Patty Yoder

Broadway in the heartland

sbradford — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 21:08:02 +0000

Broadway in the heartland

January 1, 2024

Broadway musicals have dazzled audiences since the 1850s, and this year will be no exception. Whether they travel to New York to see shows on the Great White Way or view touring productions in Cincinnati or Columbus, Ohioans today have many options to experience classic and modern Broadway hits.

But that wasn’t always the case. In the 1950s, seeing Broadway shows required a trip to New York’s Theater District, which was an exotic experience that few were able to enjoy. Back then, life was more local. Families would watch TV and see movies, but the actors remained two-dimensional. The chances for most people to see stars on the stage or meet their celebrity crushes were slim to none.

Until John Kenley came along.

Kenley — a theatrical producer and former vaudeville performer — founded the Kenley Players, which brought “America’s most exciting summer theater” to Ohio from 1957 until 1995, drawing crowds with lavish productions, low ticket prices, and big-name stars in leading roles.

After touring the Midwest for a decade, the Kenley Players found its permanent home in Ohio. Dayton’s Memorial Hall hosted the first 14-show season, then the players relocated to Warren. Most summers, the shows toured various combinations of Dayton, Warren, Cleveland, Columbus, and Akron.

The performances showcased such talents as dance legend Gene Kelly, singer and Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson, and crowd favorite Paul Lynde. The Mount Vernon native holds the record for most performances, appearing in nine shows between 1969 and 1979.

Kenley’s idea was to bring the thrill of professional live theater to people who might not otherwise see it and spark their interest in other art forms, which it certainly did for Carol Hilton and Barbara Wood. Growing up in Niles in the 1960s, the friends attended multiple Kenley performances at Packard Music Hall in Warren. They even scored an autograph from British actor Noel Harrison, fresh off The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.

“There was a lot of excitement with the live music, the singing, and the sets. One of the sets was made up of giant boxes stacked on top of one another, and each box was a different hotel room,” Hilton says. “I was always intrigued by whether the band would be in the back, in the pit, or as part of the set and how quickly the sets would change for the next scene.”

What did it take for big stars to spend their summer performing on the straw-hat circuit? Timing had a lot to do with it, like catching up-and-comers before their big breaks and stars at the end of their careers. It also didn’t hurt that Kenley treated his leads like royalty and paid weekly salaries as high as $35,000, according to a 2006 Cleveland Plain Dealer article.

The consummate showman also knew how to create a buzz with unexpected casting. Some audience members bought tickets solely to see how TV game show host Arthur Godfrey fared opposite movie star Maureen O’Sullivan.

“He would bring people to the stage that you would never expect to be together, but it would work because they had good chemistry,” Hilton says.

Before his role as Sir Lancelot made him a household name, Robert Goulet starred in six Kenley shows — and made quite an impression on Wood and her family. During the 1960 run of Meet Me in St. Louis, Wood’s parents struck up a conversation with Goulet at a local restaurant. Her mother invited him and co-star Jill Correy to dinner while they were in town, which led to an impromptu performance on the family’s backyard swing set, now a family legend.

“I can vividly remember Robert Goulet climbing up the four steps of this little sliding board and sliding down. We had no idea who he was, but all of us kids were just dying laughing because here’s this big grown man going down our sliding board,” she says. (Whether it was Goulet’s natural inclination to perform or a few pre-dinner cocktails that led to the show is unknown.)

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, she is so beautiful and he’s so handsome.’ It just was magical to us.”

After some 500 shows, Kenley spent his final years in Cleveland. His 100th birthday brought tributes from Billy Crystal, Florence Henderson, and scores of other former players. Kenley passed away in 2009 at age 103. He is credited with carving a path for Broadway touring companies and founding today’s thriving arts scenes throughout the state.

Hilton, now of Columbus, and Wood, of Marysville, continue to enjoy musicals, plays, and the occasional opera, holding season tickets at various times. Did the Kenley Players have something to do with their love of live performance? The friends answer in unison: “Absolutely!”

To learn more about out the Kenley Players, visit www.kenleyplayershistory.com.

Tags

theaters

theater

Ohio history

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.

