It wasn’t too long ago that the area along Gender Road, south of Route 33 near the Franklin-Fairfield county line, was farmland as far as the eye could see. There was the bucolic village of Canal Winchester nearby and Columbus just a bit farther up the road.
Soon came a taproom-style restaurant and then, in 2018, a 32-room hotel called the DogHouse that has been named one of Time magazine’s “100 Greatest Places to Stay.”
It’s clear from the very start that an overnight stay at the BrewDog complex is not your everyday experience. Here, dogs are welcome (in some of the guest rooms), beer is a celebration, and ingenuity is everywhere.
It was 1977, and as a young state wildlife officer, I had just been assigned to duty in Morrow County in north-central Ohio.
I had heard of Gilfillan’s stellar professional reputation, so I decided to pay him a visit. I had no knowledge of his wry sense of humor when I knocked on his door. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet me and invited me into the living room of his home in Mount Gilead saying, “Sit anywhere you’d like.”
Yet as I started to sit down in a straight-backed wooden chair, he quickly stopped me. “No, don’t sit there!” he cautioned. “That’s the preacher’s chair.”
Marcus Freed climbs the steps to London Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison 30 miles west of Columbus. He’s carrying only his driver’s license, prison ID, and a clear bag filled with program materials.
It’s a routine Freed has performed thousands of times volunteering for Horizon Prison Initiative, but he doesn’t think twice about the extra steps required just to get there. The retired guidance counselor spends 30 or more hours a week at the prison supporting Horizon’s program coordinator, Richard Boone; more than 30 Outside Brother volunteers; and 56 incarcerated men working to change their lives. Many people never step foot in a prison, but Freed says he feels called to be there.
Serving more than 11,000 members in portions of 10 counties, Hancock-Wood Electric Cooperative is located in the northwestern quadrant of the state, roughly centered around the city of Findlay.
Diverse consumer base
Findlay has been named the No. 1 “micropolitan” (a city between 10,000 and 50,000 people) five years in a row by Site Selection magazine for its ability to attract new business and expand existing ones. Hancock-Wood Electric Cooperative works to be a partner in driving economic development in Findlay and the surrounding region. Employees establish and maintain strong ties with local and state government officials and cultivate relationships with business partners.
Since electric co-ops were first established during the 1930s, they have served mainly rural areas of the United States.
“We continually beat the drum among our members about what the co-op is,” says Phil Caskey, president and CEO of Consolidated Cooperative, which serves eight counties in north-central Ohio. Caskey says that many residents of suburban areas, as well as former suburbanites who move into rural areas, are unaware of the differences between electric co-ops and large, privately owned electric utilities. In addition, rural co-op members tend to have a better understanding of the co-op’s place in the community, he says.
People working together for a common cause is nothing new. For those efforts to be sustainable over time requires operating principles — tenets that guide our actions and decisions. During October, we celebrate National Cooperative Month, recognizing that since the mid-1800s, our cooperative business model has not merely endured but flourished because it has remained committed to our values.
The moment they open the door, Pattycake Bakery patrons are greeted with the smell of freshly baked Marry Me Blueberry muffins and Thrilla Vanilla cupcakes. Located in Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood, the popular bakery strives to be conscientious in everything it does, like using all-natural ingredients, delivering orders by bicycle, and, in 2013, becoming a worker-owned cooperative.
Stories of huge catfish — channel cats, flatheads, and blues — lurking in the deep, murky, mysterious pools of the Ohio River have been whispered from angler to angler for hundreds of years. For instance, David Zeisberger, a missionary to the Delaware Indians in what would one day become Ohio, recorded in his 1780 book, History of the Northern American Indians, the following fish story:
