Ohio State University

football

On the moo-ve

sbradford — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:19 +0000

On the moo-ve

March 1, 2025

Margaret Buranen

Ohio State University’s herd of Jersey dairy cows will soon have a permanent new home. The cows, currently in temporary housing at OSU’s Wooster campus, should be back in Columbus in a new $6.2 million facility by the end of the year.

Part of the new $52 million Multispecies Animal Learning Center within OSU’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, the new dairy building replaces the outdated Waterman Dairy Center, which was built in 1972. Construction began in February 2024, and if it continues to stay on track, the herd should be back in Columbus by this November.

The dairy’s prime location just off of Lane Avenue, near the main entrance to the Columbus campus, reinforces the importance of agriculture to the university and the state, says Maurice Eastridge, senior associate chair of animal sciences and dairy extension specialist at Ohio State, and the new dairy was designed with education of students as the top priority. “Public education and research needs are its second and third missions,” Eastridge says.

Into the modern era

Eastridge, a member of Marysville-based Union Rural Electric Cooperative, grew up helping on his parents’ and grandfather’s dairy farms in Kentucky. He knew from an early age that he wanted to work in agriculture with farm animals. Now he’s helping bring the profession into modern times.

Labor shortages on farms and the increasing number of farmers reaching retirement age, Eastridge says, have necessitated the development and adoption of automatic, or robotic, systems, which require knowledgeable workers skilled in agricultural technology to install and maintain them. The new dairy will include a state-of-the-art Lely robotic milker, which will give students hands-on experience with the latest technology so they’re qualified to fill those evolving, high-paying jobs.

Eastridge says plans had been in the works for years to upgrade the dairy, but were scrapped when engineering studies revealed that it would be cheaper to build a new one.

At one time, Ohio State's dairy herd had cows from the five major dairy breeds. Eventually, with campus space at more and more of a premium, the decision was made to pare the herd to only Holsteins and Jerseys, and in 2009, the Holsteins were sold and only the smaller Jerseys were kept.

The process to upgrade the dairy took a major step in 2023, when the university sold off some of the remaining Jerseys so that the entire herd could be accommodated at the OSU facility in Wooster.

An entire dairy ecosystem

The new dairy will have three parts: the robotic milking system, a feeding robot and automatic feed kitchen, and robots to manage manure.

The cows wander at will into the milking parlor, two or three times per day. Eastridge says the grain the cows get to eat while being milked serves as “a carrot” to draw them into the barn. When a cow moves into a milking station, gates in front and behind her shut to keep her in place and prevent another cow from getting in the way. Each cow’s ID tag, read by a scanner, tells the automatic feeding system how much food to dispense.

The amount of milk each cow produces at each milking is automatically recorded. If a cow isn’t coming in to be milked or is producing less than the normal amount, the herdsman checks her for illness or some other problem.

The Lely milker can accommodate 60 cows at a time, and while the new dairy will have only one of them when it opens, space will be available to add another if and when it's needed.

Future plans for the dairy also include a milk processing plant. Once that’s in place, visitors will be able to see the complete process of milk production — grain grown in a pasture nearby used to feed the cows, which are then milked automatically, and the milk sent directly to the processing facility and into cartons, ready for the consumer to purchase.

Click here to watch a video on a Lely robotic milking system.

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farming

dairy

Teaching the co-op way

sbradford — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 16:03:13 +0000

Teaching the co-op way

October 1, 2023

Patty Yoder

Power Lines

When you think about cooperative businesses, what comes to mind? For most reading this, it’s probably the local electric cooperative. But there are lots of others: Agricultural cooperatives and credit unions are prominent, and the outdoor retail store REI is a cooperative that’s also widely recognized.

Ohio is home to a multitude of cooperative businesses, from the Village Bicycle Cooperative in Bay Village near Cleveland to the United Producers livestock market in Gallipolis and the beloved worker-owned Casa Nueva restaurant in Athens. In fact, close to 1,100 cooperatives do business in the Buckeye State, including 452 that are headquartered here. Credit unions top the list with 228 branches, but Ohio’s cooperative scene extends well beyond financial institutions to purchasing, housing, art — even rock climbing.

