For me, reading the Urbana Daily Citizen’s Saturday edition was a wistful experience.
The first thing that caught my attention on Page One was the color photo of the Urbana Twin Cinema’s marquee announcing the return of movies to Urbana. That’s good news: Urbana has not seen its “Last Picture Show.”
It’s the Daily Citizen’s second metamorphosis in recent months. First, bankruptcy proceedings and a change of ownership. And now this—shedding its long-time home, 220 E. Court St. near downtown, for Suite 10 of the Scioto Square shopping center … “conveniently located near Kroger,” as the article put it.
Granted, 220 E. Court St. is no architectural work of art. It’s as “artless” as the newsroom is windowless. Completely windowless, in fact. But really, a newsroom in a strip mall?
Of course, the move makes sense. Much of the current building is unused, wasting money to heat. The press room has been closed for many years since Brown Publishing consolidated printing operations of its papers. Desktop publishing put the composing room out of business. And thanks to digital photography, the darkroom is just a dark room—windowless like the newsroom.
But the place holds a lot of nostalgia. It’s the first place I ever wrote anything in Urbana, Ohio. I can’t remember what that first article was. But I slugged it out on a hulking manual typewriter, in my first job out of college, with the incessantly clattering Associated Press wire machine at my back, at a desk that abutted the desk of Managing Editor Phil Angelo—a desk and title that I eventually moved over to.
At the risk of sounding like some old guy, there really was a lot of charm to those good ol’ newspaper days.
But, come to think of it, what’s not to like about the ease of electronic publishing. Just a click of the “Publish” icon…. Now you’re reading this!
A tip of the fedora to Daily Citizen Managing Editor Brenda Burns for granting my request for one last nostalgic look around the confines of 220 E. Court St.–and, of course, a good deep breath of the lingering scent of printer’s ink.
Only one day is marked on the calendar to honor the men and women who have defended our country. But at the Champaign Aviation Museum in Urbana, Ohio, every day is Veterans Day.
Guests view planes during the Champaign Aviation Museum's open house on Saturday. The Champaign Lady B-17 can be seen in the background.
World War II B-17 vets often stop by to check progress of the museum’s project to rebuild a B-17 Flying Fortress—the Champaign Lady—to flying status. In its fifth year, the volunteer effort recently moved from Hangar 9 on the south end of Grimes Field to the museum, on the airport’s north end. It shares the space with other vintage aircraft.
When B-17 veterans arrive they get a hero’s welcome. Photos of the veterans decorate the work area. And work stops as the volunteers take in the veterans’ recounting of nighttime raids over Nazi Germany, of their riddled planes lumbering back to base.
The B-17 restoration and the museum are not just about antique flying machines. Urbana businessman and benefactor Jerry Shiffer started the project—and his family has continued it since his death—as a way to remember the sacrifices made for our freedoms.
Take a moment to visit the museum’s website—in particular a page that features bios of a couple of the many veterans who have visited the Champaign Lady. Stop by the museum, too. You might even get to meet a B-17 crew member, as I did on one visit.
And thank the veterans around you.
My nephew Wes, back from Iraq.
My nephew Mark, in Afghanistan.
I take this opportunity to honor the memory of my father-in-law, Kenneth Markley, who served in the Korean War, and my father, James Schenkel, who served in the Pacific Theater in World War II and at the beginning of the occupation of Japan at war’s end.
And a special salute to my nephews, Wes and Mark Poppel: Wes is back at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., after a tour in Iraq, and Mark, with the Ohio Air National Guard, is back from Afghanistan.
Click here to view a brochure that I and graphic designer Melinda Thackery created for the Champaign Aviation Museum.
I’ll leave it to other bloggers to argue the implications of Tuesday’s elections on our local economy.
Instead, I’d like to present the merits of casting your dollars for local business. There’s no argument as to the stimulating effect shopping at independently-owned businesses has on communities like our own — Urbana, Ohio.