Tags

cooperatives

Ohio State University

agriculture

Future farm

sbradford — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:51:58 +0000

Future farm

July 1, 2022

Patty Yoder

Features

A stroll through this Ohio farm leads you past a lovely formal garden, a koi pond, and two fountains before you reach the medicinal, culinary, and potager gardens. A bit later, your tour also takes you by robotic systems and a bioreactor — a high-tech composting tower built for Project Martian, a creative exploration for growing zero-dirt food on Mars.

This is not your typical farm.

“We’ve combined 18th-century farming traditions with 21st-century technology,” says Jim Bruner, co-owner of the urban farm near downtown Columbus. “Our mission here is to grow, maintain, sustain, and explain.”

Ten years ago, the property was an abandoned 1868 Italianate house and two adjacent overgrown lots. After much planning, digging, and planting, Mezzacello now produces high-quality, nutritious food and serves as a learning lab where Bruner and local students test ideas. The name Mezzacello (“little Monticello”) pays homage to another lifelong innovator: Thomas Jefferson, and his agricultural experiments at his iconic Virginia estate.

In the summer, students attend weeklong camps at Mezzacello to learn about biotechnology, bioengineering, biochemistry, and renewable energy. For many campers, it’s the first time they connect the dots between growing and eating healthy food.

“A lot of kids think eating is the same thing as nutrition,” Bruner says. “At camp, they start to understand the idea of ‘garbage in, garbage out,’ which is true for what they eat and how they feel as well as what they feed other living things.”

Health is one of the reasons Bruner, who is originally from California, became an urban farmer. He’s also naturally drawn to anything involving innovation, systems, and design thinking. By day, he works at the PAST Foundation, a nonprofit that helps bring real-world science and applied STEM into the classroom. He’s also former president, executive director, and board chair of Ohio Invention Convention and an enthusiastic cheerleader for ideas — from his latest experiment at Mezzacello to a student inventor’s biodegradable golf tee or insulin plunger.

While Bruner and his husband, Rick Riley, cover most of the farm’s expenses, the Ohio Farm Bureau, Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation, and the Columbus Foundation help fund their projects.

Currently, Bruner and Hamid Ahmed, a Mezzacello intern, are building a biodome prototype. Ahmed is exploring ways to end global hunger as part of his Medical Pathways project at Metro Early College High School.

“It hurts to know that so many families do not have enough food,” Ahmed says. “The biodome is so people don’t have to depend on an outside source to survive.”

When finished, the structure will contain complex systems for growing hydroponic gardens and raising chickens. If their biodome proves cost-effective, sturdy, and easy to use, it could feed people worldwide.

Building and problem-solving are fun challenges for a bright high school student, but Ahmed is also developing a critical new skill: perseverance. Setbacks are part of any massive undertaking, and a great mentor can make a world of difference.

“It does get frustrating, believe me. I am not the most patient guy, but Jim is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. He’s helped me understand that I have to be patient,” Ahmed says. “I have a goal that I want to get to, and I know that if I keep pushing through, the right angle will come to me — and it will be worth it.”

Tags

Digital pioneer

sbradford — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 19:53:17 +0000

Digital pioneer

January 1, 2022

Patty Yoder

Features

It’s a debate that’s been raging for more than 30 years — something that’s part of almost everyone’s lives, yet every day, people stumble over how to pronounce a three-letter word that describes a digital image: “GIF.” Does it have a hard “G,” like “gift,” or should it sound more like the peanut butter?

Ohioans have the home-court advantage in the debate. New Milford resident Steve Wilhite, in fact, is the computer engineer who developed the Graphics Interchange Format in the 1980s. In the decades since then, he’s used a classic TV ad to teach people how to say it: “Choosy developers choose GIF.”

Wilhite invented the GIF while he worked at CompuServe, an early tech company that was based in central Ohio. Although the name may not mean much to anyone under 40, CompuServe played a pivotal role in the early days of the Information Age. Digital breakthroughs still in use today originated there, including online shopping, stock research, and self-serve airline tickets.

Golden United Life Insurance founded CompuServe in 1969 as a computer time-sharing service. A decade later, as the personal computer began making its way into American homes, the company saw an opportunity to reach consumers. In 1979, CompuServe Information Service (CIS) was born. For a monthly fee, subscribers could access a world of news and information as fast as their 300-baud modems could deliver it (in comparison, today’s slowest DSL lines are roughly 200 times faster; broadband can transport data nearly 1,000,000 times faster).

