The aughties started with all the promise of the a millennium. We had survived the Y2K scare, the economy was rolling right along and everyone thought things could only get better.

We were wrong.

This decade in Lancaster County has been marked by perhaps the worst tragedy in its history — the slaying of five Amish girls by a deeply disturbed man — and murders that made national and international headlines.

There were sex scandals in our schools, layoffs, bankruptcies, massive fraud, political mayhem and grand jury investigations at the courthouse.

There was Floyd Landis.

There were few bright spots as the economy tanked — among them the return of professional baseball and the opening of a convention center and hotel in Penn Square, in what was once a dark, decaying old department store.

The reporters and editors of this newspaper reviewed the top stories of this decade gone by and decided on 10 they believed to be the biggest. The only guideline they followed was that the events had to have occurred here or have had a direct impact on someone or some place in our county.

In discussions with staffers, though, it was clear beyond a doubt that the biggest story of this decade was the tragic events at the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Bart Township on the morning of Oct. 2, 2006.

Here are the 10 stories, in no particular order.

Pro baseball came back

In a sparkling new $28 million stadium, the Barnstormers brought professional baseball back to Lancaster in 2005 for the first time since the Red Roses ended their run, in 1961. Managed by former major-leaguer and Hempfield High School graduate Tommy Herr, the team played its first game in the $28 million Clipper Magazine Stadium on May 11 of that year.

The Barnstormers lost, 4-3, to the Atlantic City Surf before 7,348 paid fans and hundreds more onlookers. But the man who worked tirelessly to bring a professional baseball team back to Lancaster, former Mayor Dick Scott, never got a chance to seen the team take the field. He died four months earlier, on Jan. 2, at age 86.

In their second season, the Barnstormers won a championship, letting loose a flood of tears among those who had fought to bring the stadium to town, not to mention those who cheered the team on. And so it was finally be said: Baseball — good baseball — was back in Lancaster.

Convention center saga

At the close of the last decade, plans were announced to resurrect the former Watt & Shand building as a convention center and adjacent upscale hotel.

But things did not go smoothly.

The project endured 10 years of legal and financial battles, community debate, high political drama and construction delays.

It faced a total of 12 legal challenges — over a countywide hotel tax, the tax-exempt status of the hotel and the tax liability of Lancaster County residents — all of which were dismissed in the courts.

Finally, on June 18 of this year, the $177.6 million Lancaster County Convention Center and Marriott hotel — the most expensive building project in Lancaster history — was unveiled after a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony.

In the crowd-packed hotel lobby, Nevin Cooley, president of hotel developer Penn Square General Corporation, cited a 1997 city economic study which called the building "the heart and soul of Lancaster."

"For about 14 years, we haven't been able to hear the heartbeat because the site we're standing on has not been used," Cooley said.

Mark Moosic, the facility's general manager, added: "Well, we're here at last after a long journey."

Chaos in the courthouse

In the middle of the decade, 2005, the Lancaster County Commissioners sold Conestoga View, the county nursing home, to its longtime private operator. The sale — which was negotiated in secret without public solicitation of bids — included the historic former county almshouse, now used as offices, and 43 acres of land.

By November of that year, then-District Attorney Donald Totaro had ordered the commissioners and dozens of county employees to testify before an investigative grand jury probing the hiring of the county official who handled the sale of Conestoga View nursing home. He then expanded the probe into the sale of Conestoga View.

In March 2006, then-Commissioners Dick Shellenberger, Pete Shaub and Molly Henderson issued a statement apologizing for some flaws in the way the transaction was handled. The statement said Shaub and Shellenberger had been meeting with lawyers regarding the sale of Conestoga View beginning in March 2004. Shellenberger and Shaub also said they worked on the sale without informing Democratic Commissioner Molly Henderson until April 2005.

In December 2006, commissioners Shellenberger and Shaub each pleaded guilty to two violations of the Sunshine Act. Commissioner Henderson pleaded guilty to one violation.

The jurors released a lengthy report, concluding with 11 recommendations for "legislative, executive or administrative action in the public interest" — measures designed to prevent a repeat performance.

Focus on puppy mills

Early in the decade, animal-rights advocates were calling on new, tougher laws on puppy mills in Pennsylvania. By 2005, there was a full-blown "war" on large dog breeders, as one source put it — complete with marches and rallies featuring low-level Hollywood actors and rock stars.