The 3/50 Project®, a nationwide campaign to encourage consumers to support locally-owned businesses, offers this:
For every $100 spent at a locally-owned business, $68 comes back to the community
Only $43 recirculates from national chain stores
Now’s a good time—with the Christmas shopping season upon us—to try this out.
And, it just so happens, the Monument Square District, Urbana’s downtown business association, is offering the perfect, festive opportunity for us to discover the growing number of local shopping options we have. This opportunity is Historic Downtown Urbana’s Holiday Open House:
Friday, Nov. 5, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 6, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 7, 1-5 p.m.
Fourteen downtown retail businesses—some new and some well-established landmarks—will all be open during these hours. They’ve planned a fun, store-to-store celebration–a retail block party–that will help us discover and rediscover all the places we have to shop locally.
Here’s a listing of the stores and what they have planned:
ben and me – champagne and cupcakes
Carmazzi’s – drawing for a snack gift basket
Country Gentleman – free gift with $15 or more purchase, refreshments, door prizes
Courtney’s Cupboard – door prizes, refreshments
Everyday Organics – food product sampling, special discounts
Guild Galleries Interiors & Gifts – specials, door prizes, refreshments
Lily’s Garden – refreshments
Little Ones – 10% off children’s shoes, coats and winter apparel, bike giveaway, refreshments
My Old Ohio House Antiques – Victorian ornament exhibit
Scioto Street Gallery Antiques & Sweets – wine and hors d’oeuvres
Sweet Annie – free gift with $15 or more purchase, refreshments, door prizes
The Green Owl – holiday workshops, food & beverages, giveaway basket valued at $250, “meet the artist,” and live music
The Monkey Barrel – special pricing, refreshments
Wright’s Bikes – learn how to transform your bike into an exercise machine; learn how to fix a flat tire
It was my pleasure to work at the polls Tuesday in Urbana’s 4A Precinct with Scott Griswold, Stephanie Truelove and Loretta Vernon. A real joy to see so many people come out to the Champaign County Community Center to exercise their right to vote.
Election Day is only a few days away: I’ll get right to the point.
Voters in Champaign County, Ohio, have the opportunity to support a priceless community treasure by voting for one of the best—if not the best—returns on your tax dollar.
That is, the Champaign County Library tax levy. For the owner of a house with an appraised value of $100,000 the cost of the levy is only $24.50 a year.
I’m not knocking bookstores or other media stores…. Books, CDs and DVDs are worthy purchases and make cherished gifts. But if you walk into one of these establishments with twenty-four dollars and fifty cents, you won’t be leaving with a whole lot. Not compared to what you can walk out of a library with.
Let’s say you go to the library once and check out an adult bestseller, a DVD and a children’s book. Not much. Nonetheless, at a store you’d be exchanging those items for about $60.
At a library you just take them home, having opened your wallet or purse only to extract your library card. Then you return to exchange those items for more.
These days, when disposable income is limited, the library’s value has increased. People out of work or living on a tighter budget cut expenses like Internet service and newspaper and magazine subscriptions. But they can come to the library to read the papers or search job sites and check e-mails on public computers. In 2009 the Champaign County Library’s public computers were used 24,151 times.
Libraries across the state have come upon hard times themselves. As a result of state funding cuts, the Champaign County Library—which includes the North Lewisburg Branch Library—is operating on $276,000 less state money than it did in 2008. More cuts are anticipated in 2011. Staffing has been reduced, raises eliminated, employees who resign are not being replaced, weekly operating hours have been cut from 60 to 52.
Just when people need libraries more.
On Tuesday, Nov. 2, vote for a good investment. Vote for the Champaign County Library.
(In the interest of full disclosure, my wife, Kay, is on staff at the Champaign County Library.)
The November issue of Ohio Magazine is out, and Urbana is on the cover! Five versions of the magazine have been printed–each featuring one of the five regional Best Hometowns selected by the editors of the magazine.