At the time, both CIS and home computers were new, so something as simple as a mouse could cause confusion — does it work like a TV remote? A sewing pedal? Can you clean it in the dishwasher? — so CompuServe’s customer service team often focused on teaching members computer basics, like how to double-click or change a password. The monthly CompuServe Magazine offered pages of tips for getting the most from the service.

Cleveland native Bill Louden was on the original CIS team. His memories include brainstorming with bright, creative, and practical thinkers “throwing things at a whiteboard to see what would stick” in the new digital world. “The CompuServe times were very heady because you were trying things that had never been tried before,” Louden says. “For something like the CB Simulator, we borrowed a metaphor from another world.”

CB Simulator was the world’s first real-time chat service, named for the citizens’ band radio craze of the day. On a Friday, CompuServe employees wondered if the concept could translate to the digital space. By Monday, Sandy Trevor had developed a working prototype. Like its 3-D counterpart, CB Simulator offered 40 channels of conversation and soon became the coolest online place to be. Strangers who wouldn’t have otherwise met became lifelong friends, business partners, and even couples: George Stickles of Dallas and Debbie Fuhrman of Phoenix fell in love there and were the first couple to be married on the CB Simulator in 1983.

CompuServe is also the source of early digital shopping. Members could browse catalogs and purchase goods from Tiffany and Co., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Neiman Marcus. It was exciting, if a bit tricky. 1980s computers did not display photos of products, so all shopping happened by text (search YouTube for a video of the early CompuServe Electronic Mall — it’s well worth three minutes of your time.)

Forums, similar to today’s Facebook groups, became the heart of the information service. Each forum covered a topic, such as music, collecting, or gaming. Fans mourned the passing of Jerry Garcia in the RockNet forum. Veterans reunited in the Military forum. Joining a forum meant abiding by its rules of conduct, and trolls were swiftly warned to keep the conversation civil or face being banned.

CompuServe dominated cyberspace through the 1980s and 1990s, when it reached more than 3 million subscribers. But competition grew fierce, and America Online (AOL) soon became the digital darling. In a complex $1.3 billion deal, AOL bought CIS, and the CompuServe network went to WorldCom in 1998.

From the original network team to the company’s last survivors, CompuServe employees know they were part of a unique moment in internet history. They still stay in touch through a private Facebook group and occasional reunions. According to Louden, the 1980s were special, but the digital era is just getting started.

“Many of the visions we had then are reality today, but not all of them,” he says. “Some of those visions are still yet to come.”

Cutting edge

Among the CompuServe firsts:

First consumer email service
First real-time chat service
Coining the term “email”
First online newspaper (The Columbus Dispatch)
First online shopping
First global chat, featuring sci-fi author Arthur C. Clark
First online news conference from the White House (Vice President Al Gore, 1994)
First online multiplayer game (MegaWars)
First rock star event with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger
First song available for download (Aerosmith’s “Head First”)

Tags

technology

Ohio history

Serene acres

aspecht — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 17:08:42 +0000

Serene acres

June 29, 2021

Patty Yoder

Co-op People

Tucked away in the western part of the state is an idyllic 60-acre farm, complete with chickens, horses, alpacas, and a miniature horse named Jack. The human residents here — like all farmers — tend to a wide variety of daily and seasonal tasks. This group, however, receives a helping hand from some 40 staff members, aides, and volunteers.

Safe Haven Farms, a member of Oxford-based Butler Rural Electric Cooperative, provides housing for people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. The nonprofit, located near Middletown, is a labor of love created by parents so their adult children and other people with developmental disabilities have a safe place to live their best lives.

ASD is a lifelong condition that affects one in 54 people. Symptoms vary but can include trouble communicating, repeated rocking, and strong reactions to sounds, scents, or tastes. It’s common for an autism diagnosis to include other disorders, such as epilepsy, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADHD, and bipolar disorder. Depending on the severity of someone’s symptoms, it can be difficult to hold a conversation, maintain a friendship, or keep a job.

Kids can rely on school resources until they turn 22, after which parents and social service agencies try to find housing and programs to support them as adults, which takes trial, error, and determination. A solution that’s a good fit for one person can be a disaster for someone else.