Cooperative businesses can be found in and around just about every community; the proof lies in a map produced by and hosted on the website of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. The map was a yearlong project from the college’s Center for Cooperatives and is a testament to the center’s commitment to encourage business owners, legislators, researchers, and consumers to engage in and grow Ohio’s co-op economy.

The Center for Cooperatives opened in 2017 at OSU’s South Centers in Piketon. Faculty and staff work with businesses throughout the state with a focus on cooperative education, applied research, and support.

Program director Hannah Scott grew up in an agricultural community and says she appreciates the unique approach of how co-ops conduct business: The members own it, benefit from it, and make decisions about it.

“Our goal in this space is to help groups learn about business development and make informed decisions,” she says. “We’re a resource. We’re not here to tell them what to do or to do the work for them.”

There’s a growing interest in cooperatives among younger people, as members and employees, she says, partly due to an increasing cultural focus in locally grown food and worker-owned businesses. The center also works with retiring business owners to see if they would consider transitioning their businesses to cooperative models.

In addition to the online map, the organization provides a Co-Op Mastery Workbook and Foodpreneur School — free training for students, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in cooperative businesses. The resources are also available on the center’s website.

Although the Center for Cooperatives is relatively new, it’s based on a timeless idea with a deep history in Ohio’s agricultural economy. According to Thomas Worley, the center’s director, the program adds efficiencies that help streamline the work of existing agencies. For several years, Worley taught an undergraduate course about agricultural cooperatives, for which Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives’ own Doug Miller, VP of statewide services, was a regular guest speaker. Now, Scott teaches the course and continues inviting Miller to share the rural electric co-op story.

Although he was integral in developing the center, Worley says he does not consider himself a founder. He believes that credit goes to several faculty members who were committed to the idea of a business model that exists to serve members.

“We stand on the shoulders of several instrumental agricultural economists, starting with OSU’s Dr. Charles H. Ingraham and his passion for cooperative businesses and their impact on communities.”

Both Worley and Scott agree that one of the best things about cooperatives is that members can make suggestions that are heard and create change to improve products and services. They also believe co-op members find value in getting involved through volunteering, serving on committees, or joining the boards of directors.

For more information about Ohio State’s Center for Cooperatives, see https://cooperatives.cfaes.ohio-state.edu.

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cooperatives

agriculture

The amazing Fred Norton

sbradford — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 17:03:50 +0000

The amazing Fred Norton

September 1, 2023

James Proffitt

Two weeks before he graduated from Lakeside High School in May 1912, Fred William Norton competed in the inaugural Ottawa County track meet. Amazingly, Fred brought home seven first-place ribbons and added four second-place finishes to carry Lakeside to the team championship.

As amazing as that might be, there is, in fact, no shortage of “amazings” in Fred Norton’s brief life. An only child born to working-class parents in the tiny Ohio quarry town of Marblehead in 1894, Norton excelled. At everything.

Most kids of the day ended schooling and began working full-time after eighth grade. But Norton took a different path. He entered Lakeside High School (now Danbury High) in 1908. Along with track, he also competed in football, baseball, and basketball, and he carried a 4.0 academic average all four years there.

According to the Lakeside Heritage Society, he also worked for a local railroad, operating a locomotive and cleaning and repairing buildings and equipment. He often clocked 10-hour days, six days a week.

After graduation, Norton left the peninsula for Ohio State University, where he continued to excel. He made his presence known on every court and field, and became Ohio State’s first four-sport letterwinner.

He was MVP of the baseball team in 1917, when he batted .442 to help secure OSU’s first Big Ten title. He was also captain of the basketball team, and he ran the quarter-mile in track. On the gridiron, Norton once scored six touchdowns in one half in a game against Indiana, but he was better known as a blocking back for Chic Harley on the famed 1916 squad that won the Big Ten title and ignited the program to become what it is today.

At the time of his graduation in 1917, Norton was being called the greatest all-around athlete in Ohio State University history.

