Rutherford-Corbin Funeral Home

The caller told dispatchers that Wiant had "drank a little too much" and had been in and out of consciousness prior to passing out, according to a 911 call obtained by The Post, Ohio University's student newspaper.Wiant, a first-year student from Dublin, was pronounced dead at OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital in Athens after he was found unresponsive at the apartment at 45 Mill St. just before 3 a.m. Monday.Dispatchers told the caller to keep Wiant in the house and out of the cold weather after the caller suggested carrying him outside to meet paramedics.Athens police are investigating the cause of Wiant’s death in coordination with the Athens County Coroner’s Office. Both the police and the university’s dean of students have been in contact with his family. Athens police have not returned repeated calls seeking information and calls about this case.In a cease-and-desist letter to the fraternity’s Athens chapter and national organization Tuesday, Martha Compton, the director of OU’s Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility, wrote that her office had received information that Sigma Pi's Epsilon chapter engaged in conduct that put the health and safety of its members at risk and did not comply with the student code of conduct.The letter, which was addressed to Elijah Wahib, the chapter’s president, called for an immediate halt to all organizational activities, an end to any communication among members that is not first approved by Compton and the cooperation of chapter members with an OU investigation.Sigma Pi fraternity's national organization released a statement Wednesday expressing its condolences to Wiant's family, as well as its support of the university's decision to shut down the fraternity."The fraternity is in full support of the cease-and-desist order the University placed on the chapter while the investigation is ongoing," Jonathan Frost, executive director and CEO of Sigma Pi, said in the statement...

Demolition began on Monday of a vacant funeral home on North High Street, making way for a new retail plaza � one of many recent development projects that is transforming Clintonville. Two vacant buildings on the 1-acre site are being torn down, including the former Weir-Arend Funeral Home at 4221 N. High St., which closed in August 2014, and the building next door that housed the Clintonville Area Chamber of Commerce for 18 years. The chamber relocated in July 2015 to 11 W. Cooke Rd. "When you get older, you're not going to last forever," said Weir-Arend's owner, Tom Arend, about his decision to sell. "And I'm the last of the Mohicans." He said Rutherford-Corbin Funeral Home, a few minutes north on High Street, is now taking care of the families that Weir-Arend once served. The site's new owner, developer Charlie Vince, also owns the retail strip directly north on N. High Street, where the Northstar Cafe, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, Jersey Mike's and Pilates Innovations are located. Vince said the new structure will be slightly larger than its sister plaza, at 10,600 square feet, but with the same brick exterior and the same open-air corridor through the middle, and a 72-space parking lot. He said all the necessary steps have been taken with the city, and he hopes to start construction in April right after the demolition is completed. The plan is to be finished by November. No tenants have been signed yet, Vince said, but "I'd like to get a really good restaurant in there. I live in Clintonville." No zoning variances were needed so the Clintonville Area Commission wasn't involved, said that district's commissioner Randy Ketcham. "Everyone was wondering when something was going to happen," Ketcham said. Weir-Arend is one of two Clintonville-area funeral homes to close recently. The site of the former Novak Funeral Home, several blocks north at 4476 N. High St., is being redeveloped by local developer Crawford Hoying into retail space and apartments. sgilchrist@dispatch.co...