Columbus Monthly – May 2024 by The Columbus Dispatch/Dispatch Magazines

B. Walker, broadcasting pioneer

Jami S. Oliver

Breaking Barriers, Building Trust. A Legacy of Law and Leadership in the Community.

Oliver Law Office has grown from a tiny one-woman solo practice in 2001 to a fully functioning injury law firm in the heart of Dublin, Ohio. Like a Sphinx rising from the ashes, the law firm made its way to the top, winning numerous awards over the years, including the coveted “Best Law Firms of 2024” by U.S. News, all despite unexpected tragedy and incredible competition in the world of injury law.

It’s an incredible story of heartbreak and triumph surrounding the founder and CEO, Jami Oliver, a lawyer whose career spans over three decades of unwavering passion for fighting for people and empowering women. As we celebrate her contributions, we delve into the story of a woman who has not only navigated the complex realities of the legal system but has also paved the way for future generations of women lawyers.

Jami Oliver’s path began as a child in Galion, Ohio. The second daughter of four, her mother was a factory worker and her father was a Vietnam vet with three purple hearts and a traumatic brain injury that left him unable to work to support the family.

Jami was eight years old when her father exclaimed, “We need a lawyer in the family!” And that was it.

The next day, eight-year-old Jami , an avid reader, went to her elementary school and asked her librarian if they had a book on how to become a lawyer. The librarian bought all the books she could find for her. Jami was an avid reader, reading a book a day by age 11, and she absorbed all of it. Her uncle gave her Jonathon Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach and Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill, and she read those books, too–several times.

It taught Jami, a true introvert, the value of hard work and how to talk to people, which became invaluable in her professional development. She saved her money to pay for her clothes and shoes. She eventually landed a job as a dishwasher at the local sundae shop and eatery. Since her paper carrier days, she’s never not had a job.

Jami landed in the sleepy college town of Ada, Ohio, where she attended Ohio Northern University. She thought that a writing major would help her as a lawyer someday—and she was right. After graduating with honors, she found herself at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. She had finally secured her spot in the legal world with a vision to make a difference in the lives of the poor and the forgotten. Over the years, Oliver has taken on giant corporations like Suzuki and and Depuy and has fought for her clients who were at odds with the largest insurance companies in America, earning her a reputation as a formidable advocate for her clients.

By the age of six, Jami worked on a paper route with her sister, Joetta, who was four years older. By the age of nine, she had her own route, delivering the town’s daily paper to homes. In those days, the young paper carriers had to pay for their papers and collect from their customers by knocking on their doors every week.

She did this for years, in the rain, heat, and cold–even during the Blizzard of ’78 when windchills reached 60 below zero, bringing 30 inches of snow and 15foot snow drifts. Despite the weather, every paper was delivered by the time they reached home.

But Jami’s journey wasn’t without its challenges. In an industry often dominated by men, she was often overlooked in the smaller Ohio counties. Judges and opposing counsel often thought she was a court reporter. She spent countless status conferences sitting on an uncomfortable chair outside a judge’s chambers while the men discussed the latest football scores and their last golf trip. Still, in her twenties, she had no choice but to stand up, poke her head inside the room, and announce herself. But she didn’t let any of it stop her. She was a woman on a mission. She had a law degree, just like they did, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

There was also trouble on the home front. Jami went through a divorce when her kids were young and the job market and economy were in a major recession. She was running her own small solo practice, taking client calls at all hours on her personal cell, writing letters, answering emails, running accounting software, requesting medical records, drafting motions... doing it all herself. She was raising her two girls on her own and keeping her head above water.

From Humble Beginnings to Trailblazing Lawyer

As if that weren’t enough pressure, one year later, her 64-yearold mother developed pancreatic cancer. It was the same cancer that took her grandmother at age 46 and her uncle at age 68. Her mother died a short four months after her diagnosis. As Jami describes it, her mom was her best friend, the only grandmother in her kid’s lives, her babysitter, her coupon clipper, and her biggest cheerleader. Jami was on her own and had much work to do.

Empowering Young Women Lawyers

Fast forward 20 years, and Oliver Law Office has a full team of “A” players, including her daughter who is now employed as the firm’s Marketing & PR Manager...and kicking butt, we might add.

It’s no secret that the firm courageously represents people who have been seriously hurt or killed in car and truck accidents, taking on their insurance carriers who often want to pay less than what a“forever harm” deserves. She takes on complex employment discrimination and whistleblower cases. She happily represents those who have been harmed by defective products, like medical devices and recalled and dangerous drugs. She has been involved in some important stuff, like lawsuits against Depuy metal-on-metal hips, Hernia Mesh recalls, and Monsanto Roundup cancer cases. She and her team obtained a notable $4.5 million verdict against a motorcycle manufacturer after a young man lost his life because of a defective part.

Jami Oliver’s commitment to empowering young women is evident through her involvement in mentorship and community initiatives. In 2022, tragedy struck again. Jami’s sister was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the same disease that struck their mother, grandmother, and uncle. The sisters were close, sharing a love of gardening, herbs, and healthy living. Jami’s sister tragically lost her life on December 21, 2022, just days after her 59th birthday. Having experienced loss so many times, Jami used it as the catalyst for change. In 2023, she was awarded the Excellence in Community Impact Award at the national Crisp Game Changer’s Summit for her involvement in PanCan (The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network),. In addition to fundraising she serves as the Affiliate Chair for the Columbus Affiliate.

Jami invests in the development of the lawyers who work for the firm. They are given the resources to network, expand their circles, and develop their own“book of business.” She purposefully includes them in many facets of running a firm business, including financing and case budgeting, client experience, and trial practice.

Looking to the Future

As Jami Oliver looks to the future, her legacy is already taking shape. Through Oliver Law Office and her mentorship efforts, she is creating a more diverse, inclusive, and empowered legal profession. Her story is not just one of personal success but of a relentless pursuit to lift others as she climbs.

Oliver Law Office: A Legacy in the Making

Established in 2001, Oliver Law Office is more than just a practice; it’s a legacy in the making. Jami’s vision for her firm is clear: to provide exceptional legal services while nurturing the next generation of lawyers. The office has grown from a solo practice to a team of dedicated professionals and a great group of young women attorneys, all under Jami’s mentorship.

OLIVER LAW OFFICE CREDO

To the young women lawyers of today and tomorrow, Jami offers this piece of advice,

“You can make a difference. One person at a time. One client at a time. Always remember to help the next person coming up behind you. Create a legacy of your own.”

Jami Oliver’s journey is a beacon of leadership, empowerment, and resilience. As we celebrate her contributions to the legal field and her community, her legacy serves as a powerful reminder of the impact one individual can have in shaping a more just and equitable world.

Oliver Law Office was built to prioritize and support you through unparalleled communication and commitment to your individualized needs.

We pledge to

•provide unique solutions through compassionate service •approach challenges with confidence, courage, and determination •remain engaged and dedicated to learning, growing, and excelling as people and professionals

The Oliver Law Office experience instills trust and encourages the ethical and passionate pursuit of justice.

WOMEN INSPIRING 2024

June 20, 2024

The Fives

6-9 p.m.

Presenting Sponsor

Breaking Barriers, Building Trust: Women-Led Injury Law

Join Columbus Monthly on Thursday, June 20, 2024, from 6 - 9 p.m. at The Fives Columbus for an evening filled with inspiration and connection.

Our inaugural Inspiring Women event will celebrate the 20 women profiled in the May issue of Columbus Monthly. These change agents and difference-makers include community leaders, entrepreneurs and more. The evening will bring together these remarkable women for a community celebration with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, mingling and networking.

General admission tickets are $55.

A limited number of group admission tickets are available for $500 (includes 10 tickets and a special thank you acknowledgement from the stage).

Platinum Sponsor Spirit Sponsor

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ROOTED IN OHIO

Local grains help keep our footprint small, but we specifically chose them because they are the best quality for our spirits.

FIND NEAR YOU

29 INSPIRING WOMEN

Meet 20 trailblazers standing up for justice, equity and empowerment in Columbus.

42 NANCY OF THE FOREST

The Arc of Appalachia’s Nancy Stranahan has emerged as one of the state’s leading conservationists, preserving thousands of atrisk acres throughout Ohio. And she’s not done.

50 FIFTY YEARS OF FRITZ

With a milestone anniversary occurring this year, movie host Fritz the Nite Owl remains a Central Ohio fixture long since his late night TV show went off the air.

ON THE COVER:

Photo by Tim Johnson

New host Anna Staver brings a fresh perspective (and a podcast) to WOSU’s All Sides. 16

Four ways to learn and practice meditation in Columbus 17 MIND-BODY FACEOFF

Comparing two alternative wellness practices: sound baths and cryotherapy

Dogs, air horns, scary balloons and other ideas for driving the annoying birds from your property

A community rallies around a beloved brewery cat

In the dark of a 1974 night, Columbus made a bit of postal history. 22 YEAR OF THE WOMAN

An extraordinary Ohio State basketball season highlights a watershed moment for sports. 25 DATEBOOK

Jon Batiste with ProMusica, Nancy Fest, Jeni’s Strawberry Jam and more

See who was at the ProMusica Soirée.

Food & Drink

92 PRIMER

Helen Winnemore’s timeless gifts

Say no to ‘No Mow May.’

A quirky Uptown Westerville home becomes suitable for an infant.

A beginner’s guide to Korean barbecue

96 SHORT ORDER

Cornerstone Deli & Café is a Clintonville community gem.

97 IN SEASON

Common Greens is the nonprofit force behind several Central Ohio farmers markets.

98 COPY & TASTE

Lancaster’s Rockmill Brewery is sold at auction.

99 LET’S EAT

57 GAHANNA

A look at this lively community that offers charm, tranquility and a thriving business sector

Gahanna

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Angela Pace is a Columbus native, former TV anchor and current director of community affairs for WBNS-10TV. She contributed to the Inspiring Women cover feature (Page 29).

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CONTRIBUTORS

Peter Tonguette profiled movie host

Frederick C. Peerenboom, aka Fritz the Nite Owl (Page 50).

Tonguette’s film writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times

Katy Smith is Columbus Monthly’s interim Food & Drink editor. She wrote several stories for this issue, including a feature profile of conservationist Nancy Stranahan (Page 42).

Summer Events Kick-Off

Doing the Work

In late March, I got a chance to catch up with Katie Smith. Sixteen years ago, I wrote a profile of the Ohio State hoops legend for this magazine as she set out on a quest to win a third Olympic gold medal and a second WNBA championship (a twofer she pulled off). She’s one of the greatest ever to play the game—a tough, savvy, do-everything guard. She wasn’t flashy, though she was a brilliant shooter. Her real superpower was dedication. Every day, she did the work. And she did it with little fanfare—or not as much as she deserved.

Dave Ghose dghose@columbusmonthly.com

this group at an event June 20 at the Fives. (And special thanks goes out to the Fives team for allowing us to use their space for our Inspiring Women photo shoot.)

With Columbus Monthly’s cover story (“Inspiring Women,” Page 29), I hope we can correct that a little bit. We’re celebrating Smith and 19 other trailblazers—remarkable activists, community leaders and change agents who are pushing for justice, equity and empowerment in a variety of fields, from media to business to education to sports. To sum up the goal of this project, we wanted to honor Central Ohio residents who are doing extraordinary work helping other women (and girls) grow and succeed. We’ll also celebrate

When I last spoke to Smith in 2008, women’s basketball was treading water at best. But it’s a much different story today, thanks to Iowa phenom Caitlin Clark and other charismatic young players capturing the public’s imagination. (Read contributor Laura Arenschield’s lovely tribute to the Ohio State women’s team on Page 22.) Smith, an associate head coach for the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, is thrilled to see this moment arrive and takes pride that she and other pioneers helped pave the way for Clark and her generation. “We feel like we had a hand in it, for sure, but I also feel like we still need to do more,” Smith says.

That’s why you’ll find Smith in the WNBA offseason working as a volunteer assistant coach for the Upper Arlington High School girls’ team. In other words, she’s still doing the work.

Send letters to: Editor, Columbus Monthly, 605 S. Front St., Ste. 300, Columbus, OH 43215. Or email: letters@columbus monthly.com. A letter must include the writer’s name, address and daytime phone number. Letters will be edited for length and clarity. All letters sent to Columbus Monthly are considered for publication, either in print or online.

Web: ColumbusMonthly.com

Email: letters@ columbusmonthly.com

Radio Requiem

Writer Dan Williamson’s cover story about the demise of independent rock radio station WWCD elicited strong reactions from readers (“The Day the Music Died,” April). Some scoffed at the notion that the station, which previously broadcast at 101.1, 102.5 and 92.9 on the FM dial, is gone at all. “Not dead! I listen every day and so do a lot of others. You can still stream from the website,” Steve Bourgin posted on Facebook Mark Cameron commented that he prefers the station’s shift to a streaming format rather than terrestri-

al radio. “I listen to streaming 99 percent of the time anyway. Why bother broadcasting over AM/FM frequencies when you can stream off your phone onto Bluetooth in the average car stereo with unlimited data plans?” Cameron wrote. “I’m

sure advertising costs may be less profitable, but they won’t have the expense of transmission equipment.”

Commenter John Wisse described the story as “extensive and exceptionally well

researched and written,” while Jeff Pelley wrote that “one very important person was left out. It was Gary Richards who really got the thing on the air in the first place.” Others argued over which era of WWCD constituted its heyday, and the quality of the station’s FM replacement, 93X, which lasted only five weeks before being replaced with an oldies format. “I liked the station that came on after they ended better until it switched to oldies,” wrote Elle Langtree “Unpopular opinion, but CD101 just played the same crap for years. They were cooler in the ’90s.”

COMPETITION SPRING 2024 COCKTAIL

May 22, 2024

The Fives, 6-8 p.m.

front & center

other places to meditate on Page 16.

Photo by Tim Johnson

Chakra Treatment

The Columbus KTC includes Buddhist iconography and statues. Read about the center and

Front & Center | Interview

Passing the Mic

New host Anna Staver brings a fresh perspective (and a podcast) to WOSU’s All Sides.

By Molly Willow

‘‘ The reporter in me recognizes when we’re having an organic moment, right? When we’re going in a new direction. The radio host in me is not quite confident enough yet to follow that all the time.”

—ANNA STAVER

Five months in as the new host for All Sides on WOSU-FM, Anna Staver still kept two sticky notes in front of her in the studio. One read: “Don’t panic.” The other: “Don’t say ‘like.’ ” Combined, they also summarize her approach to her new radio gig, which includes careful preparation and self-study, with an ear toward going with the flow.

Staver took over from Ann Fisher, who retired last year after nearly 15 years as the show’s host. Like Staver, Fisher had a background in print journalism, including two decades at The Columbus Dispatch. Staver came from Gannett, the owner of The Dispatch and Columbus Monthly, where she covered the Ohio Statehouse and hosted the weekly podcast Ohio Politics Explained; she previously covered statehouses in Colorado and Oregon for newspapers.

While interviewing is a common feature of both mediums, Staver acknowledges she is still adjusting to talking full time. “A print reporter collects the interviews and builds the final product. For me now, the interview is the final product,” she says.

After three practice shows, Staver took to the airwaves in November, the week of the election. She was starting right in her politics wheelhouse—although she could have done without the technical difficulties of a video interview glitch forcing her to vamp over dead air.

When it happened again, as it does, in March, during an interview about forever chemicals in drinking water, she listened to the sticky note and did not panic. She shared something she’d found interesting in her prep and got back on track when

Anna Staver in the All Sides studio at WOSU-FM

the guest rejoined.

The show may be live, but as with most live shows, it is scripted. She was initially surprised to learn that she wouldn’t be writing her own. “The rough draft is written by the interns and the producers, which is wild to me and in a lot of ways was initially uncomfortable,” she says.

“Ann and I are, you know, different generations. We grew up in different parts of the country. We have different vocabulary, interests, inflection, word choices.”

So while Staver is learning how to host, the All Sides team had to learn her They work together to plan topics and pitch interview subjects. “It’s a group project—and I’ve spent the last 12 years working for myself, so letting go of that control is challenging.”

Where Fisher developed the experience to meander as curiosity dictated, Staver is also still learning when to ditch the script. “The reporter in me recognizes when we’re having an organic moment, right? When we’re going in a new direction. The radio host in me is not quite confident enough yet to follow that all the time.”

She’s also, per the other sticky note, working on her pauses. Staver is 40 but sounds younger. “If you think I sound a way that you don’t like, then don’t listen. Like, I can’t actually—I will never be a baritone.” She knows, like many of her generation, that she tends to fill space with “likes.” She has even listened to her shows to count them and track progress to keep herself accountable and because, she jokes, she is a glutton for punishment. Along those lines, she has engaged

with X (formerly Twitter) trolls, and the subreddit about her and the show. Such scrutiny on all aspects of her performance and appearance is not new to her: She has regularly appeared on TV on Spectrum News 1 since late 2022 to discuss local politics. For better or worse, highly personal unsolicited feedback is now part of working in the media.

Staver was hired in part to help bring All Sides into radio’s future: podcasting. The audience for radio has gradually decreased over the past decade, from 91 percent of Americans age 12 and over listening in a week to 82 percent, according to Pew Research Center. The share of those listening to podcasts, however, continues to grow, from just 12 percent in 2013 to 42 percent of Americans ages 12 and older listening to a podcast in the past month.

That’s a lot of ears.

WOSU debuted Untangled in March, designed as a serialized exploration of a complicated topic. The first season looked at “the housing crisis, why Gen Z thinks

they’ll never be homeowners while baby boomers are getting priced out by rising property taxes.” The content is the 11 a.m. hour of the Monday morning show, for those who still prefer to tune in live. The podcast was designed to stand on its own apart from All Sides. “The idea being that you could come and discover it without knowing what WOSU is,” Staver says.

Staver, an avowed podcast fan herself, is clearly jazzed by the new venture—and its peppy theme music. (The days of the All Sides jazz theme are numbered, too.)

The challenge of evolving is a familiar one for Staver. “It’s print versus digital, right? How do you keep the print people, how do you provide them something quality that they’re familiar with, that they enjoy, while cultivating what ultimately is probably going to be your bigger audience one day?

“They’re the supporters of the show; they’ve been here for years; they love the brand; and I value their feedback. But it’s also about building something that I’m proud of that will take us into the next 10, 15, 20 years.” ◆

A sticky note by Anna Staver’s computer

Anna Staver talks with Jake Zuckerman of cleveland.com about fracking in Ohio during a recent show.

Front & Center | Health & Wellness

Finding Balance

Four ways to learn and practice meditation in Columbus

By Jill Moorhead

Whether you’re drawn to ancient traditions, seeking self-care, enhancing leadership skills or struggling with anxiety and depression, Columbus offers a diverse array of meditation options that offer pathways to mindfulness and personal growth. Here are a few.

COLUMBUS KARMA THEGSUM CHÖLING (KTC)

In a nutshell: A center of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, KTC in Franklinton hosts a free in-person and online introduction to meditation every Sunday morning at 10 a.m., followed by fellowship (think: coffee and tea) and an introduction to Buddhism class at 11:30.

What to expect: Guests are greeted by volunteers who share about opportunities at KTC and ask visitors to remove shoes before entering the Shrine Room, which offers both chairs and floor pillows for the practice. The process opens and closes with group readings, and the class combines a silent, seated practice with walking meditation.

Cost: Free Website: columbusktc.org

URBAN ZEN AT GIVE YOGA

In a nutshell: Cecilia Shanahan, founder of the Mindful Learning Lab, has long hosted her Urban Zen Workshop at Clintonville’s Give Yoga, which also is home to meditation teacher training and solstice-based events that involve a centering practice. Urban Zen is designed to address symptoms of anxiety, pain and exhaustion.

