1. Word leaked out in June that Yahoo! was looking to open a data center in the the Town of Lockport Industrial Park. Ground was broken on the $150 million center in August, and the opening is planned for September.

“This facility is going to be the single most efficient, environmentally friendly data center in the planet,” vowed David Dibble, Yahoo! executive vice president of services for engineering and operations, at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Dibble, whose family hails from Ellery Center in Chautauqua County, said almost all of the employees will be local hires, not transfers from other company locations.

2. Point guard Jonny Flynn, 20, was drafted No. 6 overall by the National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Timberwolves in June after leaving Syracuse University.

Flynn returned to Niagara Falls shortly after the draft to receive the key to the city.

“You see a lot of guys out there who don’t have that much support,” Flynn said during the ceremony at City Hall in June. “But you know, I’ve got a whole city behind me.”

3. The 30-year-old man from western Ontario survived a plunge over Niagara Falls.

The man, whose identity was never revealed, joined a small number of people to go over the waterfalls with no protection device and live.

He jumped into the waters above the Horseshoe Falls at about 2 p. m. March 11 and plunged over the 167-foot drop in what rescuers described as a suicide attempt. He was in swirling waters below the falls for more than 40 minutes before a firefighter could pull him out.

Only two others are believed to have survived a plunge over Niagara Falls without a barrel or protective device other than a life jacket in the last 50 years.

Rescuers believe the force of the falls stripped the man of his clothing during the drop.

4. Characters Jim and Pam from the NBC comedy “The Office” married on a Maid of the Mist boat with the Horseshoe Falls in the background in a surprise ending to an hourlong episode set in Niagara Falls that aired Oct. 8.

Actors John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, who play Jim and Pam, taped outdoor scenes for the show in the Falls on Aug. 27 along with the crew.

The episode featured a sweeping shot of Niagara Falls in the final few minutes as the couple — drenched from the mist — embraced.

5. Lewiston Supervisor Fred M. Newlin II, Wheatfield Supervisor Timothy E. Demler and North Tonwanda Mayor Lawrence V. Soos. Newlin and Soos are pictured, from left, on the Niagara Weekend cover, and at right in the string of three photos is William A. Annable, who figures into Question and Answer No. 18.

Newlin was forced out of office after six years following a nasty battle this past election season with Highway Superintendent Steven Reiter, who was to take office this holiday weekend.

The other two campaigns also turned nasty, as well.

Demler was stripped of his Republican Party endorsement last summer after a town GOP committeeman accused him of having an affair with his wife (See related story on Page NC1). Demler lost the Republican primary to party-backed candidate Robert B. Cliffe, who went on to win in the general election, as well.

Soos, a one-term Democratic incumbent, was defeated in a landslide by City Clerk-Treasurer Robert G. Ortt, a 30-year-old former financial analyst and a member of the Army National Guard who has served in Afghanistan.

6. Niagara County voters decided Nov. 3 by to reduce the size of the County Legislature, with 83 percent of voters in favor.

The Legislature will shrink from 19 seats to 15, after the 2011 election.

7. Henry F. Wojtaszek received the encomium from State Sen. George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane, after Wojtaszek stepped down as county Republican Party chairman after the Nov. 3 election.

8. Niagara Catholic High School, the only Catholic high school in the county, said goodbye to Mondays, stretching out Tuesdays through Fridays by more than an hour. The new schedule took effect this year, with students being allowed to take advantage of Niagara University’s new “fifth-day” college-preparedness program on Mondays. The move was designed not to save money, but to attract new students as Catholic education enrollment nationwide suffers, said Principal Robert DiFrancesco.

9. Coyotes have been living

James P. McCoy/Buffalo News file photo in the region for more than three decades, but a couple of encounters in North Tonawanda — including the killing of one of the animals by a police officer on April 16 — suggest they have learned to adapt more comfortably to metropolitan surroundings.

“I think what’s happening is, they’re becoming more accustomed to the suburbs and the urban areas,” said Mark Kandel, regional wildlife manager for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

10. The good times ended for JT Wheatfield’s after Joseph Tomasino, 45, of North Tonawanda, was one of 22 people accused July 30 by federal prosecutors of felony drug trafficking. Agents from the FBI-led Safe Streets Task Force spent much of that day rummaging through the bar, looking for evidence. Acting U. S. Attorney Kathleen M. Mehltretter said the main target of the investigation was Keith Simmons, 31, a fast-living North Tonawanda businessman who was identified in court papers as a supplier of Tomasino and others.

While FBI agents were searching his bar, Tomasino was being arrested by State Parks Police in Allegany State Park, where he was on a camping trip with his wife and three young children. In addition to the federal drug charges they came to arrest Tomasino on, police said they added a misdemeanor cocaine possession charge after allegedly finding cocaine “on his person.”

Charges are still pending in federal court.

11. Former board President Robert J. Weller had been forwarding racist and sexist e-mails to colleagues, which drew the criticism of current and former School Board members in a report by The Buffalo News in June. Weller also forwarded male chauvinist “jokes.”

The matter drew the attention of the Rev. Darius G. Pridgen, a Buffalo pastor, who came to a Lew-Port board meeting to discuss the issue seeking an apology. Weller told The News he never intended for the e-mails to be widely disseminated.

12. The Fort hosted the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War on July 3, 4 and 5. The war began in 1754 over rival claims to the Ohio River Valley and pitted the English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard against the French in Canada and Louisiana, with thousands of Native Americans choosing sides (most sided with the French). The British prevailed, capturing Fort Niagara in July 1759. The next year, all of Canada fell to the British, setting the stage for the American Revolution.

