Published: November 21, 2008 03:54 pm            

Interception Overturned

Granny charged with illegal play

CINCINNATI — Proving once again how small a world it really can be, The McCreary County Record has learned that the 89-year-old Ohio woman who made national news last month after refusing to return a football which had been thrown into her yard is originally from our own Barren Fork community.

Edna Jester, now of Blue Ash, OH, was arrested Oct. 16 but city officials ultimately decided to drop the misdemeanor theft charge after the story wound up on national news and websites such as YouTube.

“I was innocent to start with,” Jester told The Record. “They knew to drop it [the charge]. I told them that a thief takes something in the dark. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

The ball landed in her yard when Paul Tanis overthrew a pass to his 13-year-old son. It is one of several that Jester has kept from her neighbors over the years.

Jester told The Record that keeping the toys is her “protection” so that the children stay out of her yard. She added that she didn’t want to become a laughingstock by giving the ball up too soon.

“I just stood my ground. I’ve gotten such wonderful support coming out of the woodwork,” Jester said. “I know I did the right thing.”

Jester has lived in her home for 59 years. The Tanis family moved next door seven years ago.

According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Tanis tried to retrieve the football from Jester's yard but she beat him to it and said he would have to call the police, which he did. But it was the decision of Sgt. Dennis Whitman to charge Jester, apparently over everyone else's wishes.

Jester would not give the ball back, and would not sign a citation. At that point, she was taken to the police station in the back of a cruiser, though police refused to cuff her.

The incident was picked up by "Inside Edition" and Jester got a call from the "Dr. Phil" show though she told The Record that a fall she had in September will prohibit her from traveling to appear.

Jester was born here in McCreary County to Rev. Grant King and his wife Margaret. She had three children with her first husband, Clyde Vanover. When the Vanovers divorced in the mid-1940s, she packed up her children on a bus to Cincinnati, where she arrived at the local Red Cross with just 75 cents in her pocket.

Jester later remarried and settled in Blue Ash. She has frequently visited McCreary County with her grandson Mark Vanover — most recently last

June, when she got to cut the ribbon for the new Barren Fork Heritage Trail.

Jester said that while she hates the idea of her local relations hearing about her arrest, she is proud of herself for standing firm. She was also

reluctant for her children and grandchildren to find out.

“My daughter in Florida wanted to know why I didn’t call but I didn’t want them to know,” Jester said. “I felt I could take care of it myself; I’m pretty strong for an 89-year-old.”

        

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