What it’s like: Urban Zen combines restorative yoga poses, body awareness meditation, reiki and aromatherapy for a 90-minute self-care retreat. The workshop is hosted in Give’s large, heated yoga studio, and participants are provided with bolsters and blocks but are encour-

aged to bring their own mats, blankets and anything else to provide comfort in the experience.

Cost: $40

Website: giveyoga.com

JUAN ALVAREZ CONSCIOUS EXECUTIVE COACHING

In a nutshell: A former CEO who learned to meditate with a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Juan Alvarez provides his clients—often CEOs and other business leaders—with a yearlong, weekly, bespoke program that combines meditation and leadership skill development designed to help them integrate mindfulness skills into daily life.

What it’s like: A session with Alvarez involves meditation, coaching and teaching of mindfulness skills, as well as conversations about everyday aspects of a leader’s life. Meetings take place over Zoom or in person at Alvarez’s Central Ohio home.

Cost: $20,000 a year; free meditations for

everyone online Website: juan-alvarez.com

MINDFULNESS-BASED COGNITIVE THERAPY AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

In a nutshell: Borrowing from the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, this eight-week treatment offered through the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center combines mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy to prevent relapses of depression or anxiety.

What’s it like: Participants meet in a group for weekly, two-hour virtual sessions to establish a practice of mindfulness. Every meeting involves meditation, inquiry and discussion, including practices such as experiencing a raisin with all senses. Homework includes the logging of daily meditation.

Cost: Varies, billed to insurance Website: go.osu.edu/mbct ◆

THIS PHOTO AND ABOVE: Columbus Karma Thegsum Chöling hosts a free meditation session at its Franklinton center.

PHOTOS: TIM JOHNSON

WHERE TO TRY IT: Hom Sound & Meditation, multiple venues

WHAT IT IS: A full-body, immersive, meditative listening experience

BENEFITS: A sense of calm and centering that lowers cortisol levels, improves sleep quality and reduces the heart rate. Think: legal psychedelics.

RISK: Snoring

LENGTH: One hour. Feels like two to three minutes.

COFFEE SHOP EQUIVALENT: Chamomile tea

COST: $33

BOOK: homsoundmeditation.com

MIND-BODY FACEOFF

The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis released a study last year indicating that the body and mind are inextricably intertwined. We decided to explore two alternative wellness practices—on opposite ends of the spectrum—that demonstrate the mindbody connection: cryotherapy and sound baths. Both encourage participants to focus on their breath and be present in the moment, but that’s about all these two practices have in common.

WHERE TO TRY IT: Restore Hyper Wellness, multiple locations

WHAT IT IS: A subzero, transparent, meat cooler-esque chamber experience

BENEFITS: A jolt of energy and a temporary release of pain and inflammation in the body. Think: fast-acting ibuprofen.

—JILL MOORHEAD

RISK: Frostbite

LENGTH: Two to three minutes. Feels like an hour.

COFFEE SHOP EQUIVALENT: Iced espresso

COST: $42

BOOK: restore.com

Trusted Partners in Cancer Care

Erin M.Bertino, M.D. Jarred Burkart, M.D.

Shabana Dewani, M.D. Andrew Grainger, M.D. Joseph Hofmeister, M.D.

Elizabeth Kander, M.D. Peter Kourlas, M.D. Kavya Krishna, M.D.

Augustine Hong, M.D.

Emily Saul, D.O. Thomas Sweeney, M.D. Joy Tang, M. D.

Shylaja Mani, M.D. Nse Ntukidem, M.D. Anish Parikh, M.D.

Erin Macrae, M.D.

Man vs. Goose

Dogs, air horns, whistles, pyrotechnics, scary balloons and other ideas for driving the annoying birds from your property

By Kathy Lynn Gray

If you’ve ever been ambushed by a hissing, beak-snapping goose or face-planted after skidding on their poop parade, this is the story for you. Geese—specifically Canada geese—seem to be everywhere these days, from grocery store parking lots to farmers’ fields to city soccer pitches. And while they look adorable as a string of goslings, they can be real pests as adults.

That’s why 26 people recently attended the Nuisance Goose Workshop in Columbus, where they learned that everything from pyrotechnics to balloons may drive the birds away. Ohio Division of Wildlife research technician Ben Singer explained that geese are adaptable and have few predators. They love manicured lawns and budding farm fields with ponds, lakes or rivers nearby and, often as not, they don’t fear humans.

Canada geese are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which prohibits their destruction except in specific instances. These geese and other birds were nearly wiped out by the early 1900s and only made a comeback when government intervened directly on their behalf in the 1950s.

One result of that comeback is goose poop. The birds poop every 20 minutes, and each leaves behind 1½ pounds of poop a day. If 20 geese live on a golf course, that’s an impressive 30 pounds of poop within 24 hours.

Jackie Meeks of Hilliard has seen the problem up close on her family’s farm in Waldo, where as many as 100 geese sometimes settle. “Goose poop is everywhere, and the dog likes to roll in it,” she says. She and her son, who lives on the farm, have tried countless ways to get rid of them and planned to try a few more after the workshop.

Doug Wensink, Wildlife Division research technician, says consistency is the key. “A quick fix is a fantasy,” he says. He suggests shooting off pyrotechnics like bird bangers or screamers once or twice a day for an extended period. Air horns and whistles are other options, and even leaf

Front & Center | Animals

blowers may work.

Visual scare tactics, like beach ballsized balloons with big, scary eyes, are an option but must be secretly moved every few days. “Geese are smart, and if they see you moving it, the gig is up,” Wensink says.

When geese nest near water, adding tall plants such as prairie grass or cattails along the bank can help, as can snow fences and wire gridding across the water. Certain big dog breeds, like collies, are a deterrent, but must be leashed because killing geese with-

out a permit is illegal. The division issues permits to kill geese or their eggs under limited circumstances outside of the hunting season, but other methods must be tried first, Wensink says.

Geese won’t leave once they have eggs, Wensink says. And don’t try to send them into the air in June: They can’t fly then, because they’re molting. The best time to scare geese away is before they nest in late winter, starting in February. “There’s no magical solution,” Wensink says. “You have to harass them from Day 1.” ◆

A Canada goose hisses at passing cyclists as goslings feed along the side of the Olentangy Trail in 2020.

PHOTOS FROM TOP: TIM JOHNSON, JOSHUA A. BICKEL

Smoke and Reese, border collies trained to help remove problem geese, with Pat Lee, owner of Go Geese Go

HEALING HORATIO

A community rallies around a beloved brewery cat.

Increasingly, businesses are expected to support their loyal employees, especially their medical needs. But when the employee in need is a beloved neighborhood cat, it turns out the community is also willing to step up.

Horatio the cat first wandered onto the premises of Seventh Son Brewing Co. in Italian Village a decade ago, instantly winning over owner Collin Castore and his employees. Over the years, Horatio has become a star within the brewery and beyond. Neighborhood residents and visitors have come to love him, and Seventh Son leaned in, naming him “assistant manager,” a title that inspired one of their most popular beers.

So when Horatio was diagnosed with fibrosarcoma, a malignant tumor, Castore didn’t hesitate to get him the help he needed from MedVet. But that bill wasn’t cheap, so he launched a GoFundMe fundraiser targeting $15,000 for radiation that could give the 10-yearold a few more years of a normal life.

That money wouldn’t just go toward Horatio, however. The funds would be split between the mascot and two causes: The UC Davis Feline Cancer Research Fund and Ellie’s Rainy Day Fund, an Ohio organization that assists with pet cancer treatments. It took barely two weeks to raise all $15,000. Castore says Seventh Son will keep the fundraiser alive for as long as people want to donate, providing the charities further funds.

“Pets are family,” Castore says, his voice full of emotion. “You’ve got to take care of them. Even unofficial pets.” —ANDREW KING

July 13

Horatio

Front & Center | Lost Columbus

The Highway Post Office’s Final Run

In the dark of a June night, Columbus made a bit of postal history.

By Jeff Darbee

The word “philately” sounds like something naughty, but it just refers to stamp collecting and all things postal. Fifty years ago, some Columbus philatelists gathered in the gloom of night for a philatelic event that was never to be repeated.

In the 1860s, the U.S. Postal Service developed the Railway Post Office, a train car devoted to both carrying and processing mail. Postal clerks, tested frequently for speed and accuracy, emptied mailbags and sorted each piece by destination into hundreds of wall-mounted pigeonholes. Mail was then re-bagged for delivery. They also picked up and dropped mail at towns where the train didn’t stop. Standing in an open door, with split-second

coordination, a clerk worked a long metal “catcher arm” to snag a mailbag from a special rack while kicking out a local delivery bag. Postal clerks, by any measure a special fraternity, worked hard and were justifiably proud of their role in keeping the mail moving. At its peak, the RPO fleet numbered more than 3,000 cars.

The Great Depression and highwaybuilding, however, caused a decline in passenger trains, so in 1941 the Postal Service introduced the Highway Post Office, a special bus fitted out like an RPO and similarly crewed. A big advantage was that the HPO could stop at en route post offices; their clerks no longer had to go back and forth to the railroad station. At its peak, the HPO

network had 108 routes, one of which— between Cleveland and Cincinnati via Columbus—was the last to expire, made obsolete by automated mail sorting.

The last two HPOs met at the main post office on Twin Rivers Drive around midnight on June 30, 1974. They sat side by side as fans took photos, the Post Office graciously if nervously allowing access to normally off-limits areas. In its own small way, it was a night to remember.

Ironically, the RPO had the last laugh. The final run of that historic train car was on June 30, 1977, on a route between New York City and Washington, D.C.

Jeff Darbee is a preservationist, historian and author in Columbus.

Sources: “Funk & Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary,” 1931; Bryant Long and William Dennis, “Mail by Rail,” 1951; Smithsonian Institution, National Postal Museum, Washington, D.C.; personal reminiscence

PHOTO: JEFF DARBEE

A Highway Post Office bus is parked at the Columbus U.S. Post Office on Twin Rivers Drive during its final run in 1974.

ANGELA PERLEY

Year of the Woman

An extraordinary Ohio State basketball season highlights a watershed moment for sports.

By Laura Arenschield

My sons’ favorite athletes right now are Lionel Messi and every member of the Ohio State women’s basketball team. When it comes to hoops, they know nothing about Nikola Jokić or Kevin Durant— they know LeBron’s name only because we’re all from Northeast Ohio and, well, Northeast Ohioans root for LeBron.

No, in our house, it’s Jacy Sheldon, Cotie McMahon, Celeste Taylor. They know Caitlin Clark— how could they not? But with much respect, she’s ancillary. My 7-year-old spent the basketball season rooting exclusively for Ohio State’s Rikki Harris when she was on the court. He begged and begged for her jersey; I told him to put it on his birthday wish list. (Even though Harris entered the transfer portal in April, I have no doubt my kiddo will root for her

no matter where she lands.)

And why shouldn’t their favorites be this team, these women?

Learn about more female trailblazers in Columbus Monthly’s cover story, “Inspiring Women,” on Page 29.

It’s an electrifying time to be a women’s basketball fan. I’m writing this on April 2, and the Buckeyes are—sadly—long out of the NCAA women’s tournament. But on April 1, my family watched Clark’s Iowa team play Angel Reese’s LSU on ESPN, along with 12.3 million other people—more than the viewership of any other NCAA basketball game on ESPN, ever. ESPN reported in early April that women’s NCAA Final Four tickets were selling for double the price of men’s, averaging $2,323. The women’s Big Ten tournament sold out for the first time. The Ohio State-Iowa game that closed the regular season was the highest-priced basketball ticket in NCAA women’s basketball history.

We’re having an important, national conversation about women’s basketball. We’re pointing out the disparity in how professional women’s basketball players are paid as compared to NBA athletes. We’re recognizing that women can and should get big endorsement contracts. We’re talking about the fact that, until 2022, the women’s NCAA basketball tournament was not permitted to use the phrase “March Madness.” We’re considering who is allowed to show they are competitive, and who gets slapped on the wrist for it.

And we’re remembering players like Lynette Woodard, who scored 3,649 points playing at the University of Kansas in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and Pearl Moore, who scored 4,061 at Francis Marion, a tiny school in South Carolina, in the late ’70s. Woodard and Moore, both Black, were largely overlooked and forgotten until Clark made her run at “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s NCAA scoring

Ohio State forward Cotie McMahon celebrates winning the Big Ten regular-season title.

record. (He scored 3,667; Clark finished her college career with 3,951 points.)

The national focus is on Clark, and we can debate whether it should be. (Just know I’ll come down on the side of “it should, but we should also talk about Paige Bueckers at UConn and everyone at South Carolina and JuJu Watkins at USC and a whole bunch of others.)

My family was lucky enough to attend a handful of Ohio State women’s games this year and to watch a few on TV. We’ve used those experiences to talk about hard work (in my mind, there’s no better conditioned team than the Ohio State women’s basketball team—if you’ve seen their full-court press, you know), about practice (they’ve obviously been working on free throws), about teamwork (this team loves to watch one another score.)

We’ve talked about family—Jacy Sheldon’s sister, Emmy, hugging and high-fiving before and after games; Cotie McMahon’s mom cheering from her seat. We’ve talked about coachability, about owning your mistakes and successes, and gone back to Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff’s Twitter-I-mean-X feed for inspiration. McGuff’s lessons have motivated my second-grade son to work harder at drills for his current favorite sport, soccer, even when he might not feel like practicing.

Above, Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark cuts down the net after beating LSU in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

Left, Clark celebrates her three-point basket against the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

We’ve sung along with the band, making the O-H-I-O with our arms, and we’ve talked about home, about pride, about taking care of yourself and the places and people around you. We’ve stood before the Jesse Owens statue as we walked to our car and talked about the ways in which the world’s opportunities have not been equal for all.

One of the best things about this season, though, is that the kids in my life— my sons, my nieces—have gotten to witness, in person, how goals, passion and teamwork can lead to greatness. When the Iowa Hawkeyes came to Columbus, my mom, dad, brother and I took my 8-year-old niece to see the game. Clark went off, with a season-high 45 points. But McMahon and Sheldon and the rest of the Ohio State team came back from behind to win in overtime.

I screamed so loud I almost fainted. My niece, block O painted on her cheek, cheered as loudly as anyone else in the arena. What an awesome thing for kids of any gender to see.

Sports are not life, blasphemous as that might be to say in this city. But they do offer chances to talk about big life lessons

in ways that are much more approachable than other topics. They let us focus on something that is, relative to crises around the globe, low stakes. They bring people together across generations, races, political preferences. And winning is the thing that ignites collective, bandwagon excitement. Right now, college women’s basketball is winning. (If you’re not on this particular bandwagon, what are you waiting for?)

So, despite the tournament losses,

thank you, Ohio State women’s basketball. Thank you for being fantastic examples— especially to young kids, especially to my own young boys, who benefit immensely from having female role models. Thank you for making me, a middle-aged mom, fall back in love with this sport. Thank you for working so hard, for playing with heart, for never giving up. I know you all enjoyed this season more than we did, but for me and my family, it was magic. ◆

LAURA

Writer Laura Arenschield with her husband, Wes, and their children, Milo (left) and Will, at the OSU-Michigan women’s basketball game

datebook

MAY 2-3 | JON BATISTE & PROMUSICA

Nabbing musician and composer Jon Batiste for a two-night residency was a coup for ProMusica. Netflix documentary “American Symphony” follows the New Orleans native, Juilliard grad and former Stephen Colbert bandleader as he released Grammy-winning 2021 album We Are. Batiste also boasts an Academy Award for his score of the Pixar film “Soul.” promusicacolumbus.org

MAY 7-12 | ‘TINA – THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL’

This hit Broadway production follows the remarkable journey of Tina Turner from rural Tennessee to her coronation as the Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll. The musical features some of the 12-time Grammy Award winner’s biggest hits, including “Proud Mary” and “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” Catch it at the Ohio Theatre. capa.com

MAY 11 | SCHOOLED ON POETRY CELEBRATION

This Lincoln Theatre event is the culmination of a spokenword poetry project featuring students from Dublin Scioto, Grandview Heights, Independence, KIPP and Northland high schools. The celebration will feature group pieces and solo performances from poetry slam champions, along with local poets Hanif Abdurraqib and Cynthia Amoah, Chicago’s Christian “Rich Robbins” Robinson and Virginia’s Tim Seibles. capa.com

MAY 24-25 | NANCY FEST

Ernie Bushmiller’s helmethaired heroine is finally getting the celebration she’s long deserved. To launch its new exhibition, The Nancy Show: Bushmiller and Beyond (which runs through Nov. 3), the Billy Ireland will host a two-day conference about the iconic strip, including a prerecorded conversation with cartoonist Olivia Jaimes, the mastermind behind the revamped Nancy. cartoons.osu.edu

MAY 25-26 | JENI’S STRAWBERRY JAM

Need an excuse to kick off summer? Land-Grant Brewing Co. is hosting Jeni’s Strawberry Jam for another fun-filled weekend of Jeni’s ice cream, live music, food trucks, games and more. Start the short and sweet strawberry season with this family-friendly event over Memorial Day weekend. landgrantbrewing.com

May 4

Culture & Artisans’ Fair

Support Central Ohio’s growing immigrant community at this event, which will feature about 20 artisans from all over the world. Community Refugee and Immigration Services is partnering with the city of Upper Arlington on the fair at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. crisohio.org

May 16

Service! Gala

The hospitality nonprofit will host its first gala at High Line Car House in the Brewery District, with proceeds benefiting Service!’s relief efforts for struggling restaurant workers. servicerelief.org

May 31

Sleep Out

This annual campout fundraiser will occur at the Chase Plaza at Lower.com Field. Participants raise money to support nonprofit Huckleberry House and increase awareness of youth homelessness. huckhouse.org

Jon Batiste

ProMusica Soirée

Grammy winner Joshua Henry (“Hamilton,” “Into the Woods,” “In the Heights”) headlined ProMusica’s annual fundraiser and concert on March 15 at the Southern Theatre. More than 300 guests attended the benefit, which supports the orchestra’s artistic and outreach programs. The event included a pre-concert cocktail party at the adjoining Westin Great Southern Hotel.

1 Tom and Mary Katzenmeyer, Laurie Stein Marsh, Andrew Lippa 2 Chris Mundell, Tanner Johnson, Katy Gibson, Chantal Morgan 3 Alison Barret, Lawrence Lemon 4 Mary Yerina, Bob Redfield 5 Karen Davis, Sarah Irvin Clark 6 Helen Liebman, Tom Battenberg, Nelson Cary, Stephanie Cary 7 Janet Chen, Jerry Hou 8 Mimi Dane, Julie Henahan, Megan Kilgore 9 Jordan Hawkins, Adriana Gordon 10 George Barrett, Nancy and Steve Falk

New proton therapy center expands high tech cancer care at Ohio State

How immuno-oncology is changing cancer care by harnessing the power of patients’ natural defenses

treatment. With the opening of this facility, it is thrilling to get a glimpse into what is now possible in the realm of cancer treatment for children, and we look forward to continuing our work to improve the quality of life for all our patients.”

of treatment to a single dose, delivered in less than a second. It is estimated that this form of proton therapy is still five to 10 years from approved use in patients, making the research investigating FLASH protons so important.

“The bodies of some patients can be very hostile microenvironments for T cells,” Wu says. “The T cells can’t differentiate between cancer cells and healthy cells and become the potent cancer fighters they’re supposed to be.”

“If we can shorten that treatment course from what would have been six to eight weeks to a single day, care becomes far more accessible, especially for underserved populations,” Chakravarti says. “Bringing this important technology to central Ohio demonstrates our institution’s commitment to creating a cancerfree world.”

Wu and other Ohio State immuno-oncologists are taking on this challenge through a novel treatment called tumor infiltrating therapy [TIL], which involves the extraction of T cells from patients that are then expanded to billions in the lab. The cells are reinfused into the patients, where they are better equipped to find and fight cancer cells.

“The process will make the cells stronger and smarter and better able to differentiate between cancer cells and healthy cells,” Wu says. “This is a very personalized form of immunotherapy.”

Proton therapy is considered a game-changer in pediatric cancer care, adds Cripe, who treats children with cancer at Nationwide Children’s. The size and physiology of pediatric patients can make traditional radiation more difficult to administer without damaging surrounding tissues, which can lead to long-term side effects.

Scan the QR code to learn more about TIL therapy research underway at The James.

“Proton therapy is a promising cancer treatment for kids and critical for many of our patients,” he says. “Imagine a child’s cancer is eliminated with proton therapy, and they can go on to live 70 more healthy, normal years without most of the radiation-related long-term side effects of cancer treatment in childhood.”

The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) and Nationwide Children’s Hospital recently celebrated the opening of a $100 million, 55,000 square foot proton therapy center, the first treatment facility in central Ohio offering this highly targeted form of radiation therapy for treatment of complex tumors that cannot be removed through surgery.

Institute, Roychowdhury and his team have discovered genetic mutations and collaborated with other scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments and clinical trials that allow patients’ immune systems to detect and attack cancer cells that had been able to “hide” from more traditional therapies.

Immunotherapy innovation is saving the lives of cancer patients across the country, while researchers continue to break new ground in this growing oncology field.

When Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD, began his career as a cancer physician and scientist in the early 2000s, the field of immuno-oncology was in its early stages and didn’t look incredibly promising.

“Proton therapy is the perfect example of personalized care in cancer. You can target the proton beam in a highly specific way that results in virtually no damage to the surrounding healthy tissues,” says Arnab Chakravarti, MD, director of the proton therapy center and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the OSUCCC – James. “This technology has the potential to literally improve the health and well-being of millions of people across Ohio and beyond.”

“We needed a fine-tuned approach rather than a sledgehammer,” Roychowdhury says. The turning point began with the successful completion of the human genome project in 2003. The ability to genetically sequence tumors and find specific mutations causing cancer was a game changer.

Located on Ohio State’s west campus at 2121 Kenny Road, the proton therapy center offers comprehensive radiation oncology treatment options for both adult and pediatric patients at a single location.

In the years since, immuno-oncologists have been hard at work in labs across the globe, conducting groundbreaking research that includes partnerships with patients and investments in new technology.

Clinical trials

In his lab at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research

“This is a significant day, especially for our patients and their families,” says Timothy Cripe, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation at Nationwide Children’s. “Having this resource right here in Columbus makes vital treatment more accessible for those who need it and allows families to stay here in Columbus throughout their entire

Proton therapy is an advanced type of radiation treatment that uses protons (positively charged particles) instead of X-rays to destroy cancer cells. It minimizes the damage to surrounding healthy cells, a common side effect of traditional radiation like X-rays. The therapy can be used alone or in combination with other therapies to treat brain cancer, lymphoma, retinoblastomas and sarcomas in children, and several localized cancers, including prostate, brain, head and neck, lung, spine and gastrointestinal in adults.

Investing in the future of immuno-oncology

The proton therapy center is staffed by a team of physicians, medical physicists, engineers, IT specialists, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning experts, radiation biologists and cancer biologists who are committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for patients.

“Why do we harness the power of the immune system? It has memory, it’s adaptable and there are so many ways to utilize it to fight and prevent cancer,” Roychowdhury says.

“Everything we do — every project, every idea, every grant, every publication and clinical trial — starts with and comes back to our patients.”

Scientists will be able to conduct important research on a high-dose proton therapy known as FLASH that can target treatment to a pinpoint and deliver it in a tenth of a second. Ohio State is one of just a handful of institutions in the world poised to conduct translational research in this form of proton therapy.

In Roychowdhury’s lab, and throughout The James, immunotherapy clinical trials are collective efforts, connecting multidisciplinary teams of oncology experts with patients whose participation paves the way for future cancer care breakthroughs.

Preclinical data suggests this proton therapy could reduce what would normally be 30 days

Scan the QR code to learn more about cancer clinical trials at The James.

T cell therapy

T cells can provide natural defenses against some forms of cancer by locating and destroying harmful cells, but they can sometimes be “outsmarted,” according to Richard Wu, MD, PhD.

Immunotherapy has become a pillar of cancer care and research at Ohio State, where the OSUCCC – James’ Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology [PIIO] launched to house a dedicated team of experts focused on developing new treatments and techniques.

It is equipped with the Varian ProBeam 360 treatment system. This is the first treatment center in the United States specifically built with a dual-capability system that can deliver both conventional proton therapy and research-level FLASH to both adults and children.

“Together, we’re gaining greater knowledge of how the immune system works, and we’re using this knowledge to exploit weaknesses in cancer cells and tumors so we can turn laboratory discoveries into bedside treatments,” says Zihai Li, MD, PhD, the founding director of the PIIO.

“The story of proton therapy is still being written, and we are writing it here in central Ohio,” said Chakravarti.

The center’s first proton therapy treatment was delivered to an adult woman with a skull-based chondrosarcoma in mid-December 2023.

Commitment to immuno-oncology has already led to advancements in the treatment of a number of conditions, including lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

“I’ve seen lung cancer patients who have completed immunotherapy treatment and have had a beautiful response and normal quality of life,” says David Carbone, MD, PhD.

Scan the QR code to learn more about the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology at The Ohio State University.

Written by staff and contributors

Photography by Tim Johnson

Claire Coder

The Aunt Flow founder evangelizes cultural change.

BY KATY SMITH

If you’re a menstruator, it’s happened to you. Your period starts while you’re in public. There are no products in the restroom. Or, there’s a vending machine and you don’t have the requisite quarter (who has quarters?). Or, the machine is broken or empty. Maybe 5 percent of the time, the stars align, and you can actually access a (very low-quality) period product in a public restroom.

Claire Coder is over it. The 27-year-old founder of Aunt Flow has built a career talking about periods. At 18, she was studying comparative religion at Ohio State University and got her period while out in public. Of course, there were no products in the bathroom.

Inspired by another one of Columbus Monthly’s inaugural Inspiring Women, Nancy Kramer (see Page 40), who delivered a 2013 Columbus TED talk on the lack of societal support for offering period supplies like any other restroom product, Coder decided to start a company. “I promptly dropped out of college to talk about menstruation for a living,” she says.

“If you’re a menstruator, the first thing you can do is stop hiding your tampon up your sleeve when you walk to the bathroom.”

—Claire Coder

It was 2016. Since then, Aunt Flow has raised $17 million in venture capital and has grown to 21 employees. Its dispensers and period products are in more than 42,000 bathrooms, including all Apple retail stores in North America, 750 U.S. schools, the Columbus Crew’s Lower.com Field, the Greater Columbus Convention Center and Worthington Libraries. And this spring, Aunt Flow is launching direct-to-consumer sales of its organic, all-cotton pads and tampons on Amazon and on its website.

Henri Pierre-Jacques, co-founder at Harlem Capital, one of Aunt Flow’s investors, says he was amazed to watch Coder sell Aunt Flow to a male procurement officer on the spot. “I knew she was an incredible saleswoman and could sell the vision to anyone,” he says.

Coder also is on a campaign to end the use of the term “feminine hygiene” in favor of calling it “period care.” Normalizing periods starts with actually saying the word period, right? “If you’re a menstruator, the first thing you can do is stop hiding your tampon up your sleeve when you

walk to the bathroom,” Coder says.

Access to period products is a social justice issue, too. “Period poverty” has been documented by the medical community, with a 2022 report in the Journal of Global Health finding two-thirds of low-income women in the U.S. could not afford menstrual products in the past year. One in four students in the U.S. can’t afford period products, which can lead to missing school, according to the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. In 2023, Ohio became one of 18 states requiring schools to offer students period products in bathrooms.

Coder is more than an entrepreneur. She’s an evangelist for cultural change. “There’s still so much stigma around menstruation and confusion around what a natural, healthy cycle looks like,” she says. “We need open dialogue around period care.” ◆

WHAT I LEARNED FROM...

Ann B. Walker

A broadcasting pioneer teaches grace, respect, quiet dignity and the craft of journalism.

BY ANGELA PACE

If you live in Columbus, chances are you will meet someone who will see something in you and will help you grow that something. One of those “someones” in my life is Ann B. Walker.

I was a senior at Capital University in 1976 when I was awarded an internship at WCMH-TV. I was thrilled. I was going to work with the legendary Ann Walker: community affairs director, former journalist for The Ohio Sentinel, on-air host for WVKO radio, the first woman broadcaster to report on the Ohio Legislature. I knew I could learn a lot from her.

I watched and listened as she communicated with local notables and nonprofit directors, always willing to share her knowledge and her opinions. I watched and listened as she produced and hosted her community affairs show with grace and insight. I watched and listened as she interacted with her co-workers with quiet dignity. There was no doubt Ann was respected inside and outside 3165 Olentangy River Road.

One day, Ann told me that I was going to interview a social service agency representative for her show. Ann gave me background information. I glanced at it. But all I could think about was my TV debut. I was more concerned about how I was going to look, not how I was going to perform.

I taped the interview, then waited for kudos. They didn’t come. Ann took me into her office, looked me right in my face and told me how disappointed she was. I hadn’t prepared

for the interview. I didn’t ask good, information-provoking questions. I was faking it. And that was disrespectful to the person I was interviewing.

I was crushed. Ann’s approval meant the world to me. But I had done nothing to earn it. I vowed I would never be in that position again. I would always be prepared for interviews and any other assignments and respect the people I was interviewing. Ann taught me that. And she did it with dignity and grace.

Ann B. Walker, who turned 100 in November, paved the way, not only for me, but for other people of color

and women. We stand on her shoulders. And it’s heartwarming to see her impact recognized: the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame, the Long Street Cultural Wall, the new plaza on Long Street that bears her name.

I continue to thank Ann for schooling me, making me a better interviewer, a better journalist, a better community servant. And for that— for the role model she was and is—I will always be grateful. ◆

Angela Pace is the director of community affairs for WBNS-10TV and a former anchor for the station.

Paula Haines

The Freedom a La Cart CEO finds her purpose helping trauma survivors.

BY RITA PRICE

It didn’t take much to make the woman angry. Even a simple request, such as asking her to please cut the vegetables smaller, might trigger a furious reaction, followed by an immediate exit. “We called her ‘The Runner,’ she left so many times,” says Paula Haines, CEO of Freedom a la Cart, a Downtown café, catering company and social enterprise.

Not many employers would take such outbursts in stride. But Haines is in the business of both creating good food and changing lives, and she knows that one half of the mission is more complex than the other. It’s also more rewarding.

“Sometimes a woman will start with us with anger that is so deep-seated,” Haines says. “She may get upset and walk out. We can call back the next day and say, ‘Hey, let’s try again.’’’

Freedom a la Cart offers paid employment training, housing assistance and other supportive services to survivors of human trafficking, addiction and other trauma. Haines became involved in the effort as a volunteer more than a decade ago after attending a class on human trafficking. “It’s one of those things where once you find out about it, how do you not do something about it?” she says.

She moved on to fundraising, then joined the board, and in 2016, she left her own successful marketing company to lead the nonprofit. It now operates out of a restored historic building at 123 E. Spring St. with a storefront café, kitchen and upstairs survivors’ lounge. “I feel like I found my passion

and my purpose, and that’s such a gift,” says Haines. “Not everyone gets to experience that.”

Freedom a la Cart maintains its longtime partnership with Franklin County Municipal CATCH Court, a specialized docket for survivors of sex trafficking. Haines hopes to launch a similar model next year in Cleveland.

“We all have areas that we need to heal, that we have to face so that we can heal,” says Dorie Sessoms, who connected with Freedom about five years ago and is now its housing resource manager. “I’ve always been able to feel safe here,” she says. “I feel heard. Paula has been an instrumental part of my growth, and I love her very much.”

Haines was raised in Kenton, a small town northwest of Columbus, and came to the city after college. She and her husband have five children, three grandchildren and a beloved Airstream motorhome for road trips. She says she’s thankful to everyone, especially survivors, who help her learn how to help.

“We have a little mantra here about empowering rather than enabling,” she says. Of the more than 400 women who take part in Freedom programs each year, more than 82 percent retain employment, and 70 percent are stably housed.

The woman known for disappearing “is now on our management team,” Haines says. “There are still struggles, and we put a little extra energy into some people. But there’s growth.” ◆

Heather Leonard Habiba Bankston

Clothes and community service

Fashion Forward: The Dress for Success Columbus executive director leads one of the global organization’s largest affiliates, with 10 employees, a $1 million annual budget and a high-profile, Short North location. Best known for providing women in need with professional attire, the nonprofit also offers mentoring and coaching services and a mobile career center.

Community Ties: Bankston was born with sickle cell disease. Grateful for the excellent care she received for her condition, she planned to become a physician to help others—until she took her first organic chemistry class at Ohio State University. While her university experience pushed her away from medicine, it did reveal other ways to give back, especially

Leading with vulnerability

Team Builder: The Cameron Mitchell Restaurants marketing chief has been a longtime champion of women at the Columbus company. She leads an all-female team, many of whom started with the firm’s internship program that she implemented. She also co-founded the company’s Whole Commitment, which began as a female empowerment initiative that has evolved into a broader diversity program, and served on the Columbus Women’s Commission. While she was on the city panel, CMR signed the Columbus Commitment, a pledge to close the wage gap and achieve pay equity for women.

Diva Days: Before shifting to a career

as Bankston got to know U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, who worked at OSU prior to Congress. Beatty encouraged Bankston to get involved with nonprofits such as the Columbus Urban League, YWCA Columbus and Dress for Success. “She introduced me to the beauty of Columbus, what community engagement means in our city,” Bankston says.

Helping Every Woman: Bankston became the leader of Dress for Success Columbus in November 2021. After a stint with the L Brands Foundation, she wanted to get involved with more direct community work. And that work has changed at Dress for Success. Following the pandemic, the organization isn’t just helping women in crisis. It’s also working with college students looking for their first career opportunity, stay-at-home moms returning to the workforce, entrepreneurs that need help with soft skills. “We’re by no means moving away from our core, but really it’s inspiring us to expand our reach,” Bankston says.

—DAVE GHOSE

in marketing, the Cincinnati native studied opera performance at Miami University. In high school, she even operated her own singing business, performing at funerals and weddings—but she was no prima donna. She worked hard to please her clients, to make their special day more meaningful or to honor their lost loved ones. In many ways, it was good training for the hospitality business. “It was something I took very seriously,” she says. “I was a pretty serious, mature high school student.”

Changed Outlook: A decade ago, Leonard was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease with no cure. She is stable today, but the condition forced her to find a healthier work-life balance, something that isn’t easy to do in the demanding and volatile restaurant industry. It also changed how she leads, making her a more empathetic and compassionate manager. “I’m not embarrassed to share my vulnerability,” she says. —DAVE GHOSE

Katie Smith

An all-time great shares her love for basketball with the next generation.

BY DAVE GHOSE

They couldn’t have asked for a better game. In January, the Upper Arlington girls’ basketball team watched Ohio State beat Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes 100-92 in an overtime thriller at the Schottenstein Center. As the UA players absorbed the electric atmosphere, they also noticed a No. 30 jersey hanging in the rafters with a familiar name on it: Katie Smith, Buckeye hoops legend, women’s basketball pioneer and volunteer assistant coach for the UA team.

The moment reminded the players that Smith isn’t just a good-natured, down-to-earth basketball junkie who rebounds their shots and tweaks their shooting form. She’s also one of the greatest ever to play the sport. “She’s so humble despite her incredible accomplishments,” says UA point guard and co-captain Quinn Buttermore. “She’s an even better person than a basketball player, which is saying a lot. I’m definitely so grateful for the privilege of getting to be around her.”

Smith joined the UA staff after head coach John Wanke took over the program in 2021. A longtime Upper Arlington resident, Smith wanted to get more involved in the community; she had recently married, and she and her wife, Yesenia, are raising their two kids, Yeslynn and Lenin, in UA. After a three-minute phone conversation with Wanke, she signed up for the high school gig.

Since then, the UA girls have been on the upswing. The team finished 22-4 this year, improving for the third con-

secutive season. Smith sometimes misses a practice or game because of a conflict with her main job as the associate head coach of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, but she’s with the UA squad most of the time. She offers feedback, serves as a sounding board for Wanke and works with the players individually. “We love seeing her around, and we all realize how big of a deal it is for us to be able to have her as a resource,” says Buttermore, a senior who’s been with the team for three years. The feeling is mutual for Smith. “They’re awesome kids, and they’re so funny, and they try so hard,” she says.

This summer, Smith will return to Minneapolis for the WNBA season, one of the most anticipated in years thanks to the arrival of Clark, who, as this story went to print, was expected to be the top overall pick in the league’s April 15 draft. Clark and other young stars have turned women’s basketball from a niche sport that Smith and other pioneers helped establish into a mainstream phenomenon. “I love it,” says Smith, who retired as women’s pro basketball’s all-time leading scorer (Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi has since eclipsed her). “I get so excited about it.”

But Smith also wants to keep giving back, and her UA gig fits into that mission. She says head coach Wanke is building a legacy in UA, and she wants to be a part of it. She’s already looking forward to next season. “We have a nice eighth-grade crew coming up the pipeline,” she says. ◆

Zora’s House Team

A nonprofit creates a legacy of possibilities for women of color.

BY DONNA MARBURY

It fits that Zora’s House is named after audacious Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston. Though her works are now part of the literary canon, she died unknown and penniless. It took decades for her brilliance to be rediscovered. Spaces like Zora’s House uplift women of color, ensuring their voices are heard.

“Surreal” is how Zora’s House founder LC Johnson describes the anticipation of walking through her nonprofit’s 10,000-square-foot development, soon to be a crown jewel in the Weinland Park neighborhood. Johnson’s vision and tenacity have taken Zora’s House from a coworking space that feels like your big sister’s comfy couch to a declaration that women of color are the pulse of Columbus. Since launching a campaign to raise $6 million for a Zora’s House expansion (to debut in September), Johnson has made it clear that an investment in the personal and professional well-being of women of color in Columbus is an investment in the future of a prosperous city. She envisions the new center—which sits on the former site of a notorious carryout—as a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship.

“This building is a testament to the vision, determination and grit of some really incredible women of color,” says Johnson, who opened the original Zora’s House on Summit Street in 2018. “It’s also going to be a guiding light and this container for so many women of color and their dreams, visions and vulnerability.”

Ivory Levert felt “a breath of fresh air” the first time she visited Zora’s House. Originally from Texas, the Ohio State graduate says finding Zora’s House helped her build more than just a career—it helped her become rooted in the city. “There’s a feeling that I didn’t know what I needed when I came into Zora’s House,” says Levert, who joined as a member in 2019 and is now full-time program manager.

There are many paths to Zora’s House, and its membership truly represents the new landscape of Columbus’ growth. College grads, Columbus natives and career transplants have found sister circles, monthly Sunday dinners and Black feminist night school classes there.

Tasha Lomo, a first-generation immigrant, says Zora’s House was one of her first experiences outside of her West African community. “Zora’s House has served as that bridge to learning more about really amazing women of color in my community and also the possibilities for my own life,” says Lomo, who started as a Zora’s House ambassador in 2019 and is now community engagement manager.