In 2007, seven Ohio families who had exhausted their options decided to build a solution themselves. Some parents knew about Bittersweet Farms in northwest Ohio, the first U.S. farm for adults with autism. Bittersweet and similar programs served as mentors as the seven families raised money and met with officials to form the nonprofit. After several years of effort, Safe Haven Farms opened its gates in 2011.

Today, 16 residents live in four autism-friendly houses with large, separate bedrooms and soundproof walls. It’s a structured environment in a natural setting that’s miles away from city noises that can cause stress. When life becomes stressful anyway, residents can find calming activities outside, such as hiking, gardening, or hanging out with the horses.

The farm provides organic produce, fresh eggs, and herbs to local restaurants and homes through its community-supported agriculture program. Residents can choose to help with farm work, based on their abilities and interests. Repetitive tasks — like poking a hole in the soil, adding a seed, and covering it with more soil — can be appealing to people with ASD, says Pam Lockwood, board president and co-founder.

“There is a lot of repetition in farm work, and there is a beginning and an end. You plant it, you feed it, you watch it grow,” she says. “There’s no rush to learn a task here like there would be at a regular job. If it takes a year to learn something, that’s fine.”

Nonresidents can participate in day programs, including a therapeutic equestrian program. Safe Haven also looks for opportunities to bring people out to the farm, such as inviting speech therapists to a holiday party to gain experience working with autistic adults. This summer, the new farm store will sell alpaca nesting balls, hand-painted garden signs, colorful fire-starter cups, and various other resident-made wares.

Lockwood grew up in Cincinnati, so she learned about farm life along with her son, one of the original resident farmers. David, now in his 30s, had been living in a St. Louis home, and more than once, Lockwood found herself on a five-hour road trip after a medical or other emergency. The house there was also close to the street, so David had to spend much of his time indoors due to safety precautions. That setup can work for some people. It just wasn’t the right fit for her family.

“Everyone is different,” Lockwood says, “and everyone is entitled to live somewhere that works for them.”

In 2011, it was time for Safe Haven Farms to be put to the test. So many people had worked for years to bring the farm to life. Would it be worth all the effort?

Lockwood got her answer shortly after David moved in. She watched his expression slowly change as he realized he could walk around 60 acres of farmland whenever he wanted.

He looked happy. Safe Haven Farms was the right fit.

Tags

Butler Rural Electric Cooperative

agriculture

Skip the hotel

aspecht — Sun, 02 May 2021 18:43:29 +0000

Skip the hotel

May 2, 2021

Patty Yoder

Features

Hotels and campgrounds are perfectly fine places to stay, but travelers looking beyond the usual accommodations have some unusual options these days, thanks to entrepreneurial imagination and emerging technology.

Ohioans are participating as both guests and hosts in the short-term-rental boom, with more than 300 unique Buckeye State properties available on such popular booking websites as VRBO (for renting entire houses), Airbnb (for single rooms and houses), and Hipcamp (for campsites and cabins).

Want to wake up on a blueberry farm? There’s a fine spot near Lake Erie. How about a 1950s railroad caboose? Check Athens. Prefer a tiny home, treehouse, or yurt? Search “Ohio” and “unique stays” to find exactly what you want, from castles to barns.

Seth and Emily Britt, owners of two short-term rentals in Hocking County, started out as traditional landlords, renting property for 12 months at a time — but as the private rental business found footing, they saw an opportunity to bring to life an idea from Seth’s college years working for FedEx, when he loaded trucks from massive shipping containers. The Britts built the OG Box Hop and its slightly newer companion, the BoHo Box Hop, from stacked, refurbished shipping containers. Both places have gorgeous interiors, which reviewers call “a work of art” and “as magical as it is cozy” — and feature plenty of windows for natural lighting.

Still, the Box Hop isn’t a good fit for everyone, so the couple is candid about what guests can expect: a beautiful, small (400-square-foot) house with a long gravel driveway that has a few steep turns. It’s probably not ideal for large family reunions or expensive sports cars, but it may be perfect for nature-loving singles, couples, and small families.

“It’s really important to communicate as much as you can upfront,” Emily says. “Being a good host is treating someone like family when they visit.”

The Britts built in Rockbridge because they knew the lay of the land, and they thought their shipping containers would stand out from traditional cabins for rent in the area.