Oh, and by the way, he also graduated with a degree in forestry with a 4.0 average, and was a member of Sphinx, the prestigious honorary society.

Reports of the time said he could have played pro baseball — word on the street was, the Pittsburgh Pirates were scouting him. But with World War I well underway, he chose a different path. While still at OSU, he enlisted in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, studying in the school’s military aeronautics program, and when he graduated, he joined the Army, in one of the earliest versions of what would become the U.S. Air Force.

In the spring of 1918, just hours before Norton set sail for France as a first lieutenant, he purchased the leather jacket that he would wear in the cockpit of the British fighter plane that he piloted as a member of the 27th Eagle Pursuit Air Squadron.

He saw action almost right away. Norton and his squad engaged in numerous attacks on German positions and aerial dogfights. He earned a Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery during one such dogfight over the skies of France in early July 1918.

But Norton’s courage and skills could not best fate: On July 20, 1918, as his squadron was returning from a battle behind enemy lines, he took two rounds from a German fighter and died two days later.

At 24, Norton was the first OSU graduate to die in the war. He was laid to rest, along with 6,011 of his countrymen, at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, 70 miles east of Paris.

And while Norton died more than a century ago, he is not forgotten. At OSU, Norton House residence hall has been home to tens of thousands of students since 1963. From 1923 until the early ’50s, Norton Field served as an airfield in the Columbus area. And at Danbury High School in Lakeside, the Norton Award is presented each year to deserving, high-achieving seniors.

After Norton’s death, his mother received a package labeled “Personal effects,” but she could not bear to open it. She gave it to a neighbor, who stored it away. Years later, the neighbor’s family opened the box and found his leather jacket and a pair of French hospital tags inside, among other items. They’re now on display in the Early Years section of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton.

Norton was inducted into the OSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010.

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history

Ohio history

U.S. military

The 'Shoe at 100

sbradford — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 20:09:14 +0000

The 'Shoe at 100

September 1, 2022

Alicia Adams

These days, as we watch more than 100,000 fans pack Ohio Stadium for Buckeyes football, weekend after weekend each fall, it’s impossible to imagine Ohio State University without it.

The centerpiece of the Ohio State University campus and an iconic image of college football in general, Ohio Stadium turns 100 years old in October. Since its opening in 1922, it is estimated more than 50 million people have been in the stadium for game attendance.

Incredibly, however, according to OSU Head of Archives Tamar Chute, the stadium wasn’t always a given.

“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.”

“There was a lot of debate at the time over this crazy, new, huge building,” Chute says. “Why did we need the stadium? What was its purpose? And why would there be more than 60,000 people coming to watch a game? If you looked at their reasons when they talked about it, they rarely, if ever, mentioned football.”

In fact, the stadium came about more as a result of the world’s geopolitical climate than any success of the football team. “Education was a really important driver at the time, as was physical and military preparedness, because these conversations were taking place right after World War I,” Chute says. “The aftermath of that war really tied into the purpose of the stadium. They wanted it for the entire university, for the overall sense of well-being of the students. They wanted to make it something that people cared about, regardless of whether they cared about football.”

The aftermath of [World War I] really tied into the purpose of the stadium. they wanted it for the entire university, for the overall sense of well-being of the students. They wanted to make it something that people cared about, regardless of whether they cared about football.

A unique design

The stadium is affectionately nicknamed “the ’Shoe” for its original horseshoe-shaped outline. Construction on it began in August 1920, and when completed two years later, it was the largest poured-concrete structure in the world.

Local architect Howard Dwight Smith, an Ohio State alumnus and later a professor of architecture — and eventually the university architect — designed the double-deck style and pioneered new architectural techniques during its construction, such as slurry walls that kept out the nearby Olentangy River floodwaters. When the stadium hosted its dedication game against Michigan on Oct. 22, 1922, it filled its seating capacity of 66,210, leaving an overflow of 5,000 fans to stand. After several expansions, the stadium is currently the fourth-largest on-campus facility in the country, with a seating capacity of 104,581 (though more than 110,000 packed in for the 2016 game against Michigan).