For J’Hanna the Great, marketing and communications manager at Zora’s House, the space feels like a natural extension of the Black community she grew up in, such as the Comin’ Home festival on Mount Vernon Avenue and dinners at the Marble Gang restaurant. “The story of Zora’s House is going to be told, and this growth allows for the legacy to be much more vast than the women who are here today,” J’Hanna says. ◆

Zora’s House founder LC Johnson, center, is surrounded by clockwise: Tamaliyapo Mphande, Liz Gordon-Canlas, Tasha Lomo, Ivory Levert and J’Hanna The Great.

Linda Logan

Leveling the playing field

Faith in Women: The greater Columbus Sports Commission CEO has helmed the organization since its inception in 2002. Since then, the region’s reputation as a sports hub has dramatically increased—Sports Business Journal named Columbus the 10th best event-hosting city in the country in March—and much of that success traces to Logan’s faith in women’s sports. “Columbus is one of the cities that really put our stake in the ground for girls and women in sports,” Logan says.

On the Fringe: Growing up in Northeast Ohio, Logan loved sports but didn’t have any opportunities to play. Instead, she kept stats for the boys’ teams and called in scores to Cleveland newspapers. “I was kind of on

Camille Seals

Opening young minds

Girl Power: In 2022, the Cleveland native made history at the Columbus School for Girls, becoming its first Black head of school. She brings to the venerable Bexley institution a deep background in all-girls education, both as a student and a teacher, and an appreciation for cultural inclusion, a priority for CSG as it grows more diverse. (Girls of color comprise more than 40 percent of the student population.)

Code-Switching: Seals learned early in life how to develop cultural competency in different spaces, as she moved between her family’s all-Black church, which was founded by her uncle, and her school, Hathaway Brown, then a

the fringe of sports,” she says. At Ohio University, she became involved with the school’s nascent sports administration program, then took a gig after college with the Milwaukee Does, a short-lived women’s pro basketball team with a buxom, politically incorrect logo. “Luckily, times have changed,” she says.

Winning Bets: Women’s sports are having a moment, highlighted by the hype and excitement surrounding record-setting basketball player Caitlin Clark. Logan, however, has been ahead of the curve, making big, winning bets on women’s sports for years: the 2018 NCCA Women’s Final Four, the 2021 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship, to name two local successes. This winter, the Columbus Fury, a new women’s professional volleyball team, began playing at Nationwide Arena, and Logan hopes to keep adding more female pro teams to the city’s sports landscape: soccer, hockey, basketball. “I think it’s ripe for the picking,” she says. —DAVE GHOSE

nearly all-white girls school in Shaker Heights. “I just learned how to codeswitch, even before people called it code-switching,” she says.

Summer School: While a student at all-girls Spelman College, Seals took a summer job at Hathaway Brown, teaching in a program called Aspire for low-income students. “That was really when I decided I was going to be an educator,” she says. Later, she returned to Hathaway Brown to lead the Aspire program.

Creating Access: Seals is a true believer in all-girls education. It’s made her confident. It’s taught her that her voice matters. “And that is really, really important,” she says. At CSG, she wants to create more access—a wider pool of students, with more financial aid helping families with fewer resources afford the school’s costly tuition. “We want to serve as many girls in Central Ohio as we possibly can,” Seals says. —DAVE GHOSE

Mary Lazarus

At 95, the community leader remains a vivacious and inspiring role model.

BY TANNY CRANE

When I came back to Columbus in 1987, Mary Lazarus took me under her wing. I had returned to work for our family business, Crane Plastics, as it was then called, and I was considering becoming more active in the community. Mary sought me out, inviting me to her home for a service event in support of Action for Children, the nonprofit child care organization that she helped lead. Pregnant with my first child, I was developing an interest in early childhood learning, and Mary showed me a way to make a difference in this critical cause. Her leadership, deep servant heart and gracious presence inspired me then— and continues to do so today.

For seven decades, Mary Lazarus has been a quiet force in Columbus. After graduating from Wellesley College, where she majored in political science and was elected president of its student government, Mary, originally from upstate New York, secured her first job at the League of Women Voters in New York City. Right away, she demonstrated her natural leadership style and her passion for issues surrounding women’s voices. In the 1950s, Mary moved to Columbus with her husband, Bob.

In Columbus, Mary continued on this path. While raising four children, Mary volunteered at the League of Women Voters and became deeply involved in Planned Parenthood, following in the shoes of her motherin-law, Hattie Lazarus, who founded Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio. Mary’s community roles grew from there, helping found such notewor-

thy organizations as the Columbus Metropolitan Club and the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio and supporting a vast array of other groups and causes. With my mother, her close friend Loann Crane, she started Call for Action, a consumer rights action line through WBNS-10TV, followed by WSYX-TV’s Six on Your Side, giving voice to consumers who were struggling to be heard.

This work has established a tremendous legacy. And with Mary celebrating her 95th birthday this year, it’s an appropriate time to honor her achievements and impact on our community. Mary is perhaps the last in a line of fiercely determined, independent women who pioneered movements and organizations throughout our community.

But in no way do I want to infer that Mary has slowed. Far from it. In 2023, Mary and her family were instrumental in raising their voices and their resources in support of Issue 1, Ohio’s constitutional amendment for reproductive rights. Her long commitment to women’s reproductive freedom gave her fierce determination not to let the Dobbs decision stand. Vivacious and committed to our community as ever, Mary boldly devoted time and resources and pushed many in the community— including me and my family—to stand up, as well. Once again, her inspiring example and quiet leadership showed me the way. ◆

Tanny Crane is the president and CEO of the Crane Group.

Cindi Englefield & Mary McCarthy

The Accelerating Angels co-founders invest in female-led businesses.

BY KATHY LYNN GRAY

As successful business owners, Cindi Englefield and Mary McCarthy know that the odds of a female-led business attracting venture capital funds is dismal—only 2 to 3 percent of those funds are traditionally invested in female-owned companies. “Women are running great companies and creating great business cultures, and it’s an opportunity investors are missing,” says Englefield, who grew her own business, Show What You Know Publishing, for 20 years.

Englefield knew McCarthy from their joint participation in the Women’s Small Business Accelerator in Dublin, which McCarthy had co-founded to help female entrepreneurs. So the two paired in 2022 to create Accelerating Angels with a goal of investing an average of $100,000 in innovative, female-owned, tech-related companies that will grow quickly and be sold within five to seven years.

Accelerating Angels plans to invest in 20 companies with a fund that Englefield is charged with growing to $3 million, hopefully by the end of 2024. So far, $1 million is in hand. “We’re looking for like-minded individuals who are interested in investing in a woman-owned company,” she says. “Then when women exit their businesses, they pay it forward by creating a new business or investing in other businesses.”

Englefield is constantly knocking on doors and talking to potential investors. “She’s done angel investing before, and I have worked with entrepreneurs, so we bring different aspects that complement each other,” says McCarthy, who has mentored entrepreneurs for two decades and also owns YMT Consulting.

One challenge for women is having a vision large enough to get investors’ attention, McCarthy says. Her job with Accelerating Angels is to mentor those interested in funding: Do they understand how to ask for money? Make their pitch? Are they building their product? McCarthy hopes the training she’s setting up will address those issues and more.

Englefield says McCarthy is a pro at entrepreneurship and at developing curriculum and webinars, as well as helping business owners set goals. “Funding has always been an issue for women entrepreneurs, and Mary has a lot of passion for this work,” Englefield says.

So far, Accelerating Angels has invested in two firms, choosing from more than 300 companies that have applied and nine that have pitched to them. A board of advisers helps narrow down the applicants, and investors vote on finalists. Englefield and McCarthy make final decisions.

Powell-based SureImpact, which uses data to help nonprofits and government agencies measure the good they are doing, is using its Accelerating Angels investment to handle growth generated from a new contract with Microsoft, co-founder Sheri Chaney Jones says. “The investment allowed us to say ‘yes’ to that,” Jones says.

She says pitching to the Angels was a totally different experience than pitching to male-dominated investors. “Pitching to a room full of women made a huge difference, because women tend to be more involved in nonprofits, and they understood my customer base,” she says. “It’s just so great what Cindi and Mary have done.” ◆

Cindi Englefield, left, and Mary McCarthy

Marcy Schaffir

A former Lane Bryant president models compassion and authenticity.

BY ALISSA HADLEY HINES (AS TOLD TO DAVE GHOSE)

For a recent job review, I was asked to name the three people who had the biggest impact on my career. Two were my parents, and the third was Marcy Schaffir, the former president of Lane Bryant. Marcy is an accomplished retail executive who’s held prominent positions at three Fortune 500 companies. But for me, what makes her stand out the most is that she’s a skilled teacher, a perceptive listener and an empathetic leader who’s spent her entire career supporting, mentoring and promoting women.

I got to know Marcy well when we worked together at Lane Bryant for more than nine years. For most of that time, she was my boss, and I thrived under her leadership. I started off doing merchandising for a small segment, intimate apparel. That segment grew into a large portion of the company’s business, and I went from managing a team of two to 35. Bras are a tricky business, but we created some 20 successful products, supporting and empowering our customers. Marcy, in turn, supported and empowered me. And I wasn’t alone. When she was president of Lane Bryant, 80 percent of vice presidents and above and 97 percent of store managers were women.

Marcy taught me the importance of feedback. She’d say, “What’s the sense of having a boss if they’re not coaching?”

Even when her comments were critical, she’d still find a way to deliver them in a positive way—no small feat. And it was a two-way relationship. She’d take my feedback seriously, building trust between us. Her empathy and openness showed me how to lead, and I invested in my team members the way Marcy invested in me.

In 2022, Marcy left Lane Bryant and founded her own retail consulting business. I left the company about a year later. Today, she continues to be a role model for me and other women leaders. She recently founded the Columbus arm of Wonder Women Dinners, an international networking collective, and she remains my biggest advocate.

Marcy is always her genuine self, and that is a rare thing. I’ve been at places where you have to have the right Louis Vuitton bag to fit in, and you won’t be seen as credible unless you’re playing that part. Marcy doesn’t play a part. She brings her own stories. She isn’t afraid to share her own vulnerability. And it’s so refreshing and inspiring to work with somebody like that. You can control only so much in life and in work. So why not be yourself, care a lot and show people that’s who you are? That’s what Marcy does, and more of us should do the same. ◆

Alissa Hadley Hines is a seasoned retail executive.

Nancy Kramer & Lauren Blauvelt

How two women spearheaded the effort to enshrine reproductive rights in the Ohio constitution.

BY LAURA NEWPOFF

When Dr. Lauren Beene arrived at her University Hospitals’ office in Shaker Heights on June 27, 2022, the pediatrician wasn’t prepared for a call she received from a mom of one of her patients. The mom wanted to know if she should put her 13-year-old on birth control medication in case she got sexually assaulted, now that she wouldn’t have access to abortion services in Ohio.

This was three days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision

overturned Roe v. Wade and took away the constitutional right to abortion. That allowed Ohio to implement, that same day, a ban on abortions after six weeks.

“Nobody had ever asked me a question like that before, and it made me sick to my stomach,” Beene says. “It was that morning I realized something had to change, and this was not OK.” That night, she began writing a letter—“A Message to our Patients on the Loss of Reproductive Rights”— that, in just a few days, was signed by

more than 1,000 doctors across the state. It published in The Columbus Dispatch that July as a full-page ad.

After Dobbs, longtime Columbus business leader Nancy Kramer began raising the issue in the business community. In her mind, reproductive freedom wasn’t a political issue. “It was a workforce development issue, an economic development issue and a humanitarian issue,” she says. “I became actively engaged in a variety of conversations; my belief was that the business community needed

to be strong leaders on this.”

Beene co-founded Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights with Dr. Marcela Azevedo. That summer, Kramer, now chief evangelist for IBM Consulting, and her husband, Christopher Celeste, began having conversations with the doctors about a citizen-led effort to enshrine women’s reproductive rights into the Ohio constitution.

On the morning of the Dobbs decision, Lauren Blauvelt was at a Planned Parenthood surgical center in Cincinnati. The executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio and chief public affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio wasn’t surprised, given the conservative majority on the Supreme Court and the May 2022 leak of the opinion.

That forewarning didn’t make the reality on the ground any less jarring. People seeking services had to be turned away because abortions had to stop by 3 p.m. For 11 weeks—until a lower court intervened—Planned Parenthood was unable to help many of its patients, including girls in foster care, homeless women and those without transportation to travel out of state.

In August 2022, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio joined with several other groups to form Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom. In December, they introduced a ballot exploration committee.

“The weekend following [the leak], we had thousands of people who showed up across the state to pro-

test the decision,” Blauvelt says. “We already had this charge and energy behind us. After Dobbs, all of the people who we’ve been working with for a long time on reproductive rights came together to communicate to millions of Ohioans that we needed an initiative to win abortion access. The important work of making that possible started.”

Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom worked as sister coalitions.

The coalitions worked together to finalize the amendment’s language. Then, they started collecting the signatures needed—413,446—to get it on the ballot. On July 5, 2023, the coalitions, with Kramer and Blauvelt as co-chairs, came together under a new group, Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, and dropped off more than 700,000 signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. After a Republican-backed attempt in August to make it harder to amend the state constitution failed, “Issue 1” headed to voters. It passed with 56.62 percent of the vote.

The doctors’ group, led by women in their late 30s and early 40s, leaned on the more experienced Kramer, who encouraged them to speak their mind without fear. Kramer also kept the doctors up to date on developments in other states. “This would not have happened if not for Nancy,” Beene says. “She was able to combine the need for protecting women’s rights—something so important to women that, frankly, most men will never understand—and translating that to a male-dominated economic force that is able to provide funding to get something off the ground. … We owe a lot to her in our state. She’s an unsung hero for all women in Ohio.”

“We owe a lot to [Kramer] in our state. She’s an unsung hero for all women in Ohio.”

—Dr. Lauren Beene

This included raising millions of dollars, hiring Ohio campaign professionals, securing legal advice, drafting and reviewing multiple rounds of proposed language, retaining a public opinion firm, building teams of volunteers and paid field staff, and registering voters.

A critical question arose: Should this head to voters in 2023 or 2024? Kramer and Celeste wrote in a Columbus Dispatch opinion piece that “abortion rights can’t wait to 2024.” Blauvelt wanted to ensure enough resources were in place to give the effort “everything we have” if it was going to go in 2023.

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Kramer says. “I’m hoping other people can see that they can make a difference. People coming together gave people in Ohio hope—hope that Ohio is not necessarily what everyone thinks it is. It’s a bit more nuanced and complex than people realized.”

Blauvelt says Issue 1 energized people like never before. “We put out the invitation: ‘This is a once-in-alifetime moment in Ohio where we can change the course of history,’ ” she says. “We asked people in our communities, ‘Will you join us?’ And they did.” ◆

Issue 1 supporters celebrate during an election night party in November.

Nancy

Forest of the

Nancy Stranahan, executive director of Arc of Appalachia, at the conservation organization’s first property, Highlands Nature Sanctuary

Nearly three decades since she founded what became the Arc of Appalachia, Nancy Stranahan has emerged as one of the state’s leading conservationists, preserving thousands of at-risk acres throughout Ohio. And she’s not done.

By Katy Smith

by Tim Johnson

If you could save wildlands in Ohio, would you do it?

The query was simple and profound. Printed on a brochure at the cash register at Benevolence Café in the mid-1990s, it challenged customers at the Downtown Columbus bakery to think about the delicate forests, prairies and other natural areas surrounding the expanding city. As population grows and development advances with it, as trees are cut down for roads and housing and a sea of concrete is poured over the landscape, who can save Ohio’s wildlands? Who can protect its forests and glens, its hollows and murmuring brooks, its woods alive with the songs of katydids, spring peepers, woodpeckers and wrens? Can anyone?

For the people who left cash in the jar at the Benevolence register, the answer was yes. They would save Ohio’s wildlands. And they were joined by Nancy Stranahan, the café’s co-founder.

As chief naturalist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Stranahan knew Ohio’s wild places well. She built and led a state parks staff dedicated to sharing their knowledge and love of Ohio’s diverse ecosystems, plants and animals with the public. It was rewarding work. But she grew restless. “It didn’t feel fresh and innovative and bold enough,” she says.

A friend invited her and her then-husband on a wilderness trip to Costa Rica. She’d never been overseas. Over winter break, they backpacked across the Osa Peninsula, known for being a wild, rainforested region. There, she saw macaws flying in pairs, hordes of red crabs, howler monkeys, crocodiles, saltwater bays and white beaches stretching into the horizon. It was a paradise of biodiversity.

Back in Ohio, Stranahan reflected on how the great eastern deciduous forest of North America once was teeming with species, too—before humans cut a majority of the trees down. The loss of such a massive swath of mature hardwood forest to timber and cropland meant some creatures who lived there, like the ivory-billed woodpecker, are gone forever. But many have proved resilient, capable of returning as the forest is allowed to recover.

Who would save the remaining wild places in Ohio? In the midst of a midlife crisis of sorts upon her return from Costa Rica, Stranahan decided she would.

“A lot of people go through it, where you’re questioning your decisions,” she says. “I’m a little bit of a rebel, and I felt sick of the whole capitalist American dream and the materialism; it was just so boring. And nothing seemed worthy to work for anymore. Like, what am I going to do with my money? Go on a cruise?

“It jelled in my mind that my life purpose, something I was willing to work for, was to help save biodiversity somewhere on the planet.” Ohio seemed like a great place for her to pursue that dream, with her knowledge of its natural splendor and her network of people who cared about the same things she did.

Photos

In 1995, with no money and no land, she and her husband co-founded a nonprofit organization called Highlands Nature Sanctuary, which later became Arc of Appalachia. It has grown into one of the largest independent natural conservation organizations in Ohio, having bought more than 11,000 acres of woodlands, gorges, waterfalls, prairies, swamps and ancient Indigenous earthworks in the state. It’s inspired thousands of people to connect with the magic of Ohio’s wild places and to pursue their own dreams of conservation. And it started with a café—and a cave.

Benevolence Café was a haven for Earth-loving vegetarians in the North Market in Downtown Columbus. In 1995, the same year Stranahan’s nonprofit was founded, the café opened in a standalone spot near the market at 41 W. Swan St., serving up entrée salads, quiches and hearty vegetable soups with slices of its signature Goddess Bread, crust flecked with oats and sunflower seeds. The bakery, which also kept a market stall, turned out breads, muffins and cookies using interesting grains, and patrons shared lunch and conversation at handmade, wooden communal tables. Bean sprouts, tofu and “bacon” bits were the menu of the day.

Benevolence was later sold to new owners, and it closed in 2009. The food and the vibe are still recalled wistfully by café regulars on social media, who trade copycat recipes for the café’s salads and dressings.

Marcia Miller remembers it well, having eaten there often enough to become friends with its owners. And to put money in the jar at the register, which humbly served as the first campaign by Stranahan’s fledgling nonprofit, Highlands Nature Sanctuary. The name came from a place in far eastern Highland County, west of Chillicothe, where Rocky Fork Creek flows through gorges and forested hills. The land they called Highlands Nature Sanctuary was for sale. Certainly, housing developers would become interested in subdividing the 60 acres if someone else didn’t buy it.

“They said, can you imagine this land being developed? Can you help us?” Miller remembers. “And people put $10s and $20s in that jar, and that was the beginning.”

The land had been a natural theme park of sorts since the 1920s, a place called Seven Caves where families would spend the day exploring the seven caves illuminated by electric lights and hiking the trails in the woods around them. Seven Caves and other attractions like it had fallen out of favor since the rise of video games and screen-based entertainment in the 1980s, and the property was in decline when it came up for sale.