“It was an easy decision because we chose an area that we love,” Emily says. “When you’re serving people, you want to bring a fresh perspective. We take a little bit of pride in shedding new light on the area.”

“We both love people, and now we’re meeting and interacting with couples every few days, which is fun,” Seth says. “A few couples have even gotten married on the outside deck at the Box Hop.”

RV and tent campers know campsites can be peaceful or packed with partiers and loud TVs. Susie Holycross of Bellefontaine listed her 166-acre farm on Airbnb and Hipcamp to give campers another option.

West Wind Stables Equine Rescue and Rehab was already put to good use as a home for 20 rescue horses, and Holycross thought she might host an occasional horse lover, which she certainly did. But it didn’t stop there. Polish and Brazilian travelers, windmill farm workers, a house hunter, a student intern, and families all booked stays, from one night to several weeks at a time.

“People seem to like waking up and seeing the horses and feeding them apples,” she says. “They’re enjoying the scenery that I get to enjoy every day.”
The property has enough room to host dozens of campers, and Holycross could easily charge more than $25 per night, but she said she’s more interested in meeting new people and giving them a private place to unplug and relax. After paying website fees and insurance, any income she earns goes back into the property.

“Most families don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend to take their kids on vacation,” she says. “This is a nice way to offset improvement costs, but I’d rather keep my price low so everyone can benefit.”

Searching the sites

When looking for a unique place to stay, the Airbnb, VRBO, and Hipcamp websites are good places to start. Travelers can pare down search results by price range, number of bedrooms, type of place, wheelchair accessibility, pet-friendliness, and many more options. There’s also a filter for “superhost,” which shows only the top-rated listings. Before booking, guests should read the reviews to weed out the overhyped properties from the great stays. Five-star rentals often feature beautiful accommodations, stunning views, and thoughtful amenities like good coffee and fancy shampoo.

Tags

travel

Say what?

aspecht — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 19:59:24 +0000

Say what?

March 31, 2021

Patty Yoder

Features

Do you say “crick” or “creek”? “Mom” or “mahm”? How about “wash” or “warsh”? Your answers can pinpoint which part of the state you’re from.

In broad terms, Ohio has three distinct accents — Midland, Inland North, and Southern — but experts allow plenty of room for variations that are unique even down to your town, according to Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, an Ohio State University linguistics professor who specializes in Ohio accents.

“Individual cities and areas develop their own ways of speaking,” Campbell-Kibler says. “Some small changes start locally and then spread, but other changes begin in, say, Toledo and do not happen anywhere else.”

Let’s take a closer look at how Ohioans speak.

Ohio’s Midland accent

Read this sentence out loud: It will be a merry day when Mary agrees to marry John.

If you have a Midland accent, “merry,” “Mary,” and “marry” sound the same. It’s the most common accent in the state, spoken from Van Wert, Mansfield, and Wooster to Xenia, Lancaster, and St. Clairsville. Midlanders also pronounce words like “cot” and “caught” and “don” and “dawn” interchangeably. (The Marion-raised author of this article had to contort her mouth and pretend she was from New York to form the W in “dawn” successfully.)

Midlanders also tend to drop the G’s at the end of words and combine two words for efficiency, so “going” becomes “goin’” and “could have” becomes “coulda.”

Ohio’s Inland North accent

Now try this one: It was too hot for hockey, so we drank pop with my dad.

If you have an Inland North accent, others hear you say this: It was too haht for hahkey, so we drank pahp with my dee-yad.

The long O and the raised A sounds are tipoffs to the Inland North accent, which is spoken throughout the Great Lakes region, including Toledo, Cleveland, and Painesville. Linguists believe the accent originated with the workers who built the Erie Canal.

Inland Northerners have bragging rights for their Northern Cities Vowel Shift (where “cat” becomes “kee-yat”), considered the most important pronunciation change in centuries, according to Campbell-Kibler. They’re also unique for saying “caught” and “cot” differently.

Ohio’s Southern accent

Our Southern accent doesn’t go all the way to “Howdy, y’all,” but try this sentence on for size: At the time, my friend was carrying 10 pens and 10 pins.

If you’re from Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Marietta, or nearby, others hear you say: At the tahm, mah friend was carrying tin pins and tin pins.

For these speakers, the E’s in “pen” and “ten” become I’s, so they sound like “pin” and “tin.” They also soften the I sounds in “time” and “my.”

