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Barb Barbee Jewelry, Delaware

At her home studio in Delaware, Worthington Craft Guild member Barb Barbee fashions jewelry using 14-karat gold-filled wire, sterling silver, freshwater pearls, and precious and semi-precious stones. Her holiday line has Christmas tree-shaped green malachite pendants; mother-of-pearl snowman earrings; and stunning Christmas spiders that channel an East European folktale.

The Whigs picked Harrison and Virginia Sen. John Tyler to top their 1840 ticket. Their campaign slogan — “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” — reminded voters that the Ohioan had defeated Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

Jara is a professional sand sculptor, and he’s been at this experiential public art form for 33 years. It’s a career that has taken him to 38 states and 13 countries, as far away as Australia. He’s won 14 world championships and earned medals at countless other contests along the way.

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 Ohio Department of Transportation uses drones from the UAS Center to help with a variety of projects. In 2021, the center’s drone flight team logged over 2,200 flights for ODOT, including bridge inspections, construction assessments, facility inspections, mapping, and traffic and roadway monitoring. 

As the photos with this story attest, I eventually achieved my goal of attracting and photographing pileated woodpeckers up close. But I have to give credit where it’s due — I had a little help.  

Working with state agencies, AgrAbility helped Lewis get a lift to put him on farm machinery, an Action Trackchair that will go over any terrain, and an automatic barn door opener. 

“AgrAbility has given me so much more freedom than I could have expected,” Lewis says. “I didn’t [have to] slow down.”

Just a month and a week after his accident, Lewis was back in college, where his classmates raised $13,000 to buy him an electric wheelchair to get around campus easily. By spring, he was back planting corn and soybeans.

History behind the co-op name

In 1792, the Connecticut legislature set aside 500,000 acres in northern Ohio for Connecticut residents whose homes were burned by British forces during the Revolutionary War. Known as the Fire Lands, or Sufferers’ Lands, the tract was located at the western end of the Connecticut Western Reserve in what is now the state of Ohio. The land was intended as financial restitution for residents of the Connecticut towns of Danbury, Fairfield, Greenwich, Groton, New Haven, New London, Norwalk, and Ridgefield.

I have a recurring daydream where I try to imagine what it must have been like to see the Ohio country hundreds of years ago, long before European settlement. We know that half a dozen major Indian tribes lived on the land — it would have been interesting to visit their villages and learn their way of life.

Just to the west of Cleveland and a little south of Lake Erie, Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative (LMRE) serves more than 16,700 consumer-members on 1,541 miles of electrical line across five counties. Hometown pride is a defining characteristic of the people in the area, who believe in bettering the community and looking out for one another. LMRE prioritizes providing opportunities for their youth.