There was an eighth cave, too. Stranahan and her husband had bought it a few years earlier as part of a 45-acre purchase that included a house that became their home. (The couple later divorced, and the husband left Arc of Appalachia.) Stranahan had long been fond of Seven Caves, owing to two summers

‘‘ It jelled in my mind that my life purpose, something I was willing to work for, was to help save biodiversity somewhere on the planet.”

—NANCY STRANAHAN

working at nearby Pike Lake State Park after graduating from South High School in Cleveland.

First, they pursued the most prominent conservation group in Ohio—the Nature Conservancy. They waited more than a year for a meeting with the director, who canceled the visit. Then, they offered to donate their land to ODNR if the state could help finance the purchase of Seven Caves. The talks were going favorably—until the agency got a new director. The deal died. Meanwhile, the owner of Seven Caves was losing patience.

Stranahan was uncomfortable with the idea of raising money from big donors, the path several people advised her to take. “I’m a retail girl,” she says. “You make a beautiful store [or campaign], and then you stand back and let people decide.” She set up an account at the Columbus Foundation and endeavored to cultivate many $100 donors. Highlands Nature Sanctuary raised $60,000 of the $203,000 purchase agreement for 47 of 60 acres at Seven Caves. (The owner was to keep the caves, buildings and parking lots.)

Around that time, surveyors showed up to mark the land into housing lots at the owner’s direction. Things seemed ready to fall apart.

Then the conservationists caught a big break.

The Nature Conservancy in Ohio got a new director. He started in the role the day after a Sunday feature spread ran in the Cincinnati newspaper detailing the quest to save Seven Caves, and that Monday the phones rang at the Nature Conservancy with donors requesting the organization’s help. The article, with its beautiful photos of the property, had omitted an important detail—how to contact the people behind Highlands Nature Sanctuary.

Stranahan got an appointment to see the new director, David Weekes, that day, and he agreed to fund the project with a low-interest loan. They bought the 47 acres, and the owner sold them the remaining 13 acres, caves and buildings 10 years later, in 2005.

“It was all very magical,” says Miller, who is the co-founder of the trailblazing Columbus studio Yoga on High, which operated from 2000 to 2023. (She sold it in 2021.) “Every single thing that happened in those days was a miracle. They’d say, ‘We found this land, and we need $100,000. And we’re $50,000 short, but we’re going to go to the closing anyway, and see what might happen.’ And then they would start calling [donors]. Every purchase felt like this miracle of goodness.”

As the organization grew from those early days, Miller and her husband, Kevin Eigel, became ongoing Arc of Appalachia donors, and they’ve taken the organization’s principles home with them. They bought their neighbor’s 100-acre farm in Galloway and spent two years working with Yellow Springs attorney Laura Curliss to enact a conservation easement on the land, protecting it in perpetuity from any use except as a nature preserve. They’re building a wetland there, and they’ve planted their own property with native

Clockwise from top left: The Barrett’s Rim trail at Highlands Nature Sanctuary takes hikers out over Rocky Fork Creek flanked by woodland gorges; the Appalachian Forest Museum entrance on Cave Road; and trail scenes featuring steep walls of rock, a twisted tree and understory greenery.

perennials, bushes and trees. “We’re stewarding the land to be full of habitat for all the living beings,” Miller says. The inspiration comes from what she’s learned during programs hosted by Arc of Appalachia—the names of wildflowers, trees, birds, moths, fireflies.

“I never thought I would care about geology. [Nancy Stranahan] made me care about geology. They’re so good at mixing education with the pleasure of seeing beauty in the world, that you can’t help but learn something incredible.

“You cannot believe how cool caterpillars are. Who cares about caterpillars? If you don’t have caterpillars, you don’t have birds.”

Standing in her modest Highland County farm kitchen, Nancy Stranahan pulls thick slices of toasty raisin bread from the oven and slathers them with salty butter. The kitchen cupboards are filled with mason jars of dried tea leaves, whole grains and legumes. She sits down to work at a small antique kitchen table in the living room, where dozens of houseplants have grown giant thanks to her care, soaking up light from windows that overlook an Arc of Appalachia nature preserve. Shelves are laden with books on plants, insects, birds, anthropology, archaeology and ecology. Cats roam about.

In her early 70s, Stranahan married again last year. Brent Charette, whom she hired as an ODNR naturalist back in 1982, leads Arc of Appalachia’s land stewardship team, building and maintaining the preserve system’s 70 miles of public hiking trails and managing invasive plants, which includes the help of hundreds of volunteers annually. Stranahan leads the administrative team, which concerns itself with land acquisition,

Fall colors are on display at Highlands Nature Sanctuary, right. A trail leads visitors through the woods at the sanctuary, top. Nancy Stranahan takes in the landscape she has spent decades working to preserve, bottom right on opposite page.

grant writing, marketing and finance.

The organization counts another married couple among its leadership. Andrea Jaeger, director of land acquisition, and Brit Wood, facilities manager, are the onsite managers at Tobacco Barn Hollow, a tract of woods at the Pike-Ross county border so deep it has no roads running through it. ’Backer Barn Hollow, as it’s called locally, is a steep ravine backing up to Pike State Forest. Most of the Arc’s 28 land preserves share borders with state parks. The idea is to protect as much contiguous natural land as possible, giving indigenous plants and creatures the chance to flourish in a habitat uninterrupted by development.

Jaeger has developed a reputation for her sensitive, sensible way with land donors and sellers, and she gives credit to Stranahan’s leadership. “She doesn’t stop,” Jaeger says. “So you have to keep up with her pace, which is just incredible, and it’s how this organization has grown to 11,000 acres.” About 7,000 of those have been added in just the past six years, and with $33 million in assets in its most recent tax year, the Arc of Appalachia now has about 10 employees, including a new position managing its significant volunteer corps.

The preserve system’s lands span fairly vast distances, with spots in Highland, Adams, Brown, Scioto, Pike, Ross, Vinton, Jackson, Hocking, Perry, Knox,

Holmes and Coshocton counties. It’s a lot to manage with such a small staff, and few funds for equipment. With an anonymous gift, the group last year was able to buy what it needed to create stewardship hubs near Tremper Mound in Scioto County and in Hocking County, where it recently closed on the purchase of 513 acres for a preserve it’s calling Resilience. The ability to raise funds for more than buying land is newly discovered for the nonprofit, Stranahan says. Its endowment doubled from $3 million in 2022 to nearly $7 million in late 2023, and it counts $16 million in known bequests.

Elijah Crabtree grew up in Chillicothe, riding past tattered billboards for Seven Caves. Like many other kids at that time, he never went there. “But I was always curious,” he says. Through hiking, Crabtree found a passion for the backwoods

of Ohio. “Growing up in Ohio, you have this cynical idea that we’re all just corn and soybeans and flatland. But we have beautiful landscapes and a big diversity of ecosystems—we have waterfalls and caves and big, steep hills with old growth forests and swamps, all these places I wasn’t aware of before I started hiking.”

He studied wildlife resource management at Hocking College and volunteered with the Arc before becoming its land manager for Tremper Mound, a prehistoric Hopewell culture earthwork believed to have served as a funerary hub.

Tremper Mound is one of many Hopewell sites in that part of Ohio, with Ross County believed to be the epicenter of the ancient culture’s development. Arc of Appalachia also owns Spruce Hill and Junction Earthworks, and it works with Ohio History Connection to help

manage Fort Hill. It previously helped the OHC manage the famous Serpent Mound but discontinued that work a few years ago.

These sites, like all of the Arc’s holdings, were purchased with donor support rallied by Stranahan. And she does it not with awards programs or glitzy galas. She stokes donor passions with her beautiful prose, which sometimes verges on poetry.

Take the opening volley at Arc of Appalachia’s website, for example:

There once lived a forest.

It was a nearly unbroken forest that covered the eastern third of our nation—a natural community that had sustained itself without interruption for over 40 million years and boasted a complexity second only to the tropical rainforest. Then, in a remarkably short time, we took the forest to the ground, before we even knew the immensity of what we had lost.

We must courageously face the fragmentation and diminishment of this oncegreat forest and turn loss into decision. The old-growth forest is literally just a thought form away. We are the children of the children of the children of the people who cut the forest down. We can be the generation that chooses to bring the forest back.

This messaging was not developed by a high-priced marketing firm. And the Arc logo, featuring a luna moth, wasn’t the product of a visioning exercise coordinated for tens of thousands of dollars by a strategic communications consultant. Both were created by Stranahan herself.

Arc of Appalachia puts out an annual news magazine authored by Stranahan, Jaeger, Charette and other staffers, updating donors and volunteers on its campaigns and featuring stunning nature photography by Ohio naturalists including Jim McCormac, who writes for The Columbus Dispatch (which is owned by

the same parent company as Columbus Monthly). Stranahan’s writing also is key in the organization’s successful leverage of Clean Ohio and other grants to purchase its properties.

Bob Warneke, president of the Austin, Texas-based Malcolm Damuth Foundation, has evaluated about 10 grant applications a year for the past 13 years from groups seeking funding for conservation projects. His board is composed of biologists, botanists, ornithologists and other professional Earth lovers. The foundation works primarily in Texas but has funded projects in 15 states. Its first grant in Ohio went to Arc of Appalachia in 2023—$25,000 for preservation of marshland in Holmes and Wayne counties.

“The grant application was one of the best written, most thorough, on-point grant applications we had ever read,” Warneke says. “I don’t know who could

better represent Ohio than Arc of Appalachia. The science that they cover was just amazing. I learned so much about mushrooms, fireflies and moss. They’ve got some of the top people in the state advising them. We were all just blown away by the annual report.”

In addition to its programs and guided hikes led by biologists, ornithologists, botanists and naturalists in Ohio, Arc of Appalachia has cultivated a small revenue stream with lodging, primarily at Highlands Nature Sanctuary. Its Appalachia-meets-Tolkien aesthetic distinguishes its headquarters at the Appalachian Forest Museum on Cave Road—the old Seven Caves gift shop. Visitors can learn to identify various species of trees by their bark, brought to life in floor-to-ceiling sculptures of trunks that dominate the space.

The grassroots authenticity resonates with donors at all levels. Of 1,600 cash

donations in 2023, just 300 gave more than $1,000. The organization’s 15 board members bring experience including a National Park Service ranger, an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency manager who oversaw the cleanup of toxic waste sites, nonprofit leaders, community gardeners, Earth science educators, a museum exhibit designer and people with financial services and marketing expertise. Many of them had significant volunteer engagement with the organization before joining the board.

“People who love nature, they’re a very small minority of the public, but their passion is off the charts. And they want to save the world,” Stranahan says.

As development escalates and more habitat is destroyed, interest in protecting it for future generations is growing. While it has no plans to slow its land purchase program, Arc of Appalachia is preparing to begin facilitating the creation of conservation easements, which could significantly grow the acreage it helps protect. These easements restrict the use of a property generally for a conservation purpose, says Laura Curliss, the attorney Marcia Miller worked with for her Galloway farm acreage. “The easement is like a blanket that lays over the land, whoever the owner is,” she says. “And it says this land shall be restricted for certain uses,

usually protecting significant natural habitat, waterways, forests or prairies.”

The nonprofit envisions a model where a trained volunteer corps negotiates the easements with landowners, ensuring they have the proper protections in place such as disallowing ATV runs, timber harvesting and homebuilding on protected properties. “There are lots of people in Ohio looking for a nonprofit willing to do this service for them, and they can’t find one,” Stranahan says.

Clintonville resident Jen Heller plans to go further than a conservation easement. She treasures the time she’s spent at the Hocking County property her dad purchased in 1967, which she calls Wildwood. “I came to really love the woods. It’s my second home,” she says.

She has a dream to bring back the native trees and shrubs like red and white oak, hickory, redbud, spicebush, viburnum and partridgeberry. To do that, she’s made a bequest of the land to Arc of Appalachia. Two neighboring property owners are planning to do the same.

“I want to know that forever in perpetuity, it will remain a wild place,” Heller says. “I get a solicitation at least once a week that somebody wants to buy it, or somebody wants to take the timber off it. And there aren’t enough zeros for me to even consider those offers. Because to me, its value is in staying wild.” ◆

prairie leading to the entrance to the Barrett’s Rim trail, left; Arc of Appalachia executive director Nancy Stranahan amid rock formations at Highlands Nature Sanctuary, below

The

Fifty Years of Fritz Fifty Years of Fritz

With a milestone anniversary occurring this year, movie host Fritz the Nite Owl remains a Central Ohio fixture long since his late night TV show went off the air.

By Peter Tonguette

uring any given year, the Ohio Theatre on East State Street attracts an eclectic array of Central Ohioans. Depending on the show, the historic venue might fill up with symphony lovers, ballet backers or wannabe Broadway babies.

Come summertime, the 96-year-old theater honors its heritage as a Loew’s movie palace, with film buffs flocking to the annual CAPA Summer Movie Series.

And for one night during the run, the theater draws what is perhaps its most unique constituency: horror hounds.

Starting in the early 2010s, the movie series has allocated one slot each season to pay homage to Frederick C. Peerenboom, whose mouthful of a name might be unfamiliar to those who know him by the moniker that won him fame: Fritz the Nite Owl. From 1974 to 1991, Peerenboom, in the inimitable guise of the

Owl, served as the host of, and chief creative force behind, Nite Owl Theater on WBNS-TV (Channel 10), which broadcast movies of every sort: Oscar winners, certified classics and cult favorites. A double bill of horror movies, dubbed the “Double Chiller” program, was always shown on Fridays.

Initially, CAPA invited Peerenboom to introduce horror movies, but a few years later, the Ohio began showing, on

PHOTO: TIM JOHNSON

its enormous screen, actual episodes of Nite Owl Theater—that is, full movies from “The Shining” to “Friday the 13th,” with elaborate, ostentatiously visualized introductions and periodic interjections from Fritz. By then, the series had been revived for the internet and theatrical showings, like those at the Ohio Theatre.

Last July, the horror hounds came out in droves when the Ohio showed Nite Owl Theater’s presentation of the 1987 vampire movie “The Lost Boys,” starring Corey Haim and Jason Patric. Peerenboom, who will turn 90 this year, has not been making live appearances in recent years, but he still seemed to be everywhere that night. In the lobby, Columbus filmmaker and musician Mike McGraner—who spearheads, produces and directs the second incarnation of Nite Owl Theater—was selling Fritz-themed swag, including posters and T-shirts. Inside the auditorium, a drawing of Fritz with fangs coming out of his mustachioed mouth was projected onto the screen. And, before the movie began, McGraner loped onstage. After talking for a few minutes, he began fiddling with his phone. Fritz was on the line. The audience erupted.

Capital City—but they were a community nonetheless.

One of those fans was Columbus transplant Maria Fanning. In the early 2000s, she moved to the city and stumbled upon a Fritz rerun on TV. “I was like, ‘Oh, good, something local,’ ” recalled Fanning at the Ohio Theatre screening.

“I’ve got some mobility problems, which is why I’m not there live and in-person with you, but I want to thank everybody who came,” Fritz said. To prove that Fritz was speaking live, McGraner asked the audience to give him some random numbers he could then ask Fritz to repeat: 10, 13, 28, 45. All went well, and the audience erupted again. “We love you Fritz!” someone yelled.

That night last July captured something of what Fritz brought to Columbus when he was a near-constant presence on TV and radio. Through his agreeably lowkey personality and genuine love of movies, Fritz was the head of a kind of community. The members of that community didn’t necessarily know each other—they participated from their own homes, apartments and dormitories throughout the

Like so many others, Fanning found watching movies presented by Fritz to be companionable, cozy, communal. “He has so much information about the movies that adds to the experience,” she says. “It’s like watching it with a friend.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Peerenboom’s debut as Fritz. And while his show has been off the air for more than three decades, his surprising second act continues to play out, with movie screenings, a podcast and more in the works to celebrate the milestone anniversary. Fritz the Nite Owl still manages to do what eludes most politicians, public officials and even other entertainers: In his own slightly off-center way, he brings people together.

ntil the early 1980s, movies could be seen in theaters and virtually nowhere else. Early home-video formats such as VHS and Betamax had been rolled out in the mid-1970s but would not achieve anything like ubiquity until later the following decade; subsequent formats, such

A 1983 postcard of Fritz

PHOTO: WBNS-TV

Fritz the Nite Owl, surrounded by movie memorabilia in his basement

“There is just an excitement of being there and being able to walk out onto that big stage. ... You see all those people, and they’re applauding you. It’s just terrific.”

Frederick C. Peerenboom a.k.a. ‘Fritz the Nite Owl’

as DVD and Blu-ray, were yet to be developed. And streaming—are you kidding?

If you wanted to see a movie in your living room, then, you had to rely on one of the local TV stations. For decades, Channel 10 presented movies under the banner of Armchair Theater. Early hosts included personalities Don Riggs and Dan Imel, but the show did not achieve immortality until it was taken over by Fritz the Nite Owl and rebranded Nite Owl Theater. Fritz joined the ranks of other so-called “horror hosts”—local broadcasters who added personality, humor and camp value when introducing a movie. “Every major city had one or two movie hosts,” Fritz says today. “They all had movie shows on.”

In the Horror Host Hall of Fame (a real thing) are such figures as Vampira (aka Maila Nurmi) and Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Bloom)—and, of course, Fritz—a 2012 inductee. “I grew up in Cleveland, when you had all those big movie hosts: I remember watching

Ghoulardi and Big Chuck and Hoolihan as a kid,” says Eric Hartzell, a longtime Channel 10 employee who worked on Nite Owl Theater. “Nite Owl Theater was just unique to Columbus.”

Like those other movie hosts, Fritz served a function: His program enabled people to see older horror movies—from “The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll” to “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?”—as well as a healthy sampling of movies from every other known genre. After all, horror only

Fritz poses in front of a screen playing the classic film “All About Eve.”

dominated on Fridays; the rest of the time, you would be treated to comedies, dramas, action flicks, Hitchcock thrillers and so on. “I liked all types of movies,” Peerenboom says.

But, in truth, most people probably didn’t watch just for the movies. Fans made Nite Owl Theater appointment viewing because of its host, who, with his signature oversized sunglasses, at times really did resemble an owl. But there was nothing owlish about Fritz’s disposition. With his cool, soothing voice—one already honed through years of radio broadcasting—Fritz reeled off facts and trivia about each movie with aplomb. “Sometimes the skits were funnier than the movie,” Hartzell says.

he middle of three sons born to Maurice and Rose Peerenboom, Frederick C. Peerenboom had probably the ideal training for his future profession: He came of age in the 1940s, when movies were still bigger than life. “There was no television,” says Peerenboom, who was born and spent his early years in Nekoosa, Wisconsin. “[Going to] the movies were dependent on good grades and good behavior.”

If he had been sufficiently well-behaved to go, though, the experience could be overpowering. On Saturday afternoons, double features would be accompanied by a whole bushel of cartoons and usually a serial installment, like Flash Gordon. But more significant was the sheer size of the movies in those days.

“When you’re 6, 7, 8 years old, and you see Frankenstein and Dracula and the Wolf Man on a big screen at night, and you’ve got to walk home through the woods to get to your house, it’s scary as hell,” Peerenboom says. “We weren’t as sophisticated as the kids are now, so we kind of believed that those people actually existed and were just waiting for us to make a wrong turn going home.”

Maurice Peerenboom, an Army officer, served in World War II. At the end of the war, Maurice relocated his family to an Army base outside of Baltimore, Maryland. “My two brothers and I were kind of Army brats,” Peerenboom says. His father was transferred again, this time to the ROTC division at Ohio State University, which is what took the family to Columbus. “[For] grade 11 and 12, I was at Columbus North,” says Peeren-

boom, but when his family got moved again, he stayed.

