The wait is officially over.

Darryn Peterson was one of the most coveted prospects in the 2025 recruiting class and the Ohio State Buckeyes were among his top four choices. Joining the Buckeyes as finalists were the Kansas Jayhawks, Kansas State Wildcats and the USC Trojans.

In a battle of Big Ten versus Big 12, the Ohio native chose the Kansas Jayhawks on Friday night.

The Jayhawks are getting the the No. 3 player in the nation according to 247 Sports. He is also considered the No. 1 combo guard in his class.

Peterson is officially the first commitment for Bill Self’s Kansas squad in the 2025 class.

This spring and summer, he averaged an impressive 23.8 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. In three of his team’s games, he posted over 30 points.

As the prolific 6’6″ scorer becomes Kansas’ highest-rated recruit since Josh Jackson in 2016, the Ohio State Buckeyes can move on to other targets.

The Buckeyes already hold commitments from two players in the 2025 class and two in the 2026 class as well. Four-star shooting guard Dorian Jones (2025) announced his commitment to Ohio State in July and four-star power forward A’mare Bynum (2025) committed on October 22nd.

As for other potential commitments on the horizon, four-star power forward Niko Bundalo is down to four finalists and so is four-star shooting guard Davion Hannah (Bynum’s high school teammate).

Both players are expected to announce their commitments in November, which means the Buckeyes have more chances at getting some excellent news.

A massive fire engulfing the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge and Interstate 471 over the Ohio River might have Cincinnati residents recalling another major blaze that cut a major route between Ohio and Kentucky.

In 2020, the Brent Spence Bridge that carries interstates 71 and 75 across the Ohio River was closed for weeks following a crash that sparked a huge fire.

Here’s a look back at that disaster and other bridge fires and collapses around Ohio.

Need a detour? Fire closes Daniel Carter Beard Bridge. Here are other bridges to cross the Ohio River

Fiery crash closes Brent Spence Bridge, I-71/75, over Ohio River for six weeks in 2020

Brent Spence Bridge on I-75 closed after fire, crash

A boat sprays water on a semi on fire on the Brent Spence Bridge early Wednesday. The fire followed a crash involving 2 semis. One truck was carrying potassium hydroxide. The bridge will be closed until it can be inspected.

Emily Rowekamp, Provided

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On Nov. 11, 2020, a truck carrying potassium hydroxide crashed into a jackknifed truck on the Brent Spence Bridge, causing a major fire that ended up closing the Ohio River span for six weeks.

According to 911 calls, the Old Dominion semi driver who crashed into a jackknifed truck didn’t have time to grab Hazmat paperwork before fleeing the truck, the Enquirer reported previously.

“It started on fire, and I just jumped out,” he said, telling a dispatcher that he couldn’t grab the paperwork in time.

Big Mac bridge fire: What to know about Daniel Carter Beard Bridge

Neither he nor the driver of the jackknifed rig were injured.

Repairs to the bridge included new steel support beams and new sections of concrete on the upper and lower decks. The U.S. Department of Transportation made $12 million in federal funds available for emergency repairs.

The bridge, which carries more than 160,000 vehicles a day and is one of the busiest trucking routes in the United States, reopened on Dec. 22, 2020.

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Tanker catches fire on state Route 8 in Macedonia Saturday

The crash closed the highway both ways.

Tanker crash kills driver, sparks fire on Route 8 ramp to I-271 in January 2024

On Jan. 27, the driver of a diesel tanker was killed after driving off a bridge at the Interstate 271 entrance ramp from state Route 8 north of Akron.

The truck, carrying 7,500 gallons of diesel fuel, exploded, causing a huge fire that closed the bridge for a few days, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. It reopened after inspections showed the damage didn’t affect the bridge’s structural integrity.

Miamitown Bridge collapses during flooding in Cincinnati on May 26, 1989

A temporary bridge over the Great Miami River collapsed during widespread flooding on May 16, 1989, according to media reports, sending four cars into the water. At least two people drowned, WCPO reported.

