Wheeling's waterfront will turn everyone who visits Italian, as the Undo's Upper Ohio Valley Italian Heritage Festival started the weekend with a kickoff dinner at Undo's West in St. Clairsville, Wednesday night. Since 1983 the festival has celebrated everything of Italian heritage. This year's Italian-American of the year may not have an Italian sounding name, but we'll let him do the explaining.

"My mother and my grandfather on my mother's side, both immigrated here in the 1920's, met in Washington, Pennsylvania, married.  My mother's a full-blooded Italian.  And I've known that all my life.  And, and, over the last four months I've had hundreds say, 'How are you the Italian-American of the year?'  So I got to tell everyone at the dinner tonight how that's possible," said the 2018 Italian-American of the Year, Rich Lucas.