Peerenboom graduated from Ohio State University and then went into the Army himself. That might sound like a drag, but after basic training at Fort Knox, Peerenboom found himself at the Army Pictorial Center for two years. “It was the old Paramount Studios in New York,” he says. “It was like getting a master’s in film and television.”

By then, Peerenboom had already gotten his feet wet at Channel 10, first as a nighttime switchboard operator and

receptionist; after being honorably discharged from the Army, he went back to the station. His plate started filling up: He juggled his job at Channel 10 with a position at an area ad agency. He also worked as a radio announcer and disc jockey at WMNI (920 AM) and WBNS AM and FM.

“I thoroughly enjoyed radio,” he says. “As a DJ, I specialized in the modern jazz. People like Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Teddy Edwards, Houston Person—all the hardcore, mainstream jazz artists, none of the

Fritz’s artwork and supplies

smooth jazz artists.”

Even over the radio, Peerenboom’s voice—his actual, literal voice—drew people in as much as the records he was playing. Hartzell, the Channel 10 employee who later worked on Nite Owl Theater, says he once heard Peerenboom’s voice described as “like molasses on a rumble strip.” He says: “There’s a lot of years of smoking cigarettes, and he had this special Turkish blend.”

n the early 1970s, Peerenboom was working as the booth announcer on Channel 10 when it fell to him to assume off-camera duties on what was then Armchair Theater (with Chiller Theater on Fridays).

“You would read all of the live commercials over the air, and we would do all of the breaks,” he says. “Instead of saying, ‘We’ll be back, blah, blah, blah,’ I started to ad-lib about what we had just seen and what was coming up. … It was a combination of movie history, and wisecracking, and praising or slamming the movie.” From such humble beginnings, a legend was born. Early on, WBNS illustrator Dave Wagstaff whipped up a cartoon slide of Fritz the Nite Owl, and that, combined with Peerenboom’s engaging commentary, led to increased audience interest in Channel 10’s movie program. “They started to write letters to Fritz the Nite Owl, but there was actually no Fritz the Nite Owl character at Channel 10,” Peerenboom says. “But John Haldi, who was the program director, saw and heard the reaction that I was getting, and he decided, ‘OK, let’s make the Nite Owl a regular on-camera person like Flippo the Clown.’ ” Armchair Theater was history; Nite Owl Theater was born.

The image was burnished by Fritz’s onair getup, which had a heavy whiff of the 1970s to it: a cap, a vest and, of course, those frames. “At the time, Elton John was real big, and Dave Wagstaff, the artist, suggested that we just make a set of Nite Owl big eyeglasses,” Peerenboom says. “He put the horns on them, and broke the pieces of mirror and glued those on the horns that he added to the glasses. We got the glasses off the rack at Revco.”

Further distinguishing Fritz from other movie host personalities was his seamless integration into scenes from the movies being shown during his on-

air patter. Among other things, Peerenboom was deposited onto a spaceship, outside the Bates Motel and entering the Moulin Rouge. “I didn’t want to be one of these movie hosts that had the same living room set with a projector, where the set was always the same,” he says.

Eric Hartzell began at Channel 10 as an operations engineer in 1981, and over the next decade, he worked closely on the effects for Nite Owl Theater. “My coup de grace was the time we had Fritz in the aquarium, and he’s swimming through the aquarium and you see the goldfish

swimming around,” Hartzell says. “All of a sudden, you realize, ‘Wait a minute. The fish are swimming in front of him and behind him.’ People were commenting, ‘How in the heck?’ I’d explain to them how it was done and just say, ‘It’s just layers, guys. It’s layers.’ ” The movie: “Boy on a Dolphin” with Sophia Loren. Although the movie landscape had changed greatly by 1991—cable was booming, video rental stores were everywhere—Fritz says that the show didn’t come to a natural end. “Essentially, I got fired,” he says. “John Haldi retired as

Fritz’s famous owl-inspired glasses in their carrying case

Fritz mimes lighting Audrey Hepburn’s cigarette in a scene from the movie “Charade.”

program director, and the new guy came in. … His first words to me were, ‘I don’t like movies on television.’ And about two weeks later, 14 of us were given the ax.”

“When it went away,” Hartzell says, “I had people tell me: ‘Well, I used to stay up late and watch the movies. Now I just turn it off and go to bed.’ ”

et Fritz’s fans did not go away. Among the most devoted—certainly the most persistent and resourceful—was a Columbus native who caught the tail end of the original run of Nite Owl Theater. “It seemed like something that would forever be on,” says Mike McGraner, now 43. “If my brother and I were done playing video games or whatever, we would join wherever it was that night.”

But it wasn’t on forever, and by the time he had become a filmmaker himself, McGraner decided he wanted to do something with the man he considers his childhood hero: maybe a feature film, but probably a documentary. In 2009, through his friend and radio personality Dino Tripodis, McGraner got in touch with Peerenboom. “One night, I was shopping at Meijer and my phone rang, and I didn’t answer it,” McGraner says. “When I got out to the car, I played my voicemail, and it was Fritz, with that voice.”

Footage was shot for the documentary, but McGraner eventually landed on the idea of breathing new life into the original series by embarking on a new slate of episodes. The concept would be the same, but in order to play the episodes online or in theaters, they would initially restrict themselves to public-domain films. The effects would be infinitely more polished than what was possible with technology from the ’70s and ’80s.

But it took some persuading to convince Peerenboom. “I didn’t want to do it, because I thought nobody would be interested in it,” he says. “I turned them down four times. But my family and friends said, ‘Do it, do it, do it.’ ” And he did it. The first episode of the new Nite Owl Theater, with Fritz introducing and riffing on “Night of the Living Dead,” premiered late in the night of Oct. 29, 2010, at the Grandview Theater. The audience response that night allayed whatever concerns the host had about how well remembered he was. “Every seat was sold out, and they had to bring in folding chairs,” McGraner says. “He signed autographs afterwards and took pictures until [about] 4 in the morning.”

Some 67 episodes have been shot of the new Nite Owl Theater. Peerenboom himself wrote the early episodes, but, by the third season, McGraner was confident he could write in his hero’s voice. “I had heard him talk so much that, in my mind,

it was already written,” McGraner says.

On a chilly, rainy afternoon in November, I swung by the house Fritz shares with one of his grown sons and his family. These days, Fritz spends most of his time on the house’s lower level, a living area complete with kitchen and bathroom. The space is overflowing with memorabilia, his own original artwork, a great deal of bric-a-brac. Think a combination of Half Price Books and a comic book shop. (He always wanted to draw his own comic strip.)

Before I arrived, Fritz had been watching the classic Joseph L. Mankiewicz showbiz drama “All About Eve,” starring Bette Davis. He wanted me to hear a line of dialogue spoken by George Sanders, who plays a theater critic in the movie, so he cued the movie up and fast-forwarded to the right scene. “You have a point—an idiotic one, but a point,” Sanders says.

Watching the Nite Owl in his natural habitat is something to behold. He has surrounded himself with reminders of the past—not just his own career but the things that stimulated him, from movie stars to superheroes.

And watching Peerenboom interact with McGraner is like watching a master and an acolyte, maybe even a father and a son. Peerenboom dispenses stories, anecdotes, wisdom, and McGraner listens intently.

“Who was the person that thanked you because you didn’t ask a ‘yes’ or ‘no’

Fritz with longtime friend Mike McGraner, in Fritz’s basement

question?” McGraner asks.

“That was Tony Randall,” Fritz replies, before launching into a memory about the importance of asking intelligent questions at press junkets.

Not that all of their talk is nostalgic. “One of the best things about him is he was born in a time without television, and how he lived through every medium of media to the point where he stays current with it,” McGraner says. “He loves Stephen Colbert.”

Fritz interjects that his children—and now his children’s children, and their children—have helped him keep up.

Peerenboom and McGraner’s friendship is front and center in Conversations with the Owl, their new podcast. There are lots of things in the works this 50th anniversary year of Nite Owl Theater There could be some more episodes; there will definitely be a vinyl record of music from the show. Throughout the year, weekly screenings of episodes will be happening at movie theaters. In the month of May, for example, episodes will be shown at the Grandview Theater & Drafthouse on May 4, Studio 35 on May 11, the Gateway Film Center on May 17 and the London State Theater on May 23. And, of course, there will be a Fritz program this summer at the Ohio Theatre.

Night has not yet fallen on the Nite Owl. He thinks back on the last time he made a personal appearance at the Ohio, in 2019.

“There is just an excitement of being there and being able to walk out onto that big stage,” Peerenboom says. “You see all those people, and they’re applauding you. It’s just terrific.” ◆

Movie posters and artwork fill Fritz’s bathrrom.

Gahanna

A Columbus Monthly Suburban Section

Letter from the Mayor

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the city of Gahanna and invite you to rediscover a thriving community that offers a world of charm and tranquility, with endless possibilities.

Nestled along the Big Walnut Creek, in the shadow of John Glenn Columbus International Airport, Gahanna is more than just a place to live; it is a thriving hub of culture, commerce and community. From local businesses that add flavor to our neighborhoods to welcoming parks that offer solace and serenity, every aspect of our suburb reflects the warmth and diversity of our residents.

This year marks the 175th anniversary of the founding of Gahanna. While we celebrate the rich heritage that has formed the city of 35,000+ residents that we know today, we are building with purpose as we evolve and modernize for the future.

Whether it is small, family-owned businesses that are choosing to grow in Gahanna, larger enterprises that are driving innovation and economic expansion or our school district that is investing millions of dollars in capital improvements to expand opportunities for today’s students and accommodate future student populations, Gahanna is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit and economic

vitality that define our region. With our tree-lined streets, welcoming and diverse neighborhoods, 20+ miles of trails, 800+ acres of parkland and open spaces and beloved events, you have a city that offers everything you need to create your own unique story.

Despite the physical changes that have occurred since 1849, one theme remains constant in the heart of our city—the connection our residents have to their community and to one another, and the pride and affection they have for Gahanna.

As you explore this special section, I invite you to immerse yourself in the stories of our diverse community, celebrating the achievements of our local talents, the collaborative spirit that unites us all and the hidden gems that make Gahanna a cherished destination. Whether you are a longtime resident or a curious visitor, we look forward to welcoming you to the city we love to call home.

Laurie Jadwin, Mayor

CITY OF GAHANNA

A Columbus Monthly Suburban Section

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A CITY FILLED WITH PERSONALITY

Gahanna is filled with fun, culture, diversity, history, unique characters and caring people.

ATTRACTING INVESTMENTS

Gahanna offers a thriving business sector that benefits from a convenient location and strong community support.

HEALTH CARE HUB

Gahanna sees tremendous growth in the medical sector.

CREATING SUCCESS STORIES

Gahanna schools are excelling in academics and beyond.

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Mayor Laurie Jadwin

LIFESTYLE

A CITY WITH PERSONALITY

Gahanna is filled with fun, culture, diversity, history, unique characters and caring people.

Music by the Creek

For three days each June, the city of Gahanna’s Creekside District becomes the epicenter for enthusiasts of jazz, blues and soulful sounds of all sorts.

Naturally, the Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival draws music aficionados from Gahanna and surrounding suburbs, but the annual event also brings in numerous out-of-towners eager to hear local and nationally recognized acts—some 25,000 guests from 27 states last year, according to Lori Kappes, executive director of the Gahanna Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“Some people put it on their calendar knowing that it’s the Father’s Day

weekend every year,” Kappes says. “I’ve heard people say that Gahanna residents who have family members from other places will have them come and visit [Gahanna] during that weekend.”

This year, the 25th edition of the festival will be held June 14-16 and will feature an eclectic array of headliners, including Jason Ricci and the Bad Kind, MojoFlo, Huntertones and Brass Queens. Each genre is given its own stage: a jazz stage and a blues stage.

“It’s definitely the biggest event that we have in Gahanna,” Kappes says.

Yet, a quarter of a century ago, the festival’s origins were modest: the first edition was a half-day event celebrating

the opening of Creekside Park.

These days, attendees not only have a multitude of music to choose from but an array of ways to satisfy their appetites while their souls are being nourished through sound.

“In addition to all the world-class music, we do have lots of great food options,” Kappes says, pointing to some 20 food vendors who will have setups at the festival.

“We meticulously go through the menus of the food vendors who apply to make sure there aren’t any repetitive dishes being served,” she says.

Plus, there are always restaurants within the footprint of the festival.

The 2023 Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival

PHOTO:

JAMES D. DECAMP

“People have options to do food truck food, and they also can go and have a seat in a restaurant and eat that way,” she says.

Area businesses—both restaurants and shops—report a boom from the influx of people who come to Gahanna during the three-day event.

“We’ve been told from other businesses that are not even walkable from here ... that that weekend is one of their biggest weekends from people just stopping there on the way out from the festival or on the way in,” Kappes says.

Kids are welcome, too: A children’s discovery area features music and activities tailored to budding blues and jazz enthusiasts.

“We’ll have different music performers on that stage, and they invite kids to come up onstage with them,” Kappes says. “They are given little shakers and musical instruments to participate and dance. It’s just really adorable.” —PETER TONGUETTE

Unique People, Unique Stories

Gahanna’s slogan is “Your unique story

begins here,” and no one knows that to be true more than Kari Hawk. As vice president of the Gahanna Historical Society, she’s passionate about sharing stories of the famous, infamous and downright quirky characters who have called the city home.

That includes a musician who Rolling Stone called “one of the greatest guitarists of all time.”

Hawk shares, “Joe Walsh of The Eagles grew up playing in the creeks and running around the city.”

Still, there’s someone who has even more name recognition—at least as far as surnames go.

“One of my favorite stories is that the Bush family, of the two presidents, their grandfather and great-grandfather, Samuel Prescott Bush, was president of Buckeye Steel and built a house in Gahanna once he became wealthy and wanted to establish himself in the area,” Hawk adds. “He was the first Bush to really get the family riches going, and that shaped history.”

Beyond individual residents, Gahanna has made history for groups of people, too.

“We were home to one of the first Black or African American country clubs in the country. It was where Friendship Park is today,” Hawk says.

Big Walnut Country Club was commemorated at Friendship Park with the city’s first dedicated historical marker, which was unveiled in fall 2022.

Another group Gahanna is proud to support is Gahanna Residents In Need, a local food pantry.

GRIN provides food assistance to people who need it in the 43230 ZIP code, which encompasses Gahanna.

“We have 36 different languages filtering through our elementary schools, [and] a lot of people from different countries eat more fresh foods and foods they prepare themselves,” says Brenda Johnston, executive director of GRIN. “So, we try to provide different kinds of produce and things that are not in a box and have diversity in our meat and dairy selections.”

Johnston first began volunteering with GRIN in 2006 and has seen the organization grow exponentially. Just this past year, GRIN moved from a 2,500-square-foot facility to one with

The 2023 Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival

When life has you frazzled, find your peace in Gahanna parks.

6,400 square feet, which allows them to serve 8,000 to 10,000 people each year. Looking forward, Johnston is working to partner with other organizations to increase the food pantry’s supply of fresh produce, especially in the winter.

“I love working for people and helping them eat, “Johnston says. “The basics of life are being able to eat and feed your family. And if they can’t eat, how are they supposed to go to school and learn? Or go to their jobs and be effective?”

GRIN celebrated 50 years in business in 2022, which speaks to the generosity of Gahanna’s residents. This sense of community is one reason why Hawk loves the city so much.

“The people here are some of the nicest people,” Hawk says. “We have some of those webpages where people can say things like, ‘I need a crib,’ and they’ll have a crib within an hour.

PHOTOS: JAMES D. DECAMP

City of Gahanna

Everybody wants to help each other,”

When Shelby Lee and Greg Austrow were looking for a home three years ago, they didn’t yet know about Gahanna’s culture of kindness; they were drawn by the city’s other qualities.

“We chose Gahanna because the schools are good, and there are a lot of parks in the area and a lot that can be walked to,” Austrow says. “Gahanna is close to [Interstate] 270, so there’s accessibility to the rest of Columbus.”

However, they were pleased to find that Gahanna has several unique amenities that cater to the couple’s interests, which include nature, gardening, good food and karaoke.

“I enjoy the bike trails, especially the Big Walnut Trail,” Austrow adds. “The Gahanna Grill is really good, and we like Signatures Tavern, as well as pretty much everything in the Creekside area. Plus, Gahanna is the Herb Capital of Ohio.”

“Creekside Café is another one of

our other favorites,” says Lee. “We also recently went to the Dolphin Lounge, and they do a lot of karaoke, which we love.”

These are just a few of the many unique stories that begin in Gahanna, and each new resident adds to the funky fabric of this vibrant community.

—MANDY SHUNNARAH

The Herb Capital of Ohio

Fifty-two years ago, a Gahanna resident wanted her city to be associated with something—anything.

“She wanted Gahanna to be known for something,” says Kappes of the Gahanna Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So, in 1972, Jane “Bunnie” Geroux succeeded in persuading members of the Ohio legislature to deem Gahanna the Herb Capital of Ohio.

“She and her friends really enjoyed gardening herbs, so she just said, ‘You know what? We’re going to make Gahanna be known for that,’ ” Kappes

says.

“Two years ago now was our 50th anniversary of being designated Ohio’s Herb Capital,” Kappes says.

Today, the city lives up to that unique label.

The Ohio Herb Center—formerly known as the Ohio Herb Education Center—is located within the NafzgerMiller House, a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

From the Herbal Cocktail Trail: Barrel & Boar’s Rosemary Greyhound cocktail

PHOTO: COURTESY CITY OF GAHANNA

In the house’s parlor, the center presents classes and workshops on everything from culinary to medicinal uses of herbs.

“We just had a sold-out winter skincare-with-herbs class, so it’s a variety [of activities],” Kappes says, “[like] landscaping-with-herbs classes.” The center also is home to a gift shop with many locally made products.

Perhaps the largest example of the city’s herbal heritage can be found on Herb Day, which is held on the first Saturday each May in the Creekside District. “It’s a giant plant sale,” Kappes says. “We have herb [plants] and flowers.” Health and wellness vendors also set up shop in the district. “And we have various types of entertainment. We have some demonstrations and other fun activities.”

Last but not least is the Herbal Cocktail Trail, which has been a community favorite since launching in 2017. “We ask our local establishments that have liquor licenses ... to participate by offering an herb-infused cocktail,” Kappes says, adding that establishments without liquor licenses can offer herb-infused mocktails.

“We have 12 different local establishments [participating],” she says. “If you pick up a passport and get six stamps [on the trail], then you are eligible for a prize.”

Passports are available at the Ohio Herb Center. —PETER TONGUETTE

From the Herbal Cocktail Trail: Local Cantina’s Stargarita

ATTRACTING INVESTMENTS

Gahanna offers a thriving business sector that benefits from a convenient location and strong community support.

By Andrew King

Nestled just east of Columbus, the city of Gahanna, with a population above 35,000, is making an outsized impact on the region. It boasts a thriving business community and a reputation beyond its borders, attracting investment and entrepreneurship from down the street and across the globe.

Decades before Gahanna was named Realtor.com’s “Hottest ZIP Code in the Nation” in 2023, the community was already drawing broad interest.

In 1983, Belgium-based international

aerospace intelligence innovator ADB Safegate expanded its operations to the United States by opening its North American headquarters at 977 Gahanna Parkway. The decision would be the start of a partnership that’s lasted more than 40 years, renewed in 2021 by the announcement that ADB would double down on its Gahanna investment, building a 175,000-squarefoot “Center of Innovation” at Science Boulevard and Tech Center Drive.

“We did look outside of Gahanna— we actually looked outside of the

state,” says Michael Morrow, CFO of ADB Safegate Americas. “But Gahanna has always been a good partner with us, and we frankly wanted to stay here, for our employees … and because we like Gahanna.”

