2012 ONPA Pictures of the Year

First Place, Team Picture Story - / The Plain Dealer

First place, Team Picture Story - Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer

Three students die in school shooting

On Feb. 27, 2012, five high school students were shot, and three of them died when teenager T.J. Lane abruptly rose from his chair in the Chardon High School cafeteria, walked over to another table and fired a gun point-blank into the heads of three other students. He shot two others as he was chased from the school by a football coach who also worked as a cafeteria monitor. Police captured Lane about 45 minutes later. By day’s end, one victim would be dead. A day later, the death toll would rise to three.

The first photographer on the scene was The Plain Dealer’s Thomas Ondrey, who lives near the school. More Plain Dealer photographers would soon arrive to cover the breaking story with impact and immediacy. Chardon became a home-away-from-home for the photography staff over the coming days and weeks.

After the initial shock, the visual story quickly became how Chardon would cope with the nightmare. The photos changed from terrified students and parents, SWAT teams and helicopters, to symbols of a small, close-knit community dealing with a tragedy. Flowers and teddy bears, ribbons of red and black, vigils and prayers, people coming together to console one another.

Ava Polaski, right, leaves school grounds with her mother Misty Polaski following the shooting of five students, three fatally, at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, on Monday, Feb. 27, 2012. Ava said she knows one of the victims. Parents were reuniting with their children at Maple Elementary School, next door to the high school where the shooting took place. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer

A State Highway Patrol helicopter prepares to land in front of Chardon High School as students and parents exit the campus. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer

A memorial rose from tragedy at the sign for Chardon High School as the community began to cope its loss. (Lisa DeJong/ THe Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer

The day after the shooting, a group of students and parents gathered for a prayer on Chardon Square before setting out to tie red ribbons on trees, utility poles and porches. The school's colors are red and black. The small, tight-knit community came together in numerous ways to support one another after the tragedy. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer

T.J. Lane, the teen-ager charged with killing three of his Chardon High School classmates and injuring two, enters Geauga County Juvenile Court for a hearing on March 6. His maternal grandparents are seated in foreground with backs to camera. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer

Sarah Fatheringham, left, and her friend Moriah Thompson, right, both from Ledgemont High School in Thompson Township in Geauga County, joined several thousand mourners at a vigil outside St. Mary Catholic Church across the street from Chardon High School. The service included prayers, singing and reassuring words from Gov. John Kasich. (Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer

Four days after the shooting, Chardon High School students and parents march from the town square's gazebo a half mile to the high school to mark the school's reopening. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer

Chardon Schools Superintendent Joe Bergant embraces a returning student as the high school reopened. Bergant stood near the doors and hugged nearly every student who walked by. "Talk to your children today. Hug them," he told parents. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer

Maggie Williams, a Chardon High School senior, watches as the school's boys basketball team is introduced. The community had adopted the slogan "One Heart Beat" to show solidarity. (John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer

Three days after the shootings, Chardon High School basketball players joined arm-in-arm with players from district rival Madison High School. The Madison team wore black shirts -- one of Chardon's school colors -- with "Chardon" imprinted on the front to express their solidarity. The basketball game was the first scheduled event for Chardon High School after the shootings. (John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer)

The school was still closed and the playoff game hosted by Euclid High School became a meeting place for many students who have not seen their classmates and teachers since the tragedy. Madison, Chardon's rival in the district, came out in the black T-shirts with Chardon imprinted on the front that matched one of the Hilltoppers school colors. Cheers rang out from both sides of the stands. There was a sense of comradery and excitement of the ensuing playoff game on and off the court. Many in the crowd had expressed to the press covering the game that it will be nice to have this temporary escape, a bit of normalcy. The focus of the high school playoff thrill was only a surface covering when the gym went silent for the traditional playing of our National Anthem. The athletes did not line up separately with their teams by the benches at attention but instead went to half court and banded together arm-in-arm in teenage soidarity. As the parents, teachers and students watched you could begin to hear crying in the silence before the taped anthem began to play. The moment seemed to be painfully long. The anthem ended, the tears were wiped away as the sectional playoff game began and a part of the healing process, I believe, was added to that night.

