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.”
On 28 Mondays a year, Greg Mahle climbs into his semitractor-trailer in Zanesville and heads south on a mission through Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to give formerly homeless dogs the loving homes they deserve.
One of his first stops on the weeklong, 4,200-mile journey is Shaggy Dog Rescue in Houston, where he finds dogs waiting for him that have been saved from overcrowded shelters across the Lone Star State.
Mahle gets the dogs into kennels, which are then secured — three shelves high — along the walls of his custom-built, air-conditioned trailer. Though they don’t realize it, the dogs have taken their first step toward much better lives, thanks to Rescue Road Trips, the nonprofit organization Mahle founded.
Like the tip of an iceberg, the name of Whitewoman Street hints at considerably more than it reveals.
The short answer is that the street honors Mary Harris, a woman of European descent who lived in the Ohio Country. But that merely skims the surface of her story. In all probability, Harris was the first white person to reside in Ohio, and her presence was so extraordinary that it was noted on international maps and occasioned a nomenclature — including White Woman’s River, White Woman’s Town, White Woman’s Rock, and, of course, Whitewoman Street — that is particular to the Coshocton area.
Tim Kuenning looks at a bark-covered log and envisions a design — a majestic eagle, a plump jack-o’-lantern, a bowlegged cowboy with saddle in hand, a hungry seagull perched on a dock waiting for lunch to swim by. Soon, his vision materializes amid a shower of sawdust.
“I carve things in all shapes and sizes,” he says. “However, people are happiest when I do eagles.”
Kuenning, a member of St. Marys-based Midwest Electric, remembers watching a chainsaw artist — a Stihl factory representative — demonstrate how to make rustic chairs and larger-than-life mushrooms with well-placed swipes of the blade.
“I told my wife I could do better than that, and I went to work proving it,” he says. “There has been a lot of practice during the ensuing years — it’s something you have to learn on your own, because no one offers classes on the subject.”
Ohio’s electric cooperatives are looking forward to another year of progress in 2020 toward our goal of providing you with safe, reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible electric service. We are thankful to have had another successful year in 2019. Following are some of the initiatives we have planned for 2020:
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.
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.
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.