Not just a stadium

The stadium’s history is steeped in memorable moments beyond football. It stands as a witness to the annual spring commencement ceremonies; was the original home of the Columbus Crew Major League Soccer team; and has played host to several mega-concerts such as the Rolling Stones, U2, and numerous incarnations of the Buckeye Country Superfest.

But the ’Shoe is more than just a venue for entertainment and graduation. “Ohio Stadium holds a special place in the hearts of all Buckeyes; it is a place of historic significance,” says OSU President Kristina Johnson. “Families have celebrated a loved one’s academic achievement here, champions have been crowned here, and it has helped so many of us fall in love with what it means to be a part of the Ohio State community.”

A home for students

While it’s a well-known fact that students regularly fill the stadium on game days, the general public might not know that students used to actually live in the stadium. In 1933, the OSU Dean of Men, Joseph A. Park, created the Stadium Scholarship Dormitory for students who otherwise couldn’t afford to go to college.

The scholarship offered students reduced tuition and sleeping quarters inside the stadium in exchange for taking care of dormitory housekeeping chores. The dormitory grew along the west side of the stadium and attracted attention, including a visit from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The program exists today, though because of expansions and renovations, the dormitory moved out of the stadium and into Mack Hall in 1999.

The sense of community and special living circumstances of the Stadium Scholarship Dormitory, however, still resonate with former residents. “Even today, more than 20 years later, I still love to tell people I lived in the ’Shoe and had 95,000 die-hard, screaming Buckeye football nuts in my backyard on Saturdays,” says Jessica (Miller) Banks, a former resident and resident advisor from 1995 to 1997. “I have several close groups of friends that I’m still in contact with on a regular basis. The SSD (Stadium Scholarship Dormitory) was unique in that we all lived and worked there, and having nearly 300 people in your everyday life made a huge campus seem small.”

Celebrating the memories

Ohio State University graduates echo similar heartfelt sentiments about the stadium — even if they didn’t live within its walls. “All my memories of Ohio Stadium are linked to family memories,” says Marcia Dowds, class of ’89. “Going to games with one sister, visiting the other when she lived in the stadium dorms, weekends spent with out-of-town relatives coming in for the tailgates and games. Like a childhood home, the stadium represents some of the best memories of my life in Columbus and my time at Ohio State University.”

Maureen Cahill, class of ’81, summed up her feelings about the stadium, capturing the essence of what the original planners had intended. “When at Ohio State University, everybody wants a chance to be in the ’Shoe and be part of what happens in the ’Shoe — it doesn’t matter what the activity is,” she says. “It could be sports, a commencement, or it could be the Special Olympics. It’s just being part of something bigger than yourself, and that’s amazing.”

All photos used in this article are courtesy of Ohio State University Archives.

Tags

Ohio history

Pioneer in ag

sbradford — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 15:26:03 +0000

Pioneer in ag

February 1, 2022

Margaret Buranen

Cathann Kress’ introduction to American life and American agriculture didn’t happen until she was well into her teenage years. Before then, her family lived wherever her parents’ Air Force careers took them — mainly the Middle East and Brazil. But when she was 12, she was welcomed into a Mennonite family on their Iowa farm.

“My love of agriculture started with this family,” she says. “The whole, very rural, community I lived in gave me a good understanding of what it means to be in agriculture. It’s about sustaining life. It’s the cornerstone of national security.”

Kress took to farm life right away after she moved to Iowa. She enjoyed baling hay and all the chores required for raising hogs, sheep, corn, and soybeans. Like many farm kids, she belonged to 4-H, where she showed sheep and did public speaking.

“I owned part of the flock of sheep by the time I graduated from high school,” she says, “and friends I made in 4-H are still my friends today.” Soon, her own career took off, and she found herself working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where, as the national director of 4-H, she took a special interest in establishing 4-H for military children.

The arc reached its current pinnacle in 2017, when Kress was appointed dean of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at Ohio State University — the first woman to hold that position at OSU. She also holds the title of vice president for agricultural administration there.