The Southern accent originated in the United Kingdom, which established some of America’s oldest settlements. Today, it covers a wide swath of the country, from Dallas to New Orleans to Memphis to Mobile, before crossing into Ohio’s southern border.

So which accent is the “right” way to speak?

There is no official American accent, so the answer is up to you.

Obviously, there’s more to Ohio’s story than the three accents listed above. Our Amish communities speak using a Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, and many Ohioans speak African American Vernacular English, a dialect that began in the South and spread across the country.

Although there’s no national standard, our accent can help us or hold us back, Campbell-Kibler says. In her research, she studies how people perceive others based on their accents. If it hits our ears wrong, we may assume someone is less educated, less successful, or even less good-looking than we’d think if they spoke more like us. Knowing this, many people change their accent, which can have emotional side effects.

“The speech of our parents is the language of belonging,” Campbell-Kibler says. “What gets tricky is the language we use out in the world. For some, it may be the difference between being taken seriously or speaking like their family.”

Her advice is to keep an open mind when meeting someone new.

“Do we really want everybody to sound the same all the time?” she asks. “Personally, I think it’s fun when you can listen to people and they sound different.”

Tags

Ohio history

Volunteering: Good for the soul

aspecht — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:46:09 +0000

Volunteering: Good for the soul

March 1, 2021

Patty Yoder

Features

Volunteering is not only good for the community — it’s good for you, too. In fact, studies show the act of volunteering boosts physical and mental health and may even help you live longer.

Ohio has an abundance of good causes to donate your time to. Here are five unique volunteer opportunities that could be a great fit for someone
in your family.

Get golfers back onto the links

Golfers living with the effects of a stroke, Parkinson’s disease, or other neurological conditions can get back into the game, thanks to OhioHealth Fore Hope. The golf therapy program provides physical, cognitive, and social benefits, but it requires a helping hand, since balance is often an issue. Volunteers tee up golf balls, position putters, and perform other simple tasks that make a big difference.

Mindy Derr started Fore Hope in 1989 to help her father, an avid golfer, reconnect with his clubs after an illness. Today, 20 volunteers assist 70 central Ohioans with year-round programming.

“When we’re on the golf course, we need as many people as we can get,” Derr says. “Our volunteers act as cheerleaders, help with stretching, and talk golf. They love golf, and they understand that people need hope.”

Train for a race with a visually impaired runner

Dee Char believed her running days were behind her when a retinal degenerative disease affected her vision. Several years later, she was inspired to try again after a legally blind woman won Cincinnati’s Flying Pig marathon.

Today, Char uses United in Stride to connect with sighted runners near her Dayton home and while traveling so she can run safely outdoors. Volunteers share their pace, running goals, and interests online, then meet local visually impaired runners to go for a one-time run, train for a marathon, or anything in between. Although the organization offers tutorials, runners have to find their own style, Char says.

“There’s no one way to guide someone, so it’s something you figure out together,” she says. “Some runners want constant communication. Some use a tether or a cane. Some pairs get so good at it that they don’t need to use words anymore.”

Experience another culture without leaving town

Cleveland-area volunteers can help refugee students from Burma, Afghanistan, Syria, and other faraway places establish American roots through Refugee Response. Twice a week, mentors visit students’ homes to help them strengthen literacy and math skills, build good study habits, and learn to navigate school technology. In return, mentors gain insights into another culture and form lasting relationships with resilient families who are part of their community.

“The program is not about test prep or achieving a certain score,” says Naila Paul, Refugee Response director of education. “It’s about building confidence and a positive attitude toward education.”

Play vintage baseball

Travel back in time by joining a baseball team that plays by 1860s rules (underhand pitching, no gloves, no helmets, no balls and strikes). The Ohio Village Muffins and Diamonds share their love of history through exhibition games. Volunteers act as players, umpires, scorekeepers, and historic interpreters who explain the game to audiences in Ohio and beyond, along with the appropriate way to cheer (“Huzzah!”).

Longtime player and advisory board chair Aaron Seddon said both men and women played baseball in the 19th century, and today’s games make history accessible to people of all ages.

“Vintage baseball is a way to step back into history, but the outcome of the game has yet to be determined, which makes it exciting,” he says.

