Coordinates: 52°51′36″N 3°03′14″W / 52.860°N 3.054°W / 52.860; -3.054

Oswestry was a small local government district with borough status in Shropshire, England. It was the smallest of the five districts of Shropshire in terms of both population and land area.

Its council was based in Oswestry, the only town and largest settlement in the borough. Villages in the borough included Morda, St Martin's, Whittington, Gobowen, Pant, Trefonen and Ruyton XI Towns.

The three most deprived wards in Shropshire (not including Telford and Wrekin) were found in Oswestry Borough. They are Victoria, Gatacre and Llanyblodwel.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, and was a direct successor to Oswestry Rural District.

The district and its council were abolished on 1 April 2009 when the new Shropshire unitary authority was established, as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England.

Coordinates: 52°51′35″N 3°03′14″W / 52.8598°N 3.0538°W / 52.8598; -3.0538

Oswestry ( /ˈɒzwəstri/; Welsh: Croesoswallt) is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads.

The town was the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Oswestry until it was abolished on 1 April 2009 and is the third largest town in Shropshire, following Telford and Shrewsbury. The 2001 Census recorded the population of the civil parish as 15,613, the urban area as 16,660, and a 2008 estimate suggested that the latter figure had grown to 17,116. The town, located just five miles from the Anglo-Welsh border, is known for its mixed Welsh and English heritage, and is the home of the Shropshire libraries' Welsh Collection.

The area has long been settled. Old Oswestry is the site of a large Iron Age hill fort with evidence of occupation dating back to the 550s BC^{[citation needed]}.

The Battle of Maserfield is thought to have been fought here in 642, between the Anglo-Saxon kings Penda and Oswald. Oswald was killed in this battle and was dismembered; according to a legend, one of his arms was carried to an ash tree by a bird, an eagle, and miracles were subsequently attributed to the tree (as Oswald was considered a saint). Thus it is believed that the name of the site derived from a reference to "Oswald's Tree". The spring Oswald's Well is supposed to have originated where the bird dropped the arm from the tree. Offa's Dyke runs nearby to the west.

Leslie Edwin "Les" Miles, nicknamed "The Mad Hatter", (born November 10, 1953) is an American college football coach and the current head coach of the LSU football team. Prior to holding that position, he was head coach at Oklahoma State. He was formerly an assistant at Oklahoma State as well as Michigan, Colorado, and the Dallas Cowboys. Miles has held the head coaching position at LSU since January 2005 and coached the Tigers to a win in the 2008 BCS National Championship Game against Ohio State, 38–24. On 26 August 2011, his contract was extended to 2017.

Miles earned all-state honors in football at Elyria High School in Ohio as well as letters in baseball and wrestling. He attended the University of Michigan where he was a two-year letterman under Coach Bo Schembechler from 1974 to 75. In 1980, Miles returned to Michigan as an assistant coach to Schembechler. He left Michigan in 1982 to coach at the University of Colorado where fellow Michigan assistant Bill McCartney had just been named head coach. Coincidentally, one of his fellow assistants on the Colorado staff was another future LSU head coach, Gerry DiNardo, who coached at LSU from 1995–99.

Asa Aarons (born October 20, 1956), co-creator of "Just Ask Asa!", is an Emmy award-winning consumer reporter and photojournalist. His reports focus on the problems, concerns and realities of everyday life, ranging from false advertising claims to credit card rip-offs and business swindles. Aarons has appeared on television stations in cities including New York City, Detroit and Pittsburgh. He appeared on WNBC in NYC from 1993 until the NBC 2.0 budget cuts in 2007.

He established the proprietary "Ask Asa" brand and developed the expression into a catchphrase for consumers seeking assistance. His work was simultaneously featured on television and the station's mobile Internet-based platform. Following WNBC, he was hired by local cable station NY1 News as its employment reporter.

In 1998, he began writing a newspaper column for the New York Daily News which appeared four times a week. He has made numerous guest appearances on The Today Show, nationally televised talk shows such as Maury Povich and Sally Jesse Raphael, and on programs on MSNBC and CNBC. Before moving to New York, Aarons appeared from 1990 to 1993 on WDIV in Detroit, where he also wrote a consumer column for The Detroit News and hosted a consumer call-in radio shows. He worked at WPXI in Pittsburgh from 1984 until 1990, where he also hosted a 30-minute consumer/health show called "Your Money or Your Life."