Kress says the best part of her job as dean is the people around her. “I get to work with brilliant scientists working on a range of things that are important — food security, carbon management, and soybean plant improvement,” she says. “And the students — their optimism and their energy are wonderful. We also have 45,000 living alumni who are deeply engaged with our college. They want to help and to come to events. It’s the people who make it all possible, and I love being part of it.”

Kress says most folks would be surprised at the breadth of her position. On one day, for example, she had meetings related to Green Circle Growers, turf grasses, securing grants, public safety, IT, and risk management. She also met with groups of students and student council representatives.

Her job’s biggest challenges, she says, are usually the things she can’t control. “Funding has pretty much held level [for several years], so with inflation, that means it has declined.”

Kress had been on the job just over two years when the pandemic hit, bringing with it multiple challenges: “Educating our students, keeping the research going, keeping people healthy,” she says. “But it’s important not to go into a stance of being reactive. You have to respond by being strategic and asking how we can get ahead of this.”

Kress sees both short-term and long-term challenges still ahead for Ohio agriculture. “Supply chain is going to be an issue for a while,” she says. “The lack of truck drivers affects the ability to move goods. Infrastructure is important to achieving our goals, as we have locks, dams, and bridges [that need repair].”

“Consumers don’t always understand why farmers might do some things,” she says. “We need to make sure that consumers understand what it takes to produce their food. The pandemic has shown that our just-in-time food system can have problems.”

For long-term challenges, “climate is a persistent issue, which will continue to be a primary focus. We also have workforce shortages, with many not fully understanding the breadth of careers and the high-tech nature of work available in agriculture and natural resources,” she says.

Technology and research will solve some problems. Kress sees one particular strength to counter some of agriculture’s challenges. “Cooperatives have always been a part of agriculture,” Kress notes. “Years ago, cooperatives brought electricity to farms. Now they’re working on broadband. A cooperative is a fantastic model for farmers to use. It allows them to get things that would be difficult to get on their own.”

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agriculture

farming

Farm Science Review

Paul Brown: Gridiron Great

sbradford — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 18:37:36 +0000

Paul Brown: Gridiron Great

October 1, 2021

Alicia Adams

Cleveland native and Hollywood actress Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle once told a joke about pro football coach Paul Brown: “A football player died and went to heaven. He saw a football game in progress and on the sidelines, a man in a tie, coat, and fedora hat watching intently. The football player asked St. Peter, ‘Is that Paul Brown?’ St. Peter responded, ‘No, that’s just God pretending to be Paul Brown.’”

The joke slyly illustrates the enormous impact and legacy Paul Brown had on the game of football. Pre-Brown, it was characterized mostly by brute force, with little intellectual finesse. Brown’s genius for innovation transformed it into the mental and analytical game that it is today.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Paul Brown’s death, and his innovations continue to touch almost every aspect of the modern-day sport. “Paul Brown was the pioneer of coaching the game of football as a science,” says former Ohio State University head coach Jim Tressell, now president of Youngstown State University. “Data analytics, meticulous practice planning, playbooks, use of film to study performance — Paul Brown made all of those a part of every coach’s repertoire. It was our study of Paul Brown’s 1942 national champions that gave us the blueprint to become the 2002 national champions.”

John Collins, a member of the Professional Football Researchers Association, takes that a step further: “In my opinion, Paul Brown is one of the greatest football coaches that ever lived, if not the greatest.”

Brown was born in Norwalk in 1908, but grew up in Massillon, where high school football is inextricably woven into the fabric of the history and culture.

As the quarterback for Washington High for two years, he led the Tigers to a 15-3 record. He enrolled at Ohio State, but when he didn’t make the team there, he transferred to Miami University in Oxford and went 14-3 in his two seasons as starting quarterback.

Brown became head coach at Washington High in 1932 at the age of just 24 and compiled an astonishing 80-8-2 record (not even including a preseason win in 1940 against Kent State University!). After the Tigers’ third consecutive undefeated season in 1940, Brown was hired at Ohio State in 1941 and led the Buckeyes to their first national championship in 1942.