Ride through a national park on a heritage railroad

More than 1,200 volunteers donate their time to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, a nonprofit historic railroad that offers educational trips through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Ohio and Erie Canalway. They do everything from refurbishing train cars to helping out in the gift shop.

“Some of our volunteers are carrying on the legacy of their fathers or grandfathers who worked on the railroad. Others rode the train as kids. Some are looking to give back and meet new people,” says Sherri Lemley, manager of volunteer relations. “Our volunteers are the lifeblood of our organization.”

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volunteering

Ohio history

Streaming consciousness

aspecht — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 14:26:00 +0000

Streaming consciousness

February 2, 2021

Patty Yoder

Features

A week after Paula Schleis retired from the Akron Beacon Journal, she received a text message from her nephew:

"I know what you’re going to do in retirement — do a podcast with me."

Schleis texted back: "What’s a podcast?"

Podcasts, she soon learned, are digital audio programs that listeners can stream or download. The technology emerged in 2004, allowing people to play internet radio shows on iPods and other early devices — hence the name. Today, Apple’s iTunes is home to more than 1.5 million pograms covering nearly every topic imaginable.

After several brainstorming sessions, Schleis and her nephew, Stephen Yoder, created Ohio Mysteries, a podcast that explores unsolved crimes, local legends, and interesting stories with an Ohio connection. They use Facebook and Instagram to interact with a growing community of armchair detectives — some of whom occasionally provide additional details or a family connection to that week’s episode.

“We’ve told the story of everything from the gold of Minerva to the monsters that live in Lake Erie,” says Yoder, the show’s host and producer. “People sometimes stop me on the street and say, ‘You were talking about my aunt on your show.’”

Schleis, the storyteller, relies on her newsroom experience to research each mystery. She has a gift for pulling out details that paint a clear — and sometimes harrowing — picture, as in the 1846 Donner party’s doomed trek west.

Not all stories are grim. The show also explores Wooster’s claim of having the first American Christmas tree and why buzzards visit Hinkley every March 15. To Schleis, Ohio Mysteries is part entertainment and part crowdsourcing unsolved crimes.

“It’s a long shot — it would be like winning the lottery if you can solve a crime that way, but it can happen,” she says. “To us, this is a labor of love.”

Mysteries and true crime are popular podcast themes, but they’re not for everyone. Listeners who want a positive boost to their day can look to Kim Jump, creator of the OOD Works podcast, which shares success stories from the state’s Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities. To Jump, OOD’s chief of communications, it’s a platform to connect people to employment, disability determinations, and independence.

“The longer format of podcasts allows us to share details, and there’s just something about listening to an individual’s voice that highlights their personalities,” she says. It’s impossible to miss the enthusiasm in an episode featuring Brock Ewing, a Marion resident determined to “prove to the world that just because my eyes don’t work doesn’t mean I can’t do things that you can do or out-achieve the things you do.”

A longtime podcast listener herself, Jump learned the technical aspects of sound mixing and editing by reading articles, watching YouTube videos, and taking online classes. Building new skills can be frustrating, but Jump says she finds inspiration through OOD clients, who, by necessity, have to find workarounds in everyday life.

“The individuals we serve are so unique, and they have incredible stories to share,” she says. “It’s an honor to lift them up and reaffirm the progress they’ve made in their lives and celebrate that.”

Podcast newcomers Josh White and Tyler Cassidy parlayed their love of scary movies and murder-mystery dinners into The One That Got Away, a weekly show about bizarre crimes, with plenty of comic banter (and salty language, so listener beware) thrown in. Their stories span government scandals, giggling grannies, and the infamous Cecil Hotel, home to multiple grisly activities since it opened in 1927.

“So many crazy events happened in that one location, and when you think things couldn’t get any more bizarre, it gets worse,” White says.

The longtime friends are surprised by the amount of attention the show has received since its 2020 debut.

“We have dedicated fans who message us after the show,” White says. “They’re an off group, kind of like us, and we really enjoy interacting with them.”

Listeners around the world give the TOTGA high ratings, and the show once reached the top 200 podcasts in the U.S. and No. 2 in Bolivia, of all places.

“The five-star reviews are great, but it was a two-star review that got our attention,” Cassidy says. “We knew we made it when we finally got our first troll.”