Our cover features Urbana University mascot Nitro the Knight and Homecoming Queen Moriah Makarius.
A university can bring many practical benefits to a community – not just the aura of higher learning.
Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio, has been intensifying efforts to strengthen the town and gown bond and make its influence more apparent off campus. The University, in fact, is one reason Ohio Magazine selected Urbana as a Best Hometown for 2011. (By the way, the November edition featuring Urbana’s selection is just days from hitting newsstands and mailboxes!)
A couple of new examples of the University’s outreach were just brought to my attention.
Grant Resources for Nonprofits
This first example appeals to my role as coordinator of a nonprofit organization – the Champaign County Literacy Council. Like any charitable organization we’re always on the lookout for new sources of funding.
As a new member of the Foundation Center Cooperating Collection Network, the University is offering to the community-at-large free access to extensive online and print directories of grant funding sources. These are valuable resources that small nonprofits cannot afford on their own.
The University is offering a free training session on how to use the resources. It will be held at the University’s Moore Math and Science Building at 3 p.m. Monday, November 15. Reservations are required and may be made by calling 484-1409 or online at the Foundation Center. I’m already registered.
Participants will learn how to create customized searches to find foundations that match their organizations’ funding needs.
Civil War Art Series
Starting this Tuesday, October 26 at 7 p.m., at the Mechanicsburg Public Library (60 South Main St.—St. Route 29), Urbana University professors will present a three-week series on the history represented in three pieces of art from the Civil War time period. The series is funded by a grant from the Picturing America project of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This Tuesday’s program is “Abraham Lincoln Photographs by Alexander Gardner.” Gardner was one of a team of photographers hired to make a visual record of the Civil War at a time when photography was still a new medium.
The program will be preceded at 5 p.m. by a performance of Civil War music by the Champaign County Dulcimer Club and from 6 to 7 p.m. by a display of Underground Railroad photographs taken in Champaign County.
Here on Washington Avenue in Urbana, Ohio, it would have to be “Fight on, Urbana,” or maybe “Hang on Sloopy.” One Thursday evening of the past 21 Octobers my family has stopped whatever else we were doing as these songs pealed past our house through the crisp autumn air.
In all that time we’ve lived two blocks from Urbana High School, in the home stretch of the school’s homecoming parade. We’ve watched a lot of kids pass by on hay wagon floats, in the homecoming court’s caravan of convertibles, and, of course, in the band.
Backed by a driving drum cadence, it’s been a favorite fall tradition that’s helped us keep time. And it has offered an opportunity for family and friends to gather at our house.
While we’ve watched the parade together, time has marched on. As evidence, the photo above is of our son Alex and his friend LeAnn Harrigan (with Alex’s cousin Becca and Uncle Paul in the background) watching the big kids have their day in the homecoming parade. The photo at left, from a couple of weeks ago, is of Alex escorting LeAnn, this year’s homecoming queen.
What do a radial tire and a radish have in common?
In Urbana you can find them both in the first block of East Market Street. That is, when radishes are in season.
Lonny LeFever, president of the Champaign County Farmers’ Market, told me recently that the folks at Clayton Tire have told him how grateful they are the market sets up across Market Street from their shop. Some people drawn by the market have discovered or become better acquainted with their business.
Lonny LeFever with Urbana Mayor Ruth Zerkle, a key supporter of the Farmers Market, at Saturdays celebration.
That’s the thing about new businesses: They’re not just competition for the existing ones. They create synergy, or in plain English, they attract new customers to the marketplace who end up discovering neighboring establishments that cater to their other wants and needs.
Farmers’ markets bring many other benefits to communities and the people who live in them. I covered some of these in a marketing brochure that local graphic designer Melinda Thackery of Sysbro Design and I (through Schenkel Communications) created for the Farmers’ Market—just before the market’s first season (2009) in its current downtown location. (Melinda also designed the market’s logo.)