Then the military called. Brown served and coached in the Navy during World War II, and while enlisted, was hired to coach Cleveland’s new professional team that, as a testament to his popularity (but against his wishes), bore his name: the Cleveland Browns. When he was eventually fired by owner Art Modell, Brown went on to co-found the Cincinnati Bengals in 1967.

Brown began revolutionizing the game while still coaching at Massillon. He invented a radical technique that now is commonplace: the playbook. Players learned formations and set plays and were tested on that knowledge. Brown also developed a method of calling plays from the sidelines using hand signals. A strict disciplinarian with the heart of a teacher, Brown made punctuality and attending classes as important as playing the game. He also emphasized nutrition and made sure his teams ate adequate amounts of wholesome foods by arranging meals through the local YMCA.

In a 2015 interview for the documentary Paul Brown: A Football Life, Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, told the NFL Network, “There is no one in the game that I have more respect for than Paul Brown. Everything that he did as a coach, 50 years later, everybody is still basically doing the same thing.”

It’s the most apt tribute that can be given to a man whose vision and genius were far ahead of their time.

Brown’s innovations

Paul Brown deployed almost all of his groundbreaking ideas once he reached the professional level. His accomplishments include:

First to use game film to analyze opponents’ weaknesses and scout for new talent
Helped invent the face guard and the radio headset for the football helmet
First to hire a full-time coaching staff
Instituted a college scouting system that is still in use today
First to implement the sideline telephone system to connect to the coaching staff who had a bird’s-eye view of the game
Developed the 40-yard dash to evaluate the speed and acceleration of players
Originated the taxi squad and the draw play
Created the West Coast Defense (also known as the Ohio River Offense)
Broke the color barrier in professional sports in 1946 by signing on Marion Motley and Bill Willis, a year before Jackie Robinson played for the Brooklyn Dodgers

Paul Brown Museum: 121 Lincoln Way East, Massillon, Ohio 44646 (less than 10 miles from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton). www.paulbrownmuseum.org; 330-833-4061. Tues.– Sat. 9:30 a.m.– 5 p.m., Sun. 2–5 p.m.

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Ohio history

World War II

Superfan

sbradford — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:05:46 +0000

Superfan

August 31, 2021

Vicki Johnson

Between Ohio State University football and agriculture education, Urbana resident Larry Lokai has been wholeheartedly living his passion for 23 years.

When the pandemic called an 11-month halt to his attending football games and making myriad public appearances, the 79-year-old icon — also known as Buckeyeman — says he felt like a part of him was missing. “I don’t feel complete,” he says. “I guess that’s the best way to say it.”

So as restrictions eased in late spring and early summer, Lokai eased himself back into the game. He donned his trademark scarlet-and-gray wig, painted face, and strings of buckeyes and began making a few personal appearances.

Now, as football season approaches, he’s ready to go all-in and plans to be there once again — a favorite of both fans and television cameras at the games.

Along with the hair and face paint, Lokai’s Buckeyeman is best known for handing out buckeyes, the fruit of the Ohio buckeye tree. As he’s expanded the role, he says he’s handed out more than 1.8 million of them.

“Every student who’s come through orientation since 2002 on the main campus has received a buckeye from me,” he says. More recently, he’s also begun giving the nuts to new students at the Mansfield and Marion branches.

In addition, he’s given away 1,800 buckeye tree seedlings in the last 16 years, all of which he grew in his yard — though that portion of the Buckeyeman legacy ended last year. “I gave up trying to keep up with Johnny Appleseed,” Lokai says.

Agriculture tradition

Buckeyeman is much more than a superfan at football games; his reach extends far into the community. Those trademark buckeyes are in fact more of an outgrowth of his agriculture background than a product of his fandom.

After earning his bachelor’s (1967) and master’s (1973) degrees from Ohio State, Lokai taught agriculture for 30 years before he retired in 1997. He also was a 4-H advisor and taught hunter education for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife for 25 years.

After his retirement — during the same years Buckeyeman arrived on the football scene — Lokai began a new ag career.