Later in the decade, Oprah Winfrey got involved when her popular TV talk show featured grim pictures from inside puppy mills right here in Lancaster County, what one group described as "the puppy mill capital of the U.S." And animal-rights groups bought billboard space along the Pennsylvania Turnpike criticizing the high concentration of breeders here.

The increasing number of cruelty cases, and their exposure, scarred the county's image as an idyllic farming community popular with tourists. Eventually, Gov. Ed Rendell called for a tougher regulations on breeders — and he got one.

The new law, major parts of which went into effect earlier this year, forbids kennel operators from euthanizing dogs. Only veterinarians can do that. It also bans wire floors for kennel cages. Floors must be solid material that can be slatted, so that urine can still drain out of the cage. And it doubles of the minimum cage size for breeding dogs and a requirement that those dogs have free access to exercise areas that are at least twice the size of their cages.

Five months Rendell approved those tighter regulations, more than 300 licensed Pennsylvania kennels — 11 percent of the statewide total — said they planned to close. One of every six licensed dog kennels in Lancaster County planned to close as well.

Floyd, Floyd, Floyd

Floyd Landis, a Conestoga Valley High School graduate and Farmersville native, won the prestigious Tour de France in July 2006 after stunning the field two days earlier with a remarkable comeback in one of the toughest stages of the race. Commentators called it the best single-day ride in race history.

But Landis was later stripped of the title and suspended from cycling after drug tests showed he had a skewed testosterone/epitestosterone ratio during one stage of the race. He claimed he was innocent of doping and mounted a vigorous defense through several levels of appeals.

Despite producing evidence that documented inconsistencies in the handling and evaluation of Landis' urine samples, the disqualification was upheld. Landis returned to the sport of competitive cycling, in the Tour of California, earlier this year.

Tragedy at Nickel Mines

Charles Carl Roberts IV, a truck driver who claimed to have been tortured by the death of a newborn daughter years ago, stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Bart Township on the morning of Oct. 2, 2006.

He ordered the boys to leave, took 10 girls hostage and barricaded the doors. Roberts, who was heavily armed, told the girls, "I'm going to make you pay for my daughter," and then shot them at point-blank range before killing himself.

Five of the girls died.

But the story, which brought international attention to our community, continued to unfold in ways that touched the world.

Fire company volunteers, doctors and counselors worked to protect and comfort the stricken families, building friendships that remain to this day. Thousands upon thousands of mourners from across the globe wrote notes of condolence and sent contributions exceeded $4 million to assist in the medical care of the injured.

Finally, the world witnessed the amazing acts of Christian compassion when the grief-stricken Amish parents and families forgave the man who had shot their daughters and visited with and supported his family.

In the end, what the world witnessed was an extraordinary example of human compassion.

The Roseboro murder

The court records read like a Hollywood script.

Michael Roseboro was a 41-year-old, well-to-do funeral director and married father of four who was carrying on an extramarital affair. "I am so deeply, madly and completely in love with you baby," he wrote to his mistress in an e-mail on July 22, 2008.

Later that same evening, he dialed 911 and told emergency dispatchers he found his wife Jan at the bottom of their backyard swimming pool at 107 W. Main St. in Reinholds. Roseboro was later charged and convicted with killing his wife by bludgeoning, punching, kicking and strangling her before dumping her in the pool — all to be with his mistress.

Roseboro is serving a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Though that case drew perhaps the most attention this decade, plenty of others homicides and mysterious deaths captivated the county.

Who can forget Meghan Lippiatt, who drowned her 2-year-old son, Silas, and suffocated his 4-month-old brother, Myles, in 2004 and was later found not guilty by reason of insanity?

Or Alec Kreider, a Manheim Township High School student who stabbed to death Tom and Lisa Haines and their teenage son Kevin in their Blossom Hill home the night of May 12, 2007 — putting the community on edge until his arrest more than a month later? He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

Or the cold-blooded killing of Ray Diener, a 65-year-old respected and well-liked business and family man shot on the doorstep of his West Donegal Township home during a botched robbery in May 2007?

