Margaret Buranen

Ohio State University's new dairy facility

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.

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.

Volunteers from the Society of St. Andrew in Ohio.

It’s a good kind of problem for farmers to have: After an unexpectedly seasonable winter and growing season, the Champaign Berry Farm in Urbana produced an unexpected bumper crop of one of its mainstays this year. 

“We saved a certain section of the orchard for the gleaners,” she says. “I told the [professional] pickers not to pick those peaches. We like to give back to the community and to those in need. That’s one of our purposes in life.”

Kathy and Doug Crow

On just about any night of the week, though certainly on almost every Friday and Saturday, there’s bound to be a square dance happening somewhere in Ohio.

The Crows got into square dancing by chance. They went to dinner late one summer evening to a restaurant where many of the other patrons were wearing what they later learned to be traditional square-dancing attire: the women in ruffled skirts worn over fluffy crinolines, and men in western-style shirts that matched or complemented their partners’ outfits.

Harvesting hops plants

According to the Ohio Craft Brewers Association, there were 434 craft breweries in the state of Ohio at the end of 2023. More are opening all the time. 

Hops add bitterness to balance the sweetness of malt in beers. Different varieties of hops contain varying levels of oils and acids, and those are what give beers their distinct flavors. 

A pickleball player on the court.

The popularity of pickleball in Ohio, like seemingly everywhere else, is increasing rapidly, with more and more courts popping up all the time. 

Volkens discovered pickleball when he began to spend winters in Arizona. He fell in love with the sport and played daily. But when he returned to Middletown he was dismayed to find nary a court — not a single one.

After driving around Middletown and finding 17 empty tennis courts, Volkens saw his opportunity; he gathered some friends and made a case to Middletown’s Parks Department, which agreed to dedicate space to the activity, and Volkens started recruiting Middletown residents old and young as soon as courts became available. That was nearly 20 years ago.

South Central Power member Beth Murray found a love of training herding dogs after adopting a border collie with natural herding instincts.

Beth Murray didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she adopted her first border collie, a rescue, from the Parkersburg (W.Va.) Humane Society.

Beth Murray didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she adopted her first border collie.
John Graves and Jim Gibson, both avid kite flyers, have built quite a collection of kites of all sizes and shapes.

When spring’s first warm breezes blow over Ohio’s landscapes, there are plenty of folks — children and adults alike — who think, “It’s a great day to fly a kite!” 

The group’s name is a clever allusion to Cincinnati’s history as well as the group’s reason for existence. “Cincinnati used to be the pork-processing capital of the U.S.,” says longtime member John Graves of Fairfield, a retired registered nurse, who also explains that “P.I.G.S. Aloft” stands for “People Interested in Getting Stuff Aloft.”

“We don’t collect dues or elect officers,” Graves says. “We just get together to fly our kites and have fun. Anyone is welcome to join us.” 

Bob Lawson, a member of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Model Railroad Association, built this large HO-scale model of the Southern Railway, which traveled from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, in his Cincinnati-area home (photo courtesy of John Burchnall).

Jody Davis got his first electric train for Christmas when he was 8 years old. But his love affair with trains started even earlier. 

Davis joined Associated Model Railroad Engineers of Coshocton when he was 14, and currently, at 55, serves as president. 

An early start

It’s a familiar story with model railroaders: A childhood fascination with trains leads to a Christmas or birthday gift of a model train set. Retired music educator Bruce Knapp, 81, of North Bend, is still an active participant and member of the National Model Railroad Association’s Cincinnati chapter.

Jackie Driscoll explores her 8-acre pollinator garden in Lorain County. A master gardener volunteer, she’d been gardening since she was 8.

Jackie Driscoll paints her landscape with a palette of colors from native plants.

Driscoll has been gardening since she was a child. Her mother, who kept gardening until she died at 88, planted the joy of gardening seed in her daughter, and it still flourishes.

Jackie and her husband, Brian, lived in a Cleveland suburb while their children were growing up. Their property was small, but Driscoll kept adding plants to it. “My husband finally said, ‘You have to leave some grass,’” she recalls. 

Gary Stretar

When young Gary Stretar wasn’t playing sports, he was busy drawing something. He didn’t grow up to become an athlete, but two childhood influences cemented that second pastime into a rewarding career.

The first was his teacher in both fifth and sixth grades, Miss Paul. Stretar says he didn’t learn much more in college art classes than what Miss Paul had already taught him. “Teachers don’t always challenge kids to learn more, but she did,” he says. “She wasn’t afraid to teach us [advanced art techniques of] perspective, line, color values. A lot of us in her classes went on to art careers.”