In 1998, he returned to Ohio State as coach of the poultry judging team for three years. In 2002, he returned to consulting with high school ag teams, and when his grandchildren started entering high school, he started working with their ag contest teams.

When his son started teaching ag education in 2013, Lokai decided that instead of competing against him, he’d help with his son’s teams instead. That, in turn, led to working with teams from more high schools.

Today, he continues to consult with FFA contest teams, and in 2019, four of the teams he worked with took the top four places in state competition. He also judges youth projects at county fairs. To date, he has judged poultry shows in 84 of Ohio’s 88 counties as well as in several neighboring states and as far away as California. Even during the pandemic, he judged at 21 county fairs.

“I can go to any county in Ohio and know somebody,” he says.

In 2016, Lokai was honored by OSU’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences with its Distinguished Alumni Award.

Through his youth work, Lokai carries over his buckeye tradition, giving away buckeyes.

Birth of Buckeyeman

Huge quantities of buckeyes weren’t on Lokai’s mind when he first donned his “uniform.”

Buckeyeman was born in 1998 when Lokai scored tickets to the Ohio State-Michigan game right behind the Michigan bench. He decided to go ultra-Ohio State with face paint and a wig.

His alter ego got a boost in 2000 when he finished third in a Halls Cough Drops national contest to find the loudest college football fan, and by 2015, he was honored as the NCAA Fan of the Year.

Buckeyeman wears four strings of 42 buckeyes each around his neck — one string for each of his children who graduated from Ohio State and 42 because he was born in 1942.

In the early days, Lokai said he would rise at 4 a.m. and put on his face paint and costume. “By 6 a.m., I was at Bob Evans for breakfast, and I’d be at the stadium by 6:30 or 7,” he says. “The last few years, I’ve slept in until 5.”

Another change came eight years ago when Lokai gave up boards and committees to focus on youth activities and Buckeyeman appearances — including his 10-year seat on the Urbana City Council, state and county retired teachers associations, and others.

“I started counting up the meetings,” he says. “By the time I got done, I got out of seven organizations. I had 80 fewer meetings a year in 2014. In January 2014, the sun came up exactly the same.”

As fans gear up for this fall’s season of Ohio State football, Lokai looks forward to returning to his place as a superfan for his 24th year. “I’d like to go to 90 at least,” he says. “I’ll do it until it stops being fun.”

Tags

agriculture

Species on the edge

aspecht — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 13:29:57 +0000

Species on the edge

May 4, 2020

W.H. Chip Gross

Woods, Waters & Wildlife

Unlike many people, Doug Wynn likes snakes. He likes them so much that he began studying them decades ago, and has since become Ohio’s leading expert on the state-endangered timber rattlesnake. A retired high school ecology teacher, Wynn is currently a visiting scholar at Ohio State University.

“Timber rattlesnakes are extremely docile,” says Wynn. “I have approached more than 700 rattlesnakes in the wild, and only three actually rattled. I’ve never even had one strike at me … until I tried to catch it. Then look out, because they are like living lightning and will strike multiple times.”

Wynn has never been bitten, yet is still extremely cautious around the snakes, always handling them with a metal catch-stick. “A rattlesnake can strike the entire length of its body,” he says. “Meaning that a 3-foot snake — which is about the typical length in Ohio — can strike a distance of at least 3 feet. So, if you ever happen across one in the woods, give it a wide berth.”

The chances of that, however, are pretty slim. Historically found in most every county plus the Lake Erie islands, only four small remnant timber rattlesnake populations remain, located in the extreme southern portion of the state: Shawnee State Forest, Tar Hollow State Forest, Vinton Furnace Experimental Forest, and one area of Wayne National Forest.

During his fieldwork, Wynn — a member of Logan County Electric Cooperative — makes finding snake dens a priority. By doing so, he can begin the process of notifying wildlife conservation organizations to help protect not only the den site but many, if not all, of the snakes that use the surrounding area. Rattlesnake dens are wintering areas located a few feet underground. Unlike dens in surrounding states, Ohio dens may or may not be located in a rock outcropping. For instance, an Ohio den opening may consist of a simple hole in the ground.