The list goes on and on: Jesse Dee Wise, who bludgeoned six members of his family to death in their Leola home in 2006;

David Ludwig, who shot and killed Michael and Cathryn Borden in their Warwick Township home then fled with his girlfriend, the Bordens' teenage daughter Kara, in 2005;

Micah Stewart, who killed his girlfriend Cortney Fry in their Columbia apartment about two weeks after she gave birth in 2004;

Felina Billetdeaux, who killing Jonathan Moyer in Brownstown and hid his body with the help of her girlfriend, Steva Hagelgans, in 2003;

The mysterious death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna, whose body was found in a Brecknock Township stream in 2003;

And the four young siblings — Andrew, Tylor, Brianna, and Kirsten Birster, ages 10, 9, 7 and 4 — who died in a fire that had been intentionally set at their 507 E. Chestnut St. home in August 2003.

White collar crimes

Two scams immediately came to mind: those perpetrated by Wesley Snyder, a Berks County mortgage broker, and Ricardo Curry, a former School District of Lancaster superintendent.

Snyder was sentenced to 12 years behind bars this year 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 to see Snyder sentenced. Snyder had pleaded guilty to cheating more than 800 borrowers and investors out of $29.3 million.

Ric Curry, as his friends and colleagues called him, began 2004 as superintendent of School District of Lancaster. By the end of the year, he was awaiting sentencing on federal charges of mail fraud, to which he had pleaded guilty earlier in the year amid a blossoming scandal over the use of educational consultants and financial abuses.

The state auditor general's office and FBI launched investigations into alleged mismanagement of funds. Curry was sentenced in January 2005 to two years in prison for hiring relatives and friends as consultants and paying them $59,500 for little or no work. In return, Curry received $3,000 in kickbacks, prosecutors said.

An internal investigation by the school district itself found an array of abuses involving consultant hiring, as well as unchecked credit-card use and dubious travel by regular staff.

The abuses were so alarming and so widespread that it prompted a series of reforms championed by interim superintendent John Bonfield and the district's then-newly appointed Superintendent Rita Bishop.

Equipment Finance was a little-known Airport Road lender to logging firms until April 2007, when owner Sterling Financial disclosed it had found contract "irregularities" there.

Sterling — which also owned Bank of Lancaster County — soon declared it was the victim of a $200 million loan fraud.

That meant Sterling had far fewer assets and profits than it thought. To fill those gaping holes, Sterling sold itself to PNC for $535 million.

About 300 Sterling employees were laid off as a result of the sale. Sterling shareholders, though, got $19 a share from PNC, near Sterling's price of $21.97 a share the day before "irregularities" were disclosed.

Though federal authorities investigated the matter, no charges were ever filed.

Armstrong bankrupt, LGH on rise

The transformation of the Northwest Gateway Project could serve as perfect metaphor for a major transition in the local economy — the erosion of the manufacturing industry and the rapid growth of the health-care field in Lancaster county.

The site is where the former Armstrong World Industries' Liberty Street flooring plant used to be. It has been dismantled and cleared. Lancaster General Health will use part of the land for its facilities.

Armstrong once was the county's largest employer. Now it is Lancaster General.

Beginning the decade was Armstrong World Industries Inc. filing for bankruptcy protection, in December 2000, saying its growing asbestos problem was on the brink of consuming all its cash. The filing came two weeks after Armstrong missed the deadline for repaying a $50 million loan.

It emerged from bankruptcy in 2006.

But continued layoffs at Armstrong and numerous other firms illustrated the erosion of the manufacturing industry in Lancaster County; by September of this year, there were only 37,700 such jobs. At the beginning of the decade there were 56,600.

While that segment of the local economy was contracting during the recession, health care has been expanding and adding jobs. Nowhere is that growth more evident than on North Duke Street in Lancaster, where Lancaster General Health opened up its $65 million, four-story Downtown Pavilion and adjoined 11-level parking garage and pedestrian bridge, which links the garage to the pavilion and the hospital.

There's also Lancaster General Women & Babies Hospital's $8.5 million expansion, and Lancaster General Health's intention to build a new hospital in West Earl Township.

Bad band instructors

Todd Sheerer. Norman McMillan. Michael Wolf. Michael David Gottier.

You've seen their names, read about their alleged sexual misdeeds with local high school students, and surely noted the seemingly trivial detail tying these four together:

They taught music — be it in class, in a gospel choir or in a marching band.

Weird coincidence?

Actually, no.

The five local cases 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 middle of this decade, nearly 20 percent — the largest group — taught music, Department of Education records show.

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 newspaper. "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."

tmurse@lnpnews.com