway north of Columbia on Nov. 9 after witnesses said they saw her boyfriend beat and choke her near Fairview Avenue and St. Joseph Street in Lancaster City. Fetrow's boyfriend of two years, with whom she had tried to break up, has been charged with criminal homicide for her death. Her father, George, 70, died of natural causes exactly 14 days later. "I say he died of a broken heart," said George Fetrow's sister-in-law, Christine Fela.

• The careers of two House Democratic Caucus staffers who rose through the ranks in Lancaster County came crashing down in July. Scott and Jennifer Brubaker were among 12 people charged as part of a sweeping probe of the Capitol's largest public-corruption scandal in three decades. Scott is a former party chairman here.

• Several local family-oriented restaurants, including Isaac's downtown restaurant and Miller's Smorgasbord, have started offering liquor and beer to their customers or moved toward that change as diners increasingly want a glass of wine with dinner.


Staff writer Tom Murse can be reached at tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021.