All the rattlesnakes Wynn and his fellow researchers encounter receive a microchip for identification — similar to those placed in domestic pets. A few of the snakes are also implanted with radio-telemetry transmitters for tracking purposes. Wynn says that the radioed snakes can then be detected from as far away as a kilometer (a little more than half a mile), though they’re most easily located from the air via a helicopter provided by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

Why are timber rattlesnakes endangered in Ohio but not nationally? One of the reasons — in addition to persecution by humans — is a low reproductive rate. “The females don’t reproduce until age 6, then every four years after that,” says Wynn. “A typical litter size is only about seven.”

The snakes counter their low reproduction by being long-lived, from 25 to as many as 50 years. One individual rattler, captured in the state of New York, had been marked as an adult 43 years earlier.

Females give birth to live young, not in their winter dens but during late summer under a birthing log or in a hollow stump, which they defend from predators and other snake species. Wynn says that an area must have a minimum of 30 to 40 timber rattlesnakes to sustain a viable population.

Feeding primarily on small rodents, timber rattlesnakes are ambush hunters. Choosing a small log to coil up against, they rest their head on the log. As supper arrives — in the form of a mouse, chipmunk, or squirrel — and runs along the length of the log, the snake strikes. An interesting side note is that opossums are immune to rattlesnake venom.

According to Wynn, the last human snakebite fatality in Ohio occurred in 1947. “A young mother near Tar Hollow State Park was bitten on the hand and died a few days later,” he says. “The best first aid for snakebite is your vehicle: Get to a hospital ASAP and try to remain calm so as not to spread the venom through your body more quickly — though I don’t know how anyone could remain calm in a situation like that. I certainly couldn’t.”

W.H. “Chip” Gross is Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor and a member of Consolidated Cooperative.

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wildlife

snakes

Logan County Electric Cooperative

A bit about buckeyes

hgraffice — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 13:09:43 +0000

A bit about buckeyes

September 3, 2019

Craig Springer

The nasally call of summer insects has begun to fade away, and the shiny wax coating of tree leaves is beginning to lose its luster. As summer turns toward fall, buckeye seeds come to rest on the forest floor, where they will sink into the soil and take root, as they’ve done since the Pleistocene winter of 10,000 years ago.

Coded in that inedible promise of a would-be tree lies all the information the seed needs in order to make a living in Ohio’s rich and varied soils — just add water and light.

Where there’s natural water in the bottomlands or moist hillsides, you’re sure to find Ohio’s official state tree, says retired state parks naturalist and ranger Chris Grupenhof. He spent a 27-year career teaching park visitors about Ohio’s natural wonders — and he knows his trees, having worked at Burr Oak and Hocking Hills state parks, some of the most heavily treed parks in the state.

“Buckeye trees prefer limestone soil versus acidic soil that’s most common in the southeast,” says Grupenhof. “They like to have their feet wet, and they occur naturally with silver and red maples, hackberry, and black walnut.”

Not only are they pretty to look at, but cavity-nesting birds such as nuthatches and chickadees take up housekeeping in the crannies of the bigger buckeyes. Hummingbirds take to the flowers in the spring.

The tree didn’t get its scientific name, Aesculus glabra, until Ohio was 6 years old. In 1803, German botanist Carl Willdenow received Ohio buckeye seeds from some unknown site and planted them at the Berlin Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum. In 1809, he used those trees growing in Berlin to describe what would eventually become Ohio’s state tree — and there the specimen remains.

The buckeye seed is distinctive in its smooth, chocolate-brown coating, but if you have a difficult time finding the source tree in the woods, Grupenhof has a hack: Look for leaves formed like five fingers in a palm.

About the time that the Ohio State Buckeyes are playing their fourth football game and mascot Brutus Buckeye fires up the fans, the leaves of Ohio buckeye trees are burnished rust, the color of autumn. They are among the first to grow leaves anew in the spring and are the first to drop their leaves in the fall.

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Buckeyes