First Place, Team Picture Story - / The Plain Dealer
First Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerFor six days in late July and early August, the Gravity Games captured the attention and imagination of Clevelanders more used to watching football on the lakefront than motocross. With downtown Cleveland as a backdrop, Doug Parsons performs a scorpion in the best trick competition of freestyle motocross.
First Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerA group of Gravity Games fans get a laugh out of the spiked hair of Sebastien Perron.
First Place, Team Picture Story - Jonathan J. Romano / The Plain DealerCaptured with a slow shutter speed, a competitor is airborne during he dirt BMX finals at Cleveland's North Coast Harbor.
First Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerSpectators watch as competitors line up for the freestyle motocross challenge event.
First Place, Team Picture Story - Jonathan J. Romano / The Plain DealerTravis Pastrana steals the show with his winning backflips during the Freestyle Motorcross Finals.
First Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerThere is some water below wakeboarder Laura Lohmann, but right now she's catching only air after hitting a wave and doing a flip.
First Place, Team Picture Story - Jonathan J. Romano / The Plain DealerWhile competitors were flying though the air on skateboards and bikes, this youngster got airborne in the mosh pit during one of the nightly concerts held at the Gravity Games.
First Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerWith seemingly the only shade being provided by soaring bike vert competitors during practice, a young fan brings his own protection against the hot August sun during afternoon action at the Gravity Games. .
First Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerWomen's wakeboard finalist Melissa Marquardt wipes out on a flip into the waters of Lake Erie.
First Place, Team Picture Story - Jonathan J. Romano / The Plain DealerThe final competition featured a beautful sky, a large crowd and the Street Bike finals.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - / The Plain Dealer
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Lynn Ischay / The Plain DealerThe Rev. William Gulas was the beloved pastor of St. Stanislaus in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland for nine years. On Dec. 7, police say Daniel Montgomery shot Father Gulas to death and set fire to the rectory to cover the crime. Parishioners left flowers and mementos and school children left heartfelt notes and handmade paper wreaths in memory of Father William Gulas.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Lynn Ischay / The Plain DealerThe day after the murder and fire at the St. Stanislaus rectory, Cleveland police and firefighters continued their investigation. Police still had not found the murder weapon.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerA photograph of the murdered priest was placed at the altar of St. Stanislaus. Father William Gulas, 69, served as pastor for nine years and was credited with uplifting both the church and the surrounding neighborhood.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - David I. Andersen / The Plain DealerDaniel Montgomery, flanked by his lawyers, was arraigned for murder and arson in the death of Father Gulas. Montgomery was studying to be a Franciscan priest and was interning with Father Gulas.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Marvin Fong / The Plain DealerA shocked Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell and staff members listen as Police Chief Edward Lohn informs the media about the arrest of Daniel Montgomery in the death of Father William Gulas.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerDorothy Mikula, 76, a parishioner at St. Stanislaus, cries during a candlelight vigil held in memory of Father Gulas.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerThe procession for slain priest. William Gulas marches north on E. 65th St. to St. Stanislaus Catholic Church.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerMartha Kadelak, the sister of the Rev. William Gulas, is consoled by a Franciscan friar after the slain priest's casket was carried into St. Stanislaus Church in Slavic Village. Kadelak, of Hazelton, Pa., was joined by dozens of mourners who stopped at the church throughout the day to pay their respects to Gulas.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerA procession of altar boys carrying candles leads the casket of Father Gulas out of St. Stanislaus. An overflow crowd paid final respects.
Second Place, Team Picture Story - Joshua Gunter / The Plain DealerRev. Michael Surufka consoles one of the choir boys as the casket of Father William Gulas is driven away from St. Stanislaus Church.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - / The Blade
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Allan Detrich / The BladeOn November 10th, an outbreak of 88 tornadoes covered the east coast from Ohio to South Carolina, killing 38 and causing billions of dollars in damage. Five people in Ohio lost their lives. A f3 tornado rips through the south part of Tiffin. Several other funnel clouds accompanied this tornado, which destroyed at least 30 homes and businesses in Tiffin. This same tornado also killed one man in nearby Republic, Ohio, injuring dozens. This photo was taken looking south down Nelson St. towards Washington St.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Allan Detrich / The BladeDave Sauber stands in the wreckage of his home on TR 1177, after a tornado moved through the south part of Tiffin.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Lisa Dutton / The BladeJames Schmidt picks through the remains of his home, the day after a tornado struck NW Ohio.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Lori King / The BladeNick Lehmkuhle, (left) injured in the tornado, leans on his crutches, while his sister in law, Misty Lehmkuhle looks at the cuts on his head. Nick and his father were hiding in the crawl space when the tornado just lifted the house on Dutch John Rd. in Van Wert from the foundation and destroyed it.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Don Simmons / The BladeThe top half of a house sits a hundred yards from the bottom half in the damage aftermath in Van Wert after the November 10th tornado.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Don Simmons / The BladeMovie theatre in Van Wert which was hit by a tornado 10 November 2002.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Allan Detrich / The BladeDave Weenger of the who is stunned at what he found at his grandmother's, Marveleen Weenger's home on Cedar St. as he calls the insurance agent. Marveleen 78, was sitting watching the TV when a car slammed into her home, knocking her to the ground and across the room.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Jeremy Wadsworth / The BladeBraxton White, 6, examines the remains of his grandparents trailer in Fostoria. White's grandparents are Terry Bryant and Tina Bryant.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Andy Morrison / The BladeRalph Shields takes a break from cleaning up his demolished Van Wert home to sit in his favorite chair. He and wife Grace survived the tornado in the basement of the Zook Road home he built in 1964.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Andy Morrison / The BladeGreg Gamble, left, and his uncle Dean Mosier watch the remains of Gamble's barn burn as they cleanup his Van Wert property.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Allan Detrich / The BladeGale Rose, a Port Clinton resident, is frustrated as she talks to FEMA employee Vince Yelmini in the newly opened Disaster Relief office at 315 Madison, in the basement of the County Courthouse in Port Clinton, two weeks after the tornado.
Third Place, Team Picture Story - Andy Morrison / The BladeTwisted steel and a makeshift cross are just about all that's left of the Christian Church in the destroyed town of Roselms.