First place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer

More than an hour after Daniel Parmertor was buried at All Souls Cemetery, a young man kneels at the freshly dug grave. (John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer)

First place, Team Picture Story - John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer

Friends and classmates of Chardon High School student Daniel Parmertor grieve after saying goodbye to Daniel for the last time after leaving his gravesite. (John Kuntz / The Plain Dealer)

Second Place, Team Picture Story - / The Columbus Dispatch

Second place, Team Picture Story - Fred Squillante / The Columbus Dispatch

On June 29, 2012 a massive line of destructive thunderstorms tracked across most of Ohio as well as a large section of the Midwest. The storms, described as a land hurricane and technically called a Derecho, resulted in widespread damage and power outages for millions across the affected areas. In central Ohio power was not restored completely for more than a week during a period of high temperatures and humidity.

Here, spectators watch as two vehicles burn on the property of Allied Building Products, 1055 Kinnear Rd. after the storm swept through. Firefighters kept back from the fire because power lines were down.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Abigail S. Fisher / The Columbus Dispatch

A massive oak tree on Weber Road in Columbus fell uprooting a sidewalk and crushing at least two cars during Friday evening's thunderstorms. AEP Ohio reported as many as 300,000 central Ohioans were without power.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Eamon Queeney / The Columbus Dispatch

An OhioHealth billboard was mangled from Friday afternoon's severe storm, June 29, 2012. A storm front with hurricane-force winds blew through central Ohio Friday leaving thousands without power and damaging other property.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Abigail S. Fisher / The Columbus Dispatch

D'yonmarte Bibins, 14, and his grandmother, Susie Bibins, sit in the front yard of their home where a massive tree tree crashed during Friday's severe thunderstorms.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Eamon Queeney / The Columbus Dispatch

Fire fighters begin to clean up after much of Marjorie Ramsay's home at 993 Bushwood Lane near Bethel is destroyed after it was struck by lightning in Friday afternoon's severe storm, June 29, 2012. "I was on the porch reading," said Ramsay. "And all of the sudden I heard this monstrous pop that made me jump. I thought it was a transformer." She called the fire department but all the circuits were busy. She believes the house will be a complete loss. "Oh lordy I just hope the other neighbors roofs are all right." said Ramsay. "I'm going to have to find a new place to live." A storm front with hurricane-force winds blew through central Ohio Friday leaving more than 200,000 people without power and damaging other property.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Abigail S. Fisher / The Columbus Dispatch

Mick Oatney and Lynne McCutheon rest on cots provided at the Fairfield County Red Cross emergency shelter in Lancaster, Ohio Sunday. Both were staying at the shelter due to power outages at their senior apartment complex in Lancaster. AEP Ohio estimates its Lancaster customers might not have power restored until July 7.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Courtney Hergesheimer / The Columbus Dispatch

Crew from DET Power from Detroit work with AEP to get power restored to the Pleasant Acres trailer park in Darby Dale area, who lost it in yesterday's storm, Monday, July 2, 2012.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Courtney Hergesheimer / The Columbus Dispatch

The Joyner family from left, Marcia, her son Andrew, 14, and daughter Emma, 11, try to keep cool on their porch, on their sixth day without power, in Newark, OH, Thursday, July 6, 2012.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus Dispatch

Paulie Anthony holds up a chainsaw while impersonating an American Electric Power worker (Renamed as "APE") during the irreverent Doo Dah Parade in Columbus, Ohio on July 4, 2012.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Eamon Queeney / The Columbus Dispatch

Lineman with Hooper Corporation, Rick Super, of Dayton, takes all the old connections off a snapped telephone pole to attach them to a brand new pole behind homes on Woodbine Place in Clintonville, Wednesday afternoon, July 4, 2012. Many Clintonville residents were finally getting power Wednesday after a five day period with no air conditioning and scorching temperatures.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Eamon Queeney / The Columbus Dispatch

Neighbors Shirley Franklin, 62, left, and Kay Burke, 50, right, both of the East Side share a moment in the Red Cross emergency shelter and cooling center at Peace Lutheran Church in Gahanna, Friday afternoon, July 6, 2012. The pair were still without electricity a week after the June 29 storm that knocked out power to thousands all over Ohio and came to the shelter to cool off and have lunch.

Second place, Team Picture Story - Eric Albrecht / The Columbus Dispatch

Kelly Boyd leans against her boyfriend's car at her Clintonville home. Her landlord has yet to remove the tree from the yard more than a month after the Derecho.