Morrow says the new site—a gleaming, modern space that nearly tripled the size of the former headquarters— made sense because of the logistics of being close to the airport and because of assistance and incentives from economic development agency JobsOhio and the city of Gahanna.

PHOTO: COURTESY CITY OF GAHANNA

“It was a good experience working with them,” he says. “We liked the community … and we didn’t want to leave. It turns out we didn’t have to.”

While ADB Safegate has a global view from within Gahanna, businesses don’t need international aspirations to find a home in the community, even if they’ve been on a long journey of their own.

Southern California isn’t quite as far from Gahanna as Belgium, but the trip to Central Ohio was still a long one for Candi Francisco, owner of one of Gahanna Creekside District’s newest businesses, Speakeasy Bakery. Originally from St. Louis, Francisco moved to Central Ohio from the West Coast after working for a liquor company in Los Angeles.

Not a drinker herself, she wasn’t sure what to do with the “many cases of liquor” that were remnants of her old job. So, she started baking with it, earning a reputation among her friends for her delicious treats. After working out of the Food Fort in Columbus, she decided to open a brick-and-mortar location and settled on Creekside, which was something of a callback to her very first Central Ohio experience.

“The funny thing is, when I first moved to Columbus, I moved here for a job,” Francisco says. “And when I had my interview, I came here from California. Gahanna was actually the first part of Columbus that I saw.”

Positioned just a few miles from the airport, Gahanna has an uncanny ability to serve as a first impression of Central Ohio. And those who can capitalize on that opportunity see a real benefit.

Since opening their Gahanna business in 2022, Jomar and Shanika Sheppard have had their fair share of celebrity run-ins thanks to presenting an appetizing, nearby option for people stepping off a plane. The pair owns Marlow’s Cheesesteaks at 93 N. High St., a venture inspired by their Philadelphia roots.

“There was a big music festival in Springfield, Ohio, last year, and a band was flying in from LA,” Shanika says.

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“The funny thing is, when I first moved to Columbus, I moved here for a job. ... And when I had my interview, I came here from California. Gahanna was actually the first part of Columbus that I saw.”

Candi Francisco, owner of Speakeasy Bakery

Head baker Judy Slattery prepares tiramisu and cannoli at Lola & Giuseppe’s Bakery.

PHOTOS: COURTESY CITY OF GAHANNA

A tiramisu and cannoli dish at Lola & Giuseppe’s Bakery

“They were on the plane and said, ‘We’ve got to get food,’ and someone happened to be on the same flight and said, ‘You’ve got to go to Marlow’s. It’s like five minutes from the airport.’ We get people like that.”

The appeal of airport-adjacent cheesesteaks goes far beyond musicians, though. Over the last two years, Marlow’s has seen a variety of nationally known comedians, largely thanks to the Funny Bone Comedy Club at Easton; former NBA player and reality TV star Lamar Odom, and even the basketball team of Southern California’s Sierra Canyon High School, home of LeBron James’ kids.

For entrepreneur Pam Tylka, meanwhile, a move to Gahanna came as a kind of kismet.

Tylka had owned and operated the popular Pam’s Market Popcorn, out of Columbus’ North Market Downtown for years. But the expenses and challenges of running a Downtown business had forced her to leave, and she wasn’t

sure where her next home would be until a chance encounter brought her back to her family’s roots.

“When I left the market. I didn’t have a plan,” she says. “But one day I had to ship something at the UPS Store here, and I saw that this location was available. When I looked at it, oddly enough, there was a North Market basket in here. I was like, ‘Wow.’ It was just perfect. And it worked out. I was almost giving up hope of finding a place, and it just so happened that my kids grew up here and went to school in Gahanna. So, this is where I belong, I guess.”

Back in Gahanna since 2017, the smaller town feel was particularly important for Tylka years later, when she was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma after a chance trip to the doctor for a broken toe. Running a business while battling cancer is never easy, but Tylka appreciates the backing and care she’s received from those around her.

“I’ve had great support from the

customers and the community,” she says. “People would come and bring me stuff and help me out [and offer] encouragement. I mean, I was closed, and my people understood that some days I didn’t feel good. I’m very blessed and very lucky.”

While some business owners like Tylka have enjoyed rediscovering Gahanna, others never really left.

After growing up and going to school in the city, brothers Joey and Jamey Sexton started a pizza food truck in 2016 with just a few thousand dollars. Now, the pair operate Sexton’s Pizza in Gahanna, Hilliard and Harrison West, along with their new venture, Sexton’s Burger Bar, which opened in early March at 921 E. Johnstown Road in the same shopping center as their Gahanna pizza location. For the brothers, sticking around their home community was important.

“Anything we did in the beginning, we were always like, ‘It would be fun to

City of Gahanna

go have something where we grew up,’ ” Joey says. “Obviously, we did the pizza shop there, and that’s doing really well. So when we had another concept, which is the burger bar, we had a good landlord, a space a couple doors down and everything we wanted.”

This new venture comes with a celebrity twist, as former Ohio State University quarterback and NFL wide receiver Braxton Miller joined the ownership group, bringing added popularity to the Sexton’s brand that is already thriving thanks to excellent online pizza reviews.

“This is an awesome community,” Shanika Sheppard says. “And they really have a strong appreciation for family, community and supporting local businesses. We get support from other communities, too—New Albany, Canal Winchester, Pickerington, Reynoldsburg, Westerville, Pataskala. So we’re also helping to drive traffic of non-Gahanna residents into Gahanna, which is important, too, because you also don’t want a community to feel so much pressure to constantly have to support the businesses.”

“I think it’s a blast for the suburbs,” Joey says of Miller’s involvement, “and it’s something to look forward to on game days. They have an Ohio State legend in their neighborhood in Gahanna.”

With or without a local legend on board, the future looks bright for Gahanna. The city is reinvesting in a variety of areas through its Gahanna Community Improvement Corp., purchasing space with hopes to revitalize or revamp. That includes parcels in the Creekside District, which hosts the city’s biggest annual event, the Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival.

But as the city’s reputation grows and its reach broadens, business owners find themselves relying less on one big event and more on the community within and beyond its borders.

And for those who came from other neighborhoods—either across the city or across the world—that kind of community feel has been a critical amenity for Gahanna.

“I have friends that have businesses in California, and when I tell them just how much of a personal touch there is and how supported I feel being here versus what they’re experiencing in California, they’re very jealous,” Francisco says. “It’s been a wonderful experience. And Gahanna is telling me, ‘This is what the city has planned. These are the opportunities that we have in the future. This is how we would like to incorporate your business.’ They’re definitely there to help see your business grow and flourish and be a part of the community. So it’s wonderful.”

Sexton’s Burger Bar owners, from left to right: Jamey Sexton, Stephen Jordan, Braxton Miller and Joey Sexton

PHOTO: COURTESY CITY OF GAHANNA

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“Get ready, Gahanna! The vibrant and tantalizing world of Bubble Tea and fresh juices has descended upon Creekside Gahanna with the grand opening of the newest Bubbles The Tea & Juice Company”

HEALTH CARE HUB

Gahanna sees tremendous growth in the medical sector.

By Peter Tonguette

When one of Central Ohio’s leading orthopedic practices is building a new 60,000-square-foot facility, it’s big news.

“Every time I drive past, I’m seeing more progress,” says Stephanie Rauschenbach, the director of market development at Orthopedic ONE, which boasts nine locations throughout the region.

The new, still-under-construction office, which will function primarily as a clinical space, will open in Gahanna this fall and will replace an existing office on Taylor Station Road.

What makes the facility even bigger news, though, is its location: Orthopedic ONE’s new office is being built in Crescent at Central Park, a

112-acre mixed-use development in Gahanna. Over the last three years, the area has become a hub for the health care sector.

“We have probably 30 practices that will be there, either established or already committed to go into an existing building that’s under construction,” says Larry Canini of Canini and Associates, which is developing Crescent at Central Park.

“We can all complement and support one another, and it also just makes it that much more convenient for the patient, which is a big part of our mission,” Rauschenbach says.

Among those health care practices with a presence in the development

A rendering of the new Orthopedic ONE building as you will see from I-270

Pictured from left to right: Orthopedic ONE’s Chief Operating Officer Brooke Burns, Chief Executive Officer Mark D’Aloisio, Gahanna Site Manager Courtney Taylor, Physician and Managing Partner Joel Politi, Physician and Managing Partner Jonathan Feibel, and Gahanna Mayor Laurie Jadwin celebrate the groundbreaking of the practice’s new facility at the Crescent at Central Park.

PHOTO:

City of Gahanna

are Central Ohio Primary Care-Family Physicians of Gahanna, Vive Vascular and Ohio Opthalmology, among others. There is room for more to come, with Ohio Gastroenterology, Central Ohio Endoscopy and Capital Psychology set to move in later this year when their building, currently under construction, is completed.

“We would probably be in a position right now to offer, easily, another 200,000 square feet [about twice the area of a Manhattan city block] of medical uses in some breakdown or another of size for the next two or three years,” Canini says.

The origins of Crescent at Central Park stretch back over a decade.

“The project started as a 100-acre parcel that had been basically farmland between I-270 and Hamilton Road,” Canini says. “The Buckles family, which is a generational family in Columbus, had controlled that land.”

In 2012, the city of Gahanna sought

to attract users to the property by building Tech Center Drive, a main thoroughfare that bisected the 100 acres. “When that occurred, [the city] made the effort to build what became Buckles Court South, and that generated a 10-acre area on the south side of Tech Center Drive along Big Walnut Creek,” Canini says.

That allowed for the first building to be constructed on what is now Crescent at Central Park: Central Ohio Urology Group.

The project stalled, and by 2018, Canini’s group got involved.

“What we did—in conjunction with the city’s team, of course—was look at the whole site and say, ‘OK, what’s the best way to lay this out from a mixed-use standpoint?’ ” Canini says. “We focused on the fact that we had the Central Ohio Urology Group already established on the eastern end of that corner.”

From there, the decision was made to actively attract additional medical

practices to join the urology practice and create a kind of health care hub for the city of Gahanna.

“It’s a great location,” says Dr. Ronney Abaza, a robotic urologic surgeon who practices at the Central Ohio Urology Group. “The proximity to the airport is really fantastic, particularly for those of our patients that come from out of town [and] are flying in.”

The Central Ohio Urology Group draws patients from around the country for its unique status as an ambulatory surgery center equipped with the da Vinci Xi, a robot that allows intricate procedures to be performed using the tiniest of incisions. The group was the third ambulatory surgery center in the nation to make use of the robot.

“The layman’s term is ‘keyhole surgery,’ ” Abaza says. “You’re basically doing surgery through these little keyholes. We have a scope, and we can see what’s going on in the inside. The instruments are robotic, so the

Maggie’s Orthopedic Practice MOST TRUSTED

“I was really active in college, but began experiencing hip and back pain. Doctors said I had hip dysplasia – but offered no next step. I thought this was just how my life was going to be. After searching for solutions online, I found experts at Orthopedic ONE who could fix my problem. I got off crutches and never looked back. Orthopedic ONE absolutely changed my life.”

– Maggie James, Military wife, Bartlet’s mom and Orthopedic ONE patient

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“What we loved about Gahanna [and] Crescent was the ease of access, right off [I-]270. Having all that complementary health care development happening in that space is a great thing for our patients.”

Stephanie Rauschenbach, director of market development at Orthopedic ONE

surgeon, at a console, has these little remote controls and we control the robotic arms inside the body.”

Although it can be applied to various procedures and conditions, the robot is mainly used to treat prostate and kidney cancer.

“We’re able to do the same operation we used to do by hand, by cutting people open, through these little, tiny incisions,” Abaza says, adding that such traditional procedures usually involve spending several days in the hospital and possibly receiving blood transfusions.

With robotic surgery, by contrast, “[patients] have a lot less pain, and recovery is a lot faster,” Abaza says.

Not only does robotic surgery hasten recovery time, but the ability to do it on an outpatient basis outside of a hospital setting contributes positively to a patient’s mental and emotional well-being.

“Patients who have been diagnosed with cancer and are facing cancer surgery obviously have a lot to worry about, so it’s very common for them to be anxious, stressed, sometimes even [having] some depression, too,” Abaza says. “I tell people it’s like going to a day spa, but rather than having a massage or a facial, you’re getting your prostate cancer taken care of.”

As the anchor to the medical sector of the Crescent at Central Park, the physicians who practice at the Central Ohio Urology Group recognize the benefit of being in close proximity to a wide array of other health care providers.

“We have 25 urologists, and urologists that really cover all the different sub-specialties of urology,” Abaza says. “Any of these referring physicians who decide to practice in our area [in Gahanna] will know that, if there are any urologic issues that they see with any of their patients, we’ve got it covered.”

Orthopedic ONE was also drawn to the Crescent at Central Park because of the emphasis placed on health care services in the area.

“We knew it was time to leave that Taylor Station space and really focus on a space that would allow us to be fully clinical,” says Rauschenbach, noting that the Taylor Station office was used as both a clinical practice and administrative offices.

The new location will serve residents of Gahanna and neighboring areas.

“We see a lot of growth happening over on that side of town,” Rauschenbach says. “We are pulling from New Albany out to Pickerington. We do have a smaller Canal Winchester presence, but we are seeing a lot of those patients from that southeastern quadrant come to us in our Gahanna location.”

Although the medical sector has helped spur growth at Crescent at Central Park, the development is designed to be mixed-use in the fullest sense.

“With all the employees that are coming in to work in these medical communities or medical buildings ... a lot of [staffers] would need an opportunity to have a place to live,” Canini says. This spring, Casto will break ground on Crescent Woods, a 294-unit multifamily complex also located at the Crescent at Central Park.

“In our game, it’s always about bringing [in] daytime employees and then nighttime residents,” says Canini, who now hopes to roll out retail opportunities along Hamilton Road. A gas station and convenience store will also

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Having a strong health care presence in the development, though, provides a solid, foundational anchor that will ensure its success over the long haul.

“The benefit of bringing in medical users ... is not only giving them an opportunity to come to this location, but we actually give them an opportunity of having ownership in the building,” Canini says. “So now they’re committed to the project, both financially and long-term.”

The developer notes with appreciation the role the city of Gahanna has played in realizing the area’s potential.

“Gahanna has been very helpful and progressive in helping us move in this direction,” he says. “You don’t always get that from communities, but they see the value in what we are bringing.”

Supporting Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

Two organizations in the city of Gahanna are helping residents with developmental disabilities find their way in the community—and helping businesses benefit from what they can offer.

“The growth for this industry is pretty staggering,” says Ryan Cook, the executive director of all R friends, which provides day support and supported living services to those with disabilities 18 and older.

The organization, which began in 2009 in the Church of the Nazarene in Westerville, now operates a total of six locations, including, since 2013, one in Gahanna. There is a wait list at all locations.

“The numbers are just getting more and more every year,” Cook says of demand for his organization’s services, which include providing clients with the training and support necessary to obtain jobs in the community.

“There are more and more individuals with autism, more and more individuals with some form of developmental disability,” Cook says. “The need is only growing greater.”

At all R friends, individuals accepted into the program are divided into teams: a blue team, consisting of

“One of the things we work on with the blue team [is] employment skills—helping them figure out what it means to have a job, what kind of job they might want, what skills they need to have to have that job.”

Ryan Cook, executive director of all R friends

those requiring less hands-on assistance, and a green team, for those requiring more assistance.

“Our blue team is our more independent group: individuals who are very capable of doing a lot on their own,” Cook says. “They do need some assistance … but they’re very quick learners, and they’re very capable.”

While attending the day program at the organization, those in the blue team will learn life skills, including those necessary to live independent

Participants of all R friends at the Gahanna facility

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of parents or family members; those tasks include doing laundry, cleaning houses and managing money. Many are also being prepared for future employment.

“One of the things we work on with the blue team are employment skills—helping them figure out what it means to have a job, what kind of job they might want, what skills they need to have to have that job,” says Cook, whose organization also helps individuals with such practical things as preparing a resume and learning to apply for jobs.

Because of a contract maintained with Gahanna-based radio station 104.9 The River, all R friends is able to match individuals who wish to work with an initial employment experience at the radio station.

“We clean that [radio station] building with our crew,” Cook says. “We have three individuals that go with a job specialist. It’s a three-story building, and we clean all three levels.”

The organization then helps individuals navigate the job market, with an emphasis on identifying local employment opportunities to avoid transportation challenges. Grocery stores have long been receptive to working with those in the all R friends program, Cook says.

“These individuals have great work ethics,” Cook says. “Our members are consistent: They show up on time every single day; they almost never call off.”

Even after an individual has found a job, all R friends continues to support that person as they navigate other

Far left: Creative Options’ owner Danielle Abel shakes Mayor Laurie Jadwin’s hand, alongside employees Fallon Kline and Shoko Yoshitake.

goals in their life.

“We’ll take them out into the community, when they’re at the day program, to different places in Gahanna,” Cook says. “Here’s the movie theater at Stoneridge you can schedule things at; here’s a nursing home you can volunteer at.”

Also located in Gahanna is Creative Options, which has been open for about a year.

“We service adults with developmental or physical disabilities within about a 10- to 12-mile radius of our building,” says Fallon Kline, program director of Creative Options.

The organization offers a day program on-site, which offers programming to help further a person’s educational and other skills to encourage independence.

“We want our individuals to be able to have the goals that they set for themselves for the year, and then we try to build around that,” Kline says. “A lot of [the individuals] have fitness goals, or health and hygiene goals.”

A second, newer program is dubbed the “community inclusion program,” in which an individual will spend a portion of the day on-site but then be transported to a specific destination in Gahanna.

“They then go out and spend the entire day in the community working with different businesses and organizations,” Kline says. “They do volunteer work with them. They’re building those types of connections. It’s also a way for them to see: ‘Hey, I really like this. I might want to work here.’ ”

Creative Options also forges relationships with local organizations or businesses, with the goal of enabling an individual to find employment.

“We had an individual who used to work at a movie theater, and a lot of those jobs were cut out for our members when COVID hit,” Kline says. “[This person] suggested, ‘Hey, can we make a connection at a movie theater?’ We were able to do that, and now, [the person] is going to Marcus theater every Friday and doing concession work and handing tickets out.”

The organization praises the city of Gahanna for their support of, and enthusiasm for, the work they are doing.

“We had a great open house,” Kline says. “The mayor came and talked to us. We’ve had connections with the city.”

Although the organization hopes to expand to additional sites, its home base has been a great launching pad.

“Gahanna has been a really good [place] to start out in,” Kline says.

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CREATING SUCCESS STORIES

Gahanna schools are excelling in academics and beyond.

By Mandy Shunnarah

Many Gahanna newcomers are drawn to the community because of its robust schools. For instance, the local school district is investing more than $250 million in capital improvements. As the Columbus metro area continues to grow following developments like the nearby $20 billion Intel project, Gahanna is proactively expanding its school footprint.

“We completed the build-out of Blacklick Elementary, adding 10 classrooms, a new gymnasium, extended

cafeteria space, increased small group space, added music and art spaces and, of course, added the capacity that goes along with that,” says Cliff Hetzel, chief operating officer of GahannaJefferson Public Schools. “Then we did the same at High Point Elementary and Middle School East. Our science labs at Middle School East are phenomenal. They’ll be able to do more advanced experiments than ever before.”

But the real pièce de résistance will be the new Gahanna Lincoln High

Superintendent Dr. Tracey Deagle reading to students

School, where all students from the district’s multiple elementary and middle schools attend upper secondary school. Construction is well underway.