In November 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a report blaming the Hamilton County Engineer’s Office for three factors that contributed to the bridge collapse, according to WCPO. Those included:

• Selection of a design by National Engineering, the company that built the bridge, that did not consider lateral loads
• Failure to submit the bridge design plans to the Ohio Department of Transportation for review as required by state law
• Failure to promptly close the bridge when it became subject to significant debris loading

Silver Bridge span from Gallipolis collapses into Ohio River on Dec. 15, 1967

The Silver Bridge spanned the Ohio River from Gallipolis to Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Opening to traffic in 1928, it was the first bridge in the nation to use an innovative eyebar-link suspension system rather than a traditional wire-cable suspension, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

However, one of those eyebars had a small, unseen defect. The faulty eyebar eventually cracked and began to corrode, out of sight of the public or bridge inspectors. At about 5 p.m. on December 15—during rush hour—the eyebar failed, setting off a series of other failures that caused the bridge to collapse. Thirty-one vehicles plunged into the Ohio River, killing 46 people.

This story was updated to add a video.

Ohio’s corn and soybean harvest is ahead of schedule and much smaller than farmers would have liked.

Some drought-stricken fields barely produced 20% of their potential, according to Amanda Douridas, the Ohio State University Extension Educator for Madison County who is also part of the state’s agronomic crops team.

“They’re really all over the board,” Douridas said. “It’s hard to put a finger on it because different areas held up really well, considering the drought, and others, depending on the soil type, did not.”

An Oct. 28 USDA crop weather report predicted that Ohio’s harvest would “wrap up in the next coupleweeks,” about 14 days sooner than normal.

As of Oct. 27, the state’s corn was 72% harvested, which was well ahead of the five-year average of 38% for the same timeframe. Soybeans were 90% harvested, compared to the five-year average of 74%.

More: ‘Risk of death by suicide’: Ohio farmers can now access mental-health resources 24/7

Drought forced Ohio’s harvest to start two weeks early

Ohio’s lack of rain stressed crops to the point they stopped getting bigger and instead focused on making sure their seed would be complete enough to germinate this coming spring.

Of the Buckeye State’s 88 counties, 87 were highlighted as parched on the U.S. Drought Monitor map throughout most of the summer.

Crops withered in August and were so dry by the first week of September that many of the state’s farmers began their harvest two weeks early.

An early harvest for corn and soybean producers is never a good sign, especially in an age of modern genetics in which crops are designed to grow for as many days as possible.

More: How bad is Ohio’s drought? ‘Effect will be long-lasting,’ says Ohio Farm Bureau spokesman

‘It wasn’t even worth harvesting’

The state’s fields have not been affected equally by this year’s drought.

“You get into some pockets where it was off by quite a bit,” Douridas said.

West of Columbus, in Madison County, timely rains allowed many crops to flourish at crucial points in their growing phase.

“I’ve talked to farmers who didn’t really see that much impact at all with corn,” Douridas said. “Soybeans, maybe a little bit lower.”

But growers less than an hour away in Pickaway County, which is south of Columbus, are bringing in the worst harvest they’ve seen in their lives.

“Some of their sandy ground, they were harvesting 50 bushels of corn per acre,” Douridas said. “In a good year, and they’re irrigating, they’re averaging 250 bushels.”

Soybean yields have also varied drastically statewide from one field to the next.

A few farmers have chosen not to harvest their double crop, or second crop, of soybeans, which were planted over the summer after the wheat harvest.

“They were expecting severely low yields,” Douridas said. “It wasn’t even worth harvesting.”

More: Foreign ownership of Ohio farmland has been on the rise. Here’s the data

‘Farmers are seeing less profit’

The reduced yields have come while farmers are seeing a decrease in commodity prices and an increase in inputs like fertilizer, herbicide and about everything else it takes to produce a crop.

Despite the financial hardship, most operations will likely turn just enough profit that they can afford to do it all again in 2025.

“I don’t see a lot of people going under from just this one year of drought,” Douridas said.

Once they put their equipment away at the end of autumn, growers statewide will likely turn their attention to land-rental contracts that are expected to increase by about 3% ahead of spring planting.

“Land owners are paying more taxes, but farmers are seeing less profit,” Douridas said. “That’s going to be something we need to figure out how to balance.”

ztuggle@gannett.com

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