Here are the most popular local stories of 2014 by month, based on traffic to Kitchener.CTVNews.ca:

JANUARY: Nine months after receiving a lung transplant, Cambridge’s Kayla Baker died on New Year’s Day, at the age of 15. Baker’s story, and her constant advocacy for organ donation, attracted attention across her hometown, where green ribbons of support were displayed on lampposts, benches and trees. Her legacy lives on through the ‘Run-A-Lung’ fundraiser.

FEBRUARY: At the end of the month, a cold front combined with gusty winds to produce frigid wind chill values and a large amount of snowfall, while blowing snow caused near-whiteout conditions on roads across southwestern Ontario. While we were hit with many storms this past winter, few were as strong as this one – which at one point prompted police to close all roads in Perth and Huron counties.

MARCH: Janet VanderBeek, the mother of Olympic skier Kelly VanderBeek, was killed in a crash. While driving in the Town of Blue Mountains, the Kitchener resident and her husband pulled over to help a family whose car had slid into a ditch, only to be hit by an out-of-control SUV. Family members remembered VanderBeek as someone who “was always helping” and “thought of everybody else first.”

APRIL: Waterloo’s minor hockey community mourned the death of Jakob Beacock. Initially admitted to hospital with flu-like symptoms, the 13-year-old suffered a ruptured appendix and went into cardiac arrest while in surgery. Days before his death, Beacock’s teammates raised $1,400 for his family.

MAY: Volunteer searchers found the remains of five-year-old Robbie Reiner in the Nith River near his Haysville home. Reiner had walked out of the house on Boxing Day, and fallen through the river. For months, search efforts – which included police and at times dozens of volunteers – were hampered by the icy conditions of the Nith.

JUNE: Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses descended on Kitchener for their annual conference. Over seven consecutive weekends, 30,000 members of the faith – and plenty more from other religious backgrounds – were expected to attend at least part of the conference, held at The Aud.

JULY: On a Saturday afternoon, a man boarded a bus outside the Ainslie Street terminal – and allegedly threatened to kill the driver with a samurai sword. The 19-year-old man was taken into custody and charged, although police said he had previously been banned from Grand River Transit buses.

AUGUST: While walking into her backyard to investigate a noise, a 15-year-old Brantford girl was abducted, marched to the grounds of a nearby school and sexually assaulted. Although surveillance footage from nearby businesses captured the pair on camera, no arrests were ever made.

SEPTEMBER: As a sudden storm moved through the area, an 18-year-old University of Waterloo student was fatally struck by lightning. The engineering student – who had only moved to campus that week – had moved under a tree in an attempt to find shelter from the fast-moving storm.

OCTOBER: With mayors in Kitchener, Waterloo and two of Waterloo Region’s four townships leaving politics, interest in municipal elections was high. Despite the vacancies in the region – and a bitter contest for the regional chair position – it was Guelph’s election that sparked the most interest on our website. Following a tense, acrimonious campaign, incumbent mayor Karen Farbridge lost to challenger Cam Guthrie by 5,500 votes.

NOVEMBER: Just days before Remembrance Day, while Second World War veteran Frank Taylor was having coffee with his buddies at the Legion, his home was robbed. Thieves made off with everything contained in his safe – including all of the 93-year-old’s documents and mementos of his service. The incident sparked an outpouring of support both online and off, but the case remains unsolved.

DECEMBER: The never-ending battle against cheating university students took an odd turn at the University of Waterloo, where a 20-year-old student was accused of getting a man from another school to write a math exam for her. It’s alleged that Kaiwen Qian paid the 21-year-old man more than $900, after which he was supplied with a fake student ID. Both parties remain before the courts.