Never tried it? Here’s how to listen to a podcast

If you have a smartphone, you probably have a podcast app already, or you can download one from Google Play or the App Store. Once it’s installed, use it to browse a list of popular podcasts or search for specific topics, like “Buckeyes” or “NPR.” When you find something that interests you, download individual episodes or subscribe to the entire series.

No smartphone? Many podcasts have websites that list and stream each episode. If a friend tells you about a can’t-miss story from Ohio Folklore, for example, you can visit its website, select the episode you want to hear, and click “Play.” It will stream right into your computer speakers.

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podcasting

Ohio history

So...what exactly is a cooperative?

aspecht — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 19:24:17 +0000

So...what exactly is a cooperative?

October 1, 2019

Patty Yoder

Power Lines

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.

A cooperative is a business that is owned by and operated for the benefit of those who use it. With a worker-owned cooperative, worker-owners have a say in business decisions and reap larger rewards for their efforts than they would as employees. For Pattycake founder Jennie Scheinbach, converting her business into a co-op was an ethical decision.

“A co-op creates a more democratic work environment,” Scheinbach says. “When you remove the manager-employee power dynamic from the equation, you operate as equals, and the result is more genuine, more authentic relationships. The business feels more like a family now.”

There are some 65,000 co-ops in the United States, according to the National Cooperative Business Association. Pattycake is an example of a worker cooperative, one of the fastest-growing segments of businesses that use the cooperative model. The largest cooperatives are producer co-ops, a segment that includes such well-known brands as Ocean Spray, Ace Hardware, and Land O’Lakes — where, for example, dairy farmers collaborate to more efficiently process, market, and distribute their goods under a common label.

The most well-known type of cooperative is a consumer co-op, which often takes the form of retail outlets, such as local grocery stores, that are owned and operated by the consumers that purchase their goods. The nation’s nearly 900 private, independently owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives are another type of consumer co-op, owned by and serving an estimated 42 million people in 48 states. The 24 Ohio-based electric distribution cooperatives serve more than 380,000 homes and businesses — around 1 million people — in 77 of the state’s 88 counties, providing electric service to areas that for-profit utilities are generally reluctant to serve because of a lower profit potential.

Instead of being profit-driven, though, cooperatives run on shared values. Every member has a right to participate in the governance process by voting for the board members who make decisions in the best interests of the co-op. Since they’re owned by and governed by their members, cooperatives are hyperfocused on service to those consumer-members — and in survey after survey, co-op customers report higher satisfaction rates than customers of similar for-profit companies.

Staying true to their values also allows cooperatives to forge their own paths and travel where corporate businesses cannot tread. In 2015, outdoor retail co-op Recreational Equipment, Inc. — better known as REI — made headlines for being closed on Black Friday, while its competitors kicked off holiday sales as early as Thanksgiving afternoon. Member-owners decided it was more important for REI employees to enjoy the holiday with their families, so they bucked the long-standing shopping tradition. How did consumers respond to such a radical move? By joining REI. The co-op saw a 9.3% increase in membership.

Electric cooperatives, both owned and staffed by people who live in the communities they serve, work constantly for the betterment of those communities. Many create charitable foundations that their members contribute to, which then award grants to help those in need.

The cooperative structure offers other benefits, too. After paying its bills and setting aside funds for the future, the business distributes any remaining funds back to its members in the form of capital credits. Also, because co-op shares are not traded on Wall Street, they’re not under pressure to show ever-increasing quarterly earnings, which means they can focus on long-term objectives.

Co-ops help communities thrive

A new co-op is bringing fresh food and sustainable jobs to Dayton’s Salem Avenue Corridor, a community that needs both. When construction is finished next year, Gem City Market will be a modern, welcoming, 15,000-square-foot grocery store. Until then, the market is hosting regular farm stands, community conversations, and walking groups to encourage people to join and to promote healthy living.

Kenya Baker is outreach director of Co-op Dayton, the nonprofit that’s developing Gem City Market. Baker says the cooperative model will show people what they can do when they work together.

“The members are the catalyst that drives the engine. They’re going to be part of this beautiful structure that offers quality service — and know that they made it happen,” she says. “This will open up a world of possibilities about other ways they can affect their communities. I am excited to watch them do this for themselves.”

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Co-op Principles

Butler Rural Electric Cooperative