I was a cub reporter here when the 10th anniversary of the region’s 1985 F-5 tornado was approaching.

To be more specific, I was a Tribune Chronicle freelance correspondent really hoping to become a full-time cub reporter.

One of my assignments back in those early days was to cover a Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency meeting where officials were to discuss disaster preparedness, sirens and other issues as the tornado’s anniversary neared.

I got right to work researching background. I knew only tornado lore since I didn’t live here in 1985 — the year I graduated from high school in a small blue collar community in the mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania. In fact, I knew very little about tornadoes in general because the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania aren’t typically very welcoming to twisters.

I went to the EMA meeting and turned out a full-length article, submitting it for use in a robust special section that my future employer was producing in commemoration of the local natural disaster’s anniversary.

As an editor now, looking back, I realize I went a bit overboard on my coverage that included a lengthy story and numerous fact boxes. This was important, after all! Weather always is important!

I was disappointed to find out later that only a smidgen of my hard work would see the light of day. Those darn editors carved up my prose, salvaging only a few paragraphs that they chose to shoehorn into another tornado story written by then-Tribune Chronicle reporter Michael Scott. Rather than a full byline, my name appeared only as a “contributor” at the bottom of the story bearing Mike’s name.

Such is life in the journalism business.

After being hired here a short time later as a full-time staff writer, I ended up revisiting the tornado stories many times through the years. Around the anniversary, we often have revisited shocking stories, tracking down survivors who recall where they were on May 31, 1985, and describing how we think we are better prepared if a similar storm were to strike today.

Through the years, I interviewed a woman who was attempting to escape the heat and humidity of the afternoon by taking a nap with no awareness of the approaching danger. I’ve interviewed business owners and school officials where buildings were destroyed. I’ve talked to storm chasers and ham radio operators, along with meteorologists and weather experts who described how rare and powerful an F-5 tornado is and how incredible the weather was that day to have spawned more than 40 tornadoes in multiple states.

That Trumbull County monster storm had stayed on the ground for 47 miles, causing the most devastation in parts of Newton Falls and Niles. It killed nine people and injured countless others. Its winds topped 300 mph and was later determined to be the largest tornado in the world that year.

And yes, the storm even crossed the state line heading eastward, making a rare appearance in western Pennsylvania.

Through the years I’ve read a lot about that twister. But until this year, I had not seen a children’s book revisit the story.

New Middletown resident David Phillip Parks recently sent me a copy of the children’s book he authored and illustrated, titled, “Weather … it matters.” In a letter he attached, Parks relayed a story I hadn’t before heard or written about on his recollections of the tornado and how it helped determine his future.

“That was the event that kept my father, a telecommunication specialist, away from home for three days as he worked in the effort to repair and reconnect the damaged telephone system,” Parks wrote in his letter to me. “After majoring in meteorology at Youngstown State University, I decided to write a book, one both humorous and informative, to help children understand the importance of having a knowledge of weather. The book is based on true events experienced by my family, one being the May 31, 1985, tornado outbreak.”

I sincerely appreciate that Mr. Parks thought of me and sent his book.

He’s right. You can never know too much about weather, and we are never too young to start learning.

blinert@tribtoday.com