Features

Featuring traditional Yuletide activities such as a parade and visits with Santa, the Candlelight Walk attracts about 50,000 people every year. With genuine candlelight charm and a picture-perfect setting, the event exemplifies the glad tidings of small-town America, and it’s easy to imagine George Bailey shouting “Merry Christmas!” to folks on the square or the Gilmore Girls joining in the caroling at the gazebo. Indeed, says Sam, “Visitors often tell us, ‘I feel like I’m in a Hallmark movie.’” 

Bess Paper Goods & Gifts, Cincinnati

At her West Benson Street shop, Kristin Joiner not only designs the artwork and composes witty messages — for example, “Happy Ugly Sweater Season” — for her Christmas and Hanukkah cards, but she also prints them one at a time on an 1882 letterpress named Bess. Joiner uses paper sustainably made from recycled cotton, and her repertoire of handmade goods includes ornaments and miniature paper trees. 
kristin@besspapergoods.com; 513-748-6955

The saloon came first in 2010, and today more than 30 buildings occupy a 2-acre tract at the Montgomery farm. There’s a general store, a jail, a bank, a photography studio complete with vintage costumes, an undertaker, a shooting gallery, a blacksmith shop, a combination church/school, Boot Hill cemetery, and the Montgomery Mining Company, where young and old alike can mine for gems on certain days.

McPeek’s Mighty Maze and Fall Festival 

Located at the Coshocton KOA Holiday in Coshocton, the Mighty Maze is a part of the fall festival held by Ryan and Camille McPeek. Employee Amy Hamilton says they plant the corn like normal, and the maze is cut with a tractor and a GPS device.

Do mazers ever get lost?

“Some do need help,” she says, noting that guides are always available. Before closing each evening, employees sweep through the maze, looking for stragglers.

“We leave no man behind,” Hamilton jokes.

The rural setting conjures up plenty of other eerie lore, cemented in long-dead legends and myths. As a matter of fact, Malabar Farm — now an Ohio state park — has been called one of the 10 most haunted places in America. That’s why park naturalists are resurrecting the popular Haunted Hikes this month: creepy, outdoor explorations of ghostly tales and whispered legends shared on three autumn Sundays. 

Esquivel said there are disadvantages to owning an old bus, including the “old rust-bucket” itself (as she describes her 1972 camper) and the constant attention it requires. 

“People are always saying, ‘I love your car!’ and ‘Can I look inside?’” she says. “Of course, I always let them. And people offer to buy it all the time, too, but I would never sell it.”

“We think, in 2022, that this stadium was inevitable — that it was inevitable it was going to be a double-decker and that it was going to be built for more than 60,000 people [its original capacity]. And of course, we inevitably enclose it because we knew we would fill it up so much, right?” Chute says. “Those assumptions are just not true.”

Katie Dennison is a research biologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife. At the Olentangy Research Station in Columbus, she oversees the annual Furbearer Roadkill Survey. And yes, that’s the official name.

The 24 electric cooperatives that power rural Ohio are focused on improving quality of life for co-op members and ensuring the long-term prosperity of the communities they serve. That focus, employees say, is what makes cooperatives different from other workplaces. When a team is focused on a common goal, especially one that makes a positive impact on communities they love, it often results in fulfilled employees.

It’s not unheard of, in fact, for someone to spend their entire career with the same co-op. 

They embarked on a night out with Canton Food Tours, a service that local entrepreneur Barbara Abbott established a decade ago as a fun way to explore the city through its assorted eateries.

And as she lightly dips a spoon into a bowl of turtle soup at Bender’s Tavern, Fulks says she relished the opportunity to kick back without a game result, homeschooling chores, or the uncertainty of the pandemic to worry about.