This project was supported by an Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) program developed to fertilize the marketing efforts of farmers’ markets. Dave Faulkner, then Champaign County economic development director, helped the markets’ board apply for the ODA funding. And other local officials and organizations saw the market’s potential benefits and supported it as well.
These include the Champaign County Community Improvement Corporation, Activate Champaign County (a coalition of the Champaign Family YMCA, local government, health organizations, education, nonprofits and businesses that advocate healthful living), the Champaign County Farm Bureau and the City of Urbana, which opened the way for the market to move from Trenor Motors on the city’s east side to its downtown venue.
The Farmers' Market enlisted art classes at Champaign County's five high schools to paint murals to cover windows of the old Urbana Creamery building, next door to the market. A few were already on display for Saturday's celebration.
With this nurturing support, which I alluded to in my previous post, the market has grown from a handful of vendors to 28 this season. That’s also due to the infectious drive of Lonny LeFever and the market board’s down-to-the-roots belief in the health and economic value of locally grown food. “It grew a lot faster than I ever thought it would,” Lonny told me. “My goal was 25 vendors in five years.”
This season the Farmers’ Market broadened its customer base to include economically challenged families. Participants in Job and Family Services’ food assistance program and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program can now use their benefits to purchase healthful, locally grown food at the market. “We’re very excited about that,” Lonny said. “It’s one of the reasons we located where we did, so we’d be easily accessible to people in need.”
In so many ways America’s Favorite Small Farmers Market is nourishing our community.
Many thanks to Tiffany Eckhardt for the photos in today’s post. I had to be out of town so had to miss the celebration. You can keep up with Tiffany on her blogs,Doing Life Being Tiff and Weekend ReTweat.
Like a garden nourished by good soil and the ideal balance of sunshine and rain, the Champaign County Farmers’ Market is flourishing from the support of an appreciative community.
Lonny LeFever, president of the Champaign County Farmers' Market, serves customers at his booth, Lonny's Green Acres.
In thankfulness, the market’s board and vendors are rolling out the green carpet.
Be sure to come out for this Saturday’s market day—October 9, at the corner of E. Market and Locust Streets in Urbana, Ohio—to help celebrate the market’s being voted one of America’s four favorite farmers markets in the American Farmland Trust “America’s Favorite Farmers Markets™” contest.
As it does every Saturday, May through October, the market will open at 9 a.m. Then, at 10 a.m., the celebration officially begins. Jon Schell, president of American Farmland Trust, will present the market its award.
Our local market pulled in 3,265 online votes (only one vote allowed per IP address) making it the most popular small farmers market (16-30 vendors) in the nation. That’s pretty impressive, considering about 1,300 participating markets received a total of 60,000 votes. And the Champaign County Farmers’ Market was just 400 votes shy of the total received by the winner of the large market division – the Rochester Farmers Market! (By the way, that’s Rochester, N.Y., population 219,773* vs. Champaign County, Ohio, population 38,890*.) Just another indicator of the community spirit that helped Urbana gain Ohio Magazine’s Best Hometown designation.
The celebration also will include music, excellent food, cooking demonstrations, tours of the Market Street Community Garden and other activities–and, I’ve been assured, brief remarks from market and community leaders (who, if they go long, will have fresh, not rotten, produce to dodge).
In addition, vendors from the Mechanicsburg and St. Paris farmers markets have been invited to set up booths—so there will be even more selection than usual. Also, the market will stay open past its usual 1 p.m. closing–as long as supplies and customers last.
If you haven’t been to the market yet, come out and see what you’ve been missing.
I’ll be back with more about the market in my next post.
In the meantime, what do you like about the Champaign, Mechanicsburg or St. Paris farmers markets?
The first thing that caught my attention on Page One was the color photo of the Urbana Twin Cinema’s marquee announcing the return of movies to Urbana. That’s good news: Urbana has not seen its “Last Picture Show.”
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