13. Niagara Falls High School eliminated the valedictorian honor given to the top-ranked student of the graduating class, and salutatorian, ranked second, also was cut. Instead, a group of 18 students for the 2008-09 school year earned valedictory honors for maintaining an overall unweighted average of 94 percent or higher. It was a change designed to recognize more students, especially when fractions of a point often separated students, said Principal James Spanbauer. True rankings for the class are no longer calculated.

14. State Courts Sgt. Peter P. Robinson is known around the county for his deep voice and sings for many events. He told The Buffalo News that in the evening, after hours when he’s locking up, he likes to sing in the courthouse. He also said that when he was a former corrections officer in the Niagara County Jail, he used to sing to calm the prisoners.

15. Andrea L. McNulty was spotted in May by Pendleton Democratic Party Chairman James A. Sacco Jr.; McNulty later admitted she’d moved to Pendleton, and she resigned her seat.

16. The $47 million Public Safety Building had a design issue: Inmates wreaked havoc by pulling the state-mandated sprinklers off the wall nearly half a dozen times in the first month the building was open. The first time it happened, it took nearly three hours to shut off the water flow. Eventually, officers got better at shutting off the water, but still had to replace a sprinkler head nearly every week.

Police Superintendent John R. Chella said he was getting angry about it and wanted something done. Sprinkler heads in all 54 cells, men’s and women’s, were replaced with new ones which were harder to tamper with. There have been no more water reports since the summer.

17. The Town of Newfane purchased the former Miller Hose Fire Company building, 2737 Main St., for $225,000 in October 2007. The town government plans to leave 2896 Transit Road — its home since the 1960s—and make its move into the new Town Hall-Community Center in the coming weeks. The new facility boasts solar panels and an innovative heating and cooling system among its many amenities.

18. Supervisor William A. Annable took the helm of Hartland town government in 1978, making him one of the longest-serving supervisors in Niagara County history. Local town clerks recall only one other supervisor in recent memory having served longer: Floyd Snyder of Lockport, who served 33 years — from 1962 to 1995.

19. Somerset Town Justice Donald P. Martineck is still on the bench after admitting to driving while intoxicated. Martineck, who had a blood-alcohol level that was reportedly more than twice the legal limit when he was stopped March 1 in Hartland, had charges reduced from aggravated DWI and pleaded guilty to common-law DWI in North Tonawanda City Court on July 30. He paid a $500 fine and lost his license for six months when he was sentenced in October.

Martineck, who has been on the bench for three years of his four-year term, said he had no plans to step down. He told The Buffalo News that he felt his DWI experience would make him “a better judge.”

20. Niagara County SPCA Executive Director Albert Chille, Associate Director Patricia McCue and board President Carmen T. Morreale all resigned in August.

21. John J. Gross, plumber and Niagara County political insider, is again at the center of a federal investigation. Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service in July searched Niagara Falls City Hall and the offices of Gross Plumbing and Heating on Niagara Street.

No charges have been filed in the investigation. Gross, 73, served jail time in 1974 after he was convicted of grand larceny and conspiracy in connection with a pipeline contract in the Town of Niagara. Gross also was the FBI’s star informant in a 1980s investigation known as “Operation Plumline,” in which Gross wore a hidden recorder while dealing with government officials. Most of the charges in the case were dropped. In 1997, Gross was sentenced to three years and five months for racketeering, stealing, bribing public officials and cheating on his taxes in another case.

22. Mike Paul, a New York City public relations man, was hired by Wilson High School baseball coaches William M. Atlas and Thomas J. Baia to try to put the heat on the State Police and the Niagara County district attorney’s office as a trial approached on charges that the coaches endangered the welfare of their players by not stopping an alleged 2008 hazing incident.

The criminal charges against the coaches were dropped, but civil suits remain pending.

23. The United Way of the Tonawandas fired longtime leader George O’Neil in November for criticizing the proposal to merge the agency into the new United Way of Greater Niagara.

24. The Orchard Park-based United Church Home Society had its sights set on the former St. Joseph Catholic Church campus on Payne Avenue, which closed in June 2008. The organization, which brought its plan to the city Planning Commission in September, needed the city to agree to rezone the property in order for their project to move forward. More than 120 people packed an Oct. 13 hearing on the proposal. Members of the Common Council unanimously rejected the rezoning request on Oct. 20.

25. CWM Chemical Services, which operates a commercial hazardous waste landfill on Balmer Road in the Town of Porter, sent a letter to federal officials in April.

“If the Department of Defense/ Army Corps of Engineers fail to address this contamination in a timely fashion,” the letter from District Manager Michael D. Mahar reads, “CWM will do so and will seek to recover all of its costs from the United States.”

The Department of Energy began reviewing records of environmental conditions on former Manhattan Project areas in the northwest part of the county, land the government had previously sold and that the agency had deemed safe after cleanups in the 1980s. Their review was not related to CWM’s request, department officials said. A report about conditions at former “vicinity properties” is expected in March.

News Niagara Editor Scott Scanlon, Niagara Reporters Aaron Besecker, Nancy A. Fischer, Denise Jewell Gee and Thomas J. Prohaska, and Niagara Correspondents Caitlin Murray and Teresa Sharp contributed to this quiz. e-mail:niagaranews@buffnews.com