Highway woes, a college strike and flooding dominated the headlines in Windsor-Essex in 2017, but it was a tip from a BlackburnNewsWindsor.com listener that produced the most-viewed story on our site for 2017.
With 2018 underway, Blackburn News looks back on the year just ended and the stories that touched us the most. The top ten Windsor-Essex stories of 2017 have been shared all New Year's weekend on the @BlackburnEssex Twitter account.
The number-one story of the year had our hearts skipping a beat on May 29 when toddlers were spotted wandering on Ottawa St in Windsor, and a local daycare had some explaining to do.
http://blackburnnews.com/windsor/windsor-news/2017/05/29/daycare-faces-investigation-toddlers-wander-onto-road/
At number two, Windsorites were star-struck on April 15 when comedians David Spade and Adam Sandler paid a visit to a downtown restaurant while in town for a show at Caesars Windsor.
http://blackburnnews.com/windsor/windsor-news/2017/04/15/stars-dine-windsor/
On October 5, a nationwide warrant was issued for a man suspected of robberies in Windsor-Essex and the Sarnia area. It became our third most-popular story of 2017.
http://blackburnnews.com/windsor/windsor-news/2017/10/05/canada-wide-warrant-man-connected-essex-county-robberies/
And now, the rest of the top-ten for 2017:
The fourth most-viewed story on our site in 2017 told of the shock felt on September 17, when a local couple was killed after their vehicle collided with a CO2 tank in Leamington.
Concerns over construction on Hwy 401 between Tilbury and Chatham were loud and clear in 2017, especially when an Amherstburg mother and son were killed on July 31. That comes in at number-five on our list.
Our number six story, on our site June 5, announces the upcoming opening of a new trampoline park at the former Tecumseh Mall Zellers store.
The seventh-biggest story of the year described the shattering of the evening calm in Leamington on June 28, when a woman was found murdered at a downtown business.
Our entire newsroom staff aggressively covered the Windsor flood of August 29. This story on how the flood affected traffic came in eighth in total page views in 2017.
A feel-good holiday story ranked at number-nine on our 2017 survey. Someone in Windsor held a $219,000 winner following a draw on December 22.
A five-week strike that left half a million Ontario college students out in the cold was another story covered by our newsroom in 2017. The story confirming the October 15 walkout is our #10 story of the year.