“The new high school will be about 508,000 square feet with about 130 learning spaces. We’ll have a gym, field house, a performing arts center, and we’ll have a walkthrough from the entrance of the building that leads to the new stadium,” Hetzel says. “There’ll be flexibility and scale in this new building to be able to move things around and do what we need to do to have small and large groups together.”

More than merely accommodating the need to serve more students, each element of the new high school was created using a forward-thinking design process. The project includes advanced tech amenities such as robotics, while also increasing the size of the fabrication lab and the school’s media space. In addition, the project will add a location for the EastlandFairfield Career Center, where students will learn about such professions as bioscience, teaching and sports medicine. “We’re looking at greater flexibility, greater collaboration opportunities, greater tech integration, access for

everyone, so everything is being built for tomorrow,” Hetzel says.

What’s more, Gahanna Lincoln High School has a history of producing creatively successful students. Mark Lowrie, who was named Ohio Teacher of the Year for 2024, runs Lincoln Live, a TV news show run by students that has received several national student Emmy Awards. And the district’s investment in its theater program is one of the things that drew theater teacher Aileen Targett to lend her talents to the school. Before feeling the call to teach, Targett lived in New York City, acting in several off-Broadway productions, and went on three national tours with a company that performed shows for students such as the musical, “Eureka!”

“In the fall, we do a haunted house, a fall play and a holiday marathon where all the theater classes write holiday skits. Then in the spring, we do a dinner theater [and] a children’s theater tour to take ‘Seussical Jr.’ to the elementary schools,” Targett says. “Then we have ‘Varsity Varieties,’ ‘Miscats’ and our spring musical, which has more than 100 kids involved.”

Theater students also benefit from seeing successful alumni. Targett’s husband, whom she met when they both got the gig touring nationally, is a GLHS graduate, as is Mike Faist, who was the originating actor for the character Morris Delancey in the Disney musical “Newsies” on

PHOTO: COURTESY OF GAHANNA-JEFFERSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Broadway and the originating actor for the character Connor Murphy in the Broadway play “Dear Evan Hansen.” The latter earned him a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor. Faist also played the role of Riff in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” earning accolades for his performance. Next, Faist will co-star with Zendaya and Josh O’Connor in the highly-anticipated film “Challengers.”

Theater isn’t the only outlet that can help students grow and become more confident. Just ask senior linebacker Jaymi Curtis, who has been playing football in Gahanna since middle school. As the only girl on the high school team, Curtis embodies Gahanna’s slogan, “Your unique story begins here.”

“It wasn’t really a heroic story like everyone assumes it would be,” Curtis says. “At Gahanna, you can’t start playing a school-sanctioned sport until seventh grade, so that year, that was all my guy friends could talk about. I was like, ‘Y’all are having so much fun, I want to play, too!’ One of my guy friends encouraged me, so I went for it.”

Curtis hopes other girls will follow in her foot (or cleat) steps.

“To any little girl out there who wants to play football or do anything, once you put your mind to it, you can do it,” she says.

And those future athletes won’t have to wait much longer.

“Every day, I see more of the construction work being done on our new Gahanna Lincoln High School, and it gets me increasingly excited to see what lies ahead for all the students in our district,” says Dr. Tracey Deagle, superintendent of Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools.

Hetzel adds: “This high school has the ability to hold 2,800 students, and when we’re finished, we’ll even have a third-floor section that can be developed to add to capacity in the event we get an enrollment spike.”

Given the attractiveness of Gahanna’s schools and the area’s growth, it’s only a matter of time before that third floor is put to use and even more kids get to write their own success stories.

“A

Creekside District

Grow in Possibility: Only minutes from John Glenn International Airport, the City of Gahanna is a place people love to call home. With thriving businesses and a growing economy, affordable and diverse neighborhoods, strong schools, and endless possibilities, Gahanna is a city where the future is bright.

home & style

All is Bright

A decorative plate is displayed at Helen Winnemore’s. Read more about the longtime German Village shop on Page 82.

Photo by Tim Johnson

Timeless Gifts

German Village shop Helen Winnemore’s has sold useable, wearable art for nearly a century.

By Ashley Alt

Helen Winnemore’s gift shop, originally called “The Afternoon Shop,” sits at Mohawk and Kossuth streets in German Village, where it has been since 1951. Established in 1938 by original owner Helen Winnemore, the shop’s purpose, as explained by Helen herself in 1950, “is to bring the work of American artists to people who appreciate and love the handicraft.” Her legacy is now being carried out by brother-and-sister duo John and Julie Jenkins, who took ownership of the store in 2020.

Tell us about the boutique. What makes Helen Winnemore’s different from other gift shops? Julie: The rich history of the store separates us. The beauty that we bring to everyday objects, coupled with the fact that we focus on American artists who provide us with many different types of art, makes the space really special.

How do you find your artists? Julie: Many of the artists we have now have been here for many, many years. One of them is Lotte Sievers-Hahn, a German company that hand carves and hand paints nativity pieces—one of our most popular items. That artist has been in the shop since the 1950s. Another long-standing artist is fine jeweler Ed Levin, who makes beautiful, unique pieces of silver and gold jewelry. Sometimes, local artists will stop in and see if we’d like to sell their work, but our focus is on American brands, with a few Canadian artists as well.

What items can we expect to see in the store? John: We carry works from over 150 artists, in all mediums, from glass to metal, ceramics to wood, paper to jewelry. One of the things I really enjoy is working with the different artists and getting to know their work and how our customers respond to it. Every artist is different, and all have unique stories about how they came to make their work. Some have well-established practices and others are creating their work in their homes. It’s also been fun to hunt and find new artists to bring into the shop.

Any Mother’s Day gifts you would recommend? Julie: We have Kathy Bransfield’s quote necklaces [including] “Daughter’s Heart,” “Grandma,” “Mom” and “Mother’s Love.” There is Mom’s Little Vase by Henrietta Glass, a special, tiny vase for those special little flowers that children tend to bring to their mom. In addition, we have a ton of Mother’s Day greeting cards, and there’s always Ed Levin jewelry and Patricia Locke jewelry.

How is Helen’s legacy living on? Julie: Helen had a real passion for helping her friends and people who became her friends from coming into the store. I didn’t know Helen personally, but from what I heard, she was an amazing woman. People come in on a weekly basis saying they used to come in [the shop] with their mother or grandma who knew Helen.

Also, kudos to Helen for having the foresight of the incredible location. She believed so strongly in what she was doing, which I believe is a testament to why it has stayed in this spot. ◆

Helen Winnemore’s owners Julie and John Jenkins, with shop dog Maddie Glass vases for sale at the German Village store PHOTOS: TIM JOHNSON

150 E. Kossuth St., German Village helenwinnemores. com

Home & Style | Garden

Say No to ‘No Mow May’

Rather than letting lawns grow wild, gardening experts advise focusing less on grass and more on biodiversity.

By Joel Oliphint

In 2019, UK conservation nonprofit Plantlife launched an annual campaign called No Mow May, urging gardeners to leave their lawnmowers in the shed after turning the calendar from April. The goal is to allow ample growing time for wildflowers and other plants that serve as vital food sources and places of shelter for pollinators like bees, moths and butterflies. In theory, every May, these wild lawns will teem with biodiversity and sequester carbon while also reducing pollution from greenhouse-gas-spewing mowers.

The idea has caught on in the United States, with homeowners and entire communities embracing No Mow May. While the goal of the campaign is a noble one, some gardening experts have begun voicing concerns, including Tisa Watts, who runs the Columbus Garden School on East Cooke Road in North Linden. “No Mow May in Ohio is the worst possible time to have a campaign like that,” Watts says. “By May, absolutely everything is blooming. So to say, ‘We need to leave the dandelions

for the pollinators,’ is hogwash.”

Plus, letting grass go unchecked during Ohio’s peak growing season can wreak havoc on your lawn. “You are talking about absolutely destroying your grass at the time of year when it probably needs to be mowed every week,” Watts says. “You are damaging the way grass grows when you let it grow super tall and then cut it really short. That’s not how it works. It works better if it has regular maintenance.”

Still, it’s worth supporting the main ideas behind No Mow May. “It shows people that dandelions are not the enemy. The enemy is the idea of a perfect lawn that requires ridiculous amounts of fertilizers and pesticides,” Watts says. “You can have a patch of perfect green carpet around your house, or you can use that area to support the critical needs of wildlife like pollinators, songbirds, caterpillars and on and on.”

In the short term, homeowners who want wild violets and dandelions around

A variegated

butterfly

NATIVE PLANT STARTER PACK

If you’re looking to reduce your lawn and add some plants, the Columbus Garden School’s Tisa Watts recommends starting with these easy-to-grow natives.

TREES

Flowering dogwood, Ohio buckeye, red maple, sweetbay magnolia, white pine

SHRUBS

Bush honeysuckle (not invasive Amur honeysuckle), buttonbush, chokeberry, ninebark, shrub dogwood

PERENNIALS

Aster, bee balm, black-eyed Susan, milkweed, purple coneflower, smooth penstemon

can raise their mower blades and keep the grass taller. And to help reduce pollution, Watts also recommends replacing gas lawnmowers with electric models. The long-term solution, though, is to reduce the lawn’s size. Chip away at corners and edges—easy spots to plant native trees, shrubs and perennials that are readily available at local native plant nurseries like Scioto Gardens, Leaves for Wildlife and Natives in Harmony.

When Watts first opened the Columbus Garden School in January 2019, turf grass dominated her East Cooke Road property. Since then, she has increased biodiversity by adding hundreds of native plants where grass once grew. “We’re already seeing the changes,” she says. “We’re seeing an amazing variety of birds and butterflies and insects coming through.” ◆

Native plants at the Columbus Garden School in North Linden

fritillary

at the Columbus Garden School

Baby Steps

A Westerville couple makes their quirky, Uptown home suitable for an infant.

By Mandy Shunnarah

Photos by Tim Johnson

Finding their dream home was no small feat for Jeff and Nikki Thomas. They searched all over Columbus, and when a house came up for sale in historic, Uptown Westerville, they knew it was the one.

Or so they thought. They were a couple hundred feet off.

After another buyer swooped in and claimed their first choice, the Thomases’ real estate agent told them that the house next door had just come on the market. “We wondered if we should buy a house where we could sit and stare at the house we wanted,” Nikki says. “But then we came to see it, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was our house.”

The Thomases loved the historic home’s quirks, both interesting aspects of the original build (like the cistern and rough-hewn log still visible in the basement) and the humorous additions made by more recent residents (like the curly-corded phone hanging next to the toilet). But the couple also recognized they needed to adapt the home to their needs, including a baby they hoped to add to their family.

For instance, the home, which began as a tworoom log farmhouse in the mid-1800s, doesn’t have a coat closet next to the front door. “There’s a closet in the bathroom,” Nikki says. “So you’d have friends over, and when they’d leave, you’d have to say, ‘Oh, sorry, you have to wait until that person is done in the bathroom before you can get your coat.’ ”

That challenge, in part, inspired the Thomases’ first major renovation project. The couple worked with a professional designer to turn a patio area into a mudroom, complete with built-in, locker-style cabinets for the family’s coats and shoes. The mudroom is also home to the laundry area, and because it’s just off the kitchen, it turned out to be convenient for life with their carrot-topped baby, Callan. “The sink is big enough for him to

Jeff and Nikki Thomas with their son, Callan, in their Westerville home.

take a bath in, and it’s really nice to be able to get him from the high chair straight into a bath,” Nikki says.

Having a baby also meant the Thomases needed a nursery. Without a playroom and no finished basement to store Callan’s toys, the couple turned their former guest room into a timeless nursery. Rather than creating a traditional theme for the nursey, the Thomases created an open-ended, inspirational space. “We focused on colors, textures and patterns, so he could make them be what he wanted them to be,” Nikki says. “That’s why you’ll see a lot of lines and dots.”

This approach has the added benefit of ensuring the nursery décor seamlessly matches the rest of the home. The nursery’s forest green, board-and-batten wall and twin bed frame mimic the deep green of the mudroom’s storage lockers. “You spend so much time in their room when they’re little, like while they’re asleep on you for four hours, so it needs to be a good space,” Nikki says.

Left, the baby’s room with a door hidden in a bookcase lead to a storage area in the Thomases’ Westerville home; below, rustic decorations in the dining room; right, mudroom off the kitchen with washer and dryer.

Before they could begin the décor, they had to rework the room’s boundaries. Due to the small size of the closets, Nikki kept her clothes in the couple’s bedroom closet, and Jeff kept his in the guest room-turned-nursery closet. However, that’s not a long-term solution, especially when there’s a sleeping baby whom you don’t want to wake. The couple’s bedroom was just on the other side of the wall, so they were able to flip the guest room closet by taking out the wall between the two closets to double the size of the wardrobe in their bedroom. That also added a couple of extra square feet to the corner of the room, so they had space for both a twin bed and a crib.

“We always had parent friends complain, like, ‘If he was sick, I had to sleep on the floor or put my arm through the crib,’ so we put this twin-size bed together for us. So whoever is doing the night shift would sleep in here,” Nikki says. “It actually pulls out into a king, so when he’s old enough, and we’re moving him to the bed, we’ll pull out the bottom so he has a mattress to fall onto if he rolls off.”

However, the showpiece is the built-in bookshelf, behind which is every kid’s (and many adults’) dream: a secret room. The bookshelf opens to reveal a walk-in closet-sized space with Callan’s clothes, toys, a snack cart and a fridge for milk and pumping supplies, which kept the parents from having to constantly dash to the kitchen. The space for the hidden room was carved out of a portion of the attic. When the previous owners completed a

Left,

home expansion in 2005, they added to the downstairs but not the upstairs, so the roofline had to be adjusted to accommodate the extra space. This gave the Thomases ample attic storage on the sides of the house that was tall enough for adults to stand up in. Jeff and a friend tackled the ambitious DIY project.

“Every kid wants a secret room,” Jeff says. “I always wanted one growing up.”

Now both parents get to experience that particular magic through Callan’s eyes, though there are some practical benefits, too. “I don’t want his toys all over the house. He needs a place for his stuff, and maybe if he gets into art, we can put a table in here, and he can color. Maybe a beanbag chair and a TV. When he gets older, this might be his video game room. It will evolve with him,” Nikki says.

While the mudroom addition was completed with the help of contractors and a professional designer, Nikki designed the nursery herself using an interior design program called Spoak. This program allowed her to make mood boards and enter the room’s dimensions to visualize the space. Jeff did the DIYing, with friends pinch-hitting.

Nikki is quick to note that she and Jeff have their friends to thank for inspiring a nursery design that benefits both parents and baby. “We’re late-in-life parents, so we had a long time to study,” she says. “We were married for 15 [years], and we watched all of our friends have kids, so we paid attention to what they were complaining about.”

Now, the Thomases are coming full circle and passing on the knowledge gleaned from their own renovation to other parents-to-be. ◆

We Are Good Health

The Columbus Medical Association (CMA) Foundation is investing in your health and wellbeing. We know life can be challenging – even for healthcare workers. That’s why we provide programs that encourage leadership, self-growth, and good emotional health.

The CMA’s Women- In-Medicine Community supports women physicians with programs that reﬂect their lives and goals, while encouraging leadership and career development that’s harmonious with life balance.

The Physicians Leadership Academy empowers physicians with essential leadership skills, enabling them to shape the careers and lives they truly desire and profoundly impact our community.

Learn more about these programs and apply today at: physiciansleadershipacademy.org columbusmedicalassociation.org

Get ready to ignite your curiosity and embark on an eight-week academic extravaganza on CSG’s main campus—it’s Summer at CSG, and it’s going to be a blast! Starting in early June and ending in August, Summer at CSG is open to girls Pre-K through grade 12.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab your sunscreen, pack your enthusiasm, and join us at CSG’s main campus for a summer filled with laughter, learning, and loads of fun!

Top 25 Real Estate Transactions

Feb. 1-29, 2024

$2,800,000 7192 Dublin Road, Dublin George Crimson LLC from Lisa L. Huang

$2,000,000 2356 Oxford Road, Upper Arlington Brian Andrew & Amy M. Matlock from Braden and Amy Competty

$1,950,000 8100 Tillinghast Dr., Dublin

Margaret E. Kimmel, trustee, from Stephen Paul and Teresa Lynn Marohn, trustees

$1,900,000 7105 Armscote End, New Albany Eric Yang and Lisa Lin from Matthew G. Kallner

$1,565,000 244 Stanbery Ave., Bexley

Kha Kinh Tran and Quyen Phuong Bui from Andriy and Kateryna Shyshkov

$1,526,800 7563 Schleppi Road, New Albany Pulte Homes of Ohio LLC from the New Albany Company LLC

$1,460,000 2585 Eastcleft Dr., Upper Arlington

$1,426,000 2087 Lower Chelsea Road, Upper Arlington

Matthew Sullivan and Kristen Duffy from the Tuckerman Home Group Inc.

Mark Mitchell from William E. and Elizabeth D. Anderson

$1,360,000 8510 Lucera Loop, Dublin PAL 56 LLC from Wendy A. Feusse, trustee

$1,350,000 79 Parkway Dr., Delaware

$1,225,000 2166 N. Parkway Dr., Upper Arlington

$1,175,000 566 S. Fourth St., Columbus

$1,160,000 6096 Deer Bluff Place, Perry Township

$1,153,152 6935 Harlem Road, Columbus

$1,150,000 7600 Wills Run Lane, Jefferson Township

$1,080,000 7589 Alpath Road, New Albany

$1,070,428 142 Merywen Circle, Granville

$1,070,000 1625 Essex Road, Upper Arlington

$1,030,000 7515 Steeplechase Lane, New Albany

$1,025,000 632 Jaeger St. , Columbus

Lorgan Columbus Investments LLC from Pan Group Properties LLC

Timothy and Susan Stauffer from Peter E. and Kelly O. Stoeckinger

Denise Igoe from James T. and Tammie W. Fisher

Juan Camilo Hernandez Suarez; seller unlisted

Harlem Apartments LLC from Vincent E. Golden

Theodore Lin and Min Li Yong from Kevin Klingerman

Katelyn E. and Matthew J. Flowers from Michael P. and Jane E. Nolan

Timothy E. Mack and Yancy W. Soto from Judy Gregory White

Andrew J. and Lauren E. Wolff from Joseph M. and Alison Poor

Carl and Jennifer K. Ey from Bob Webb Woodhaven LLC

David L. Thomas and Vincent J. Thompson from Jaeger Street Design Group LLC

$995,000 8544 Creighton Dr., Powell Shea and Robert Macielak from Nikol L. White

$965,000 1374 N. Fifth St., Columbus

$957,345 1401 Spanish Trail Court, Jefferson Township

$928,859 127 Glenshire Circle, Granville

$920,000 8158 N. Crossgate Court, Dublin

Joshua Sisler from Kara E. and Davide V. Cugini

Peggy L. Brookins and Valora Washington, trustees, from Eric C. and Jennifer G. Motter

Lukas Perry Leitnaker and Brian Michael Stepanic from Epcon Glenshire LLC

Karl E. and Becky J. Burr from Robert J. and Mary C. Blazer

Home sales data comes from county auditor offices in Franklin, Delaware and Licking counties.

food & drink

Photo by Tim Johnson

Fresh Take

Cornerstone Deli & Café brings dependable variety and a pop of local personality to Clintonville. Read more on Page 96.

Korean Barbecue Korean Barbecue A Beginner’s Guide to

KBBQ, as it’s known, is a sensory delight. Here’s how to get maximum enjoyment.

Story by Bethia Woolf

Photography by Tim Johnson

Grilled marinated shortrib with ssamjang sauce in a lettuce wrap from Gogi Korean BBQ.

Korean barbecue, which goes by KