This is the pilot for "Glee," which begins its series run on Fox in the fall. It's also full of NE Ohio connections. ... From a HeldenFiles column in May:

...Although some Fox materials have been vague about the location, the show's fictional McKinley High School is in Lima, series creator Ryan Murphy has said.

One character refers to ''my long-distance girlfriend in Cleveland.''

McKinley's glee club — which is more of a show choir — goes to a presentation by Carmel High School ''down in Akron.'' [It's that school's group performing "Rehab."]

OK, so Akron isn't exactly ''down'' from Lima. At least there's a mention. And that group at Carmel, however fictional it may be, is really good. As is the pilot generally, blending feel-good aspects of the High School Musical movies with a little tartness, more vivid characters and lots of humor.

But Why Lima? ... The man behind nip/tuck and Popular said he wanted to set the show in the Midwest, since he's an Indiana kid himself. Let the debate resume over whether Ohio is actually Midwest. He also remembers a lot of visits to Ohio to go to the Kings Island theme park.

''I don't know why Lima,'' he said. It stayed in his memory because ''when I was a very little kid, there was a series of tornadoes that swept through Lima on Mother's Day'' and his grandparents would often talk about the incident. (He may actually be thinking of the famous Palm Sunday storm of 1965.)

He has been through Lima, he said, but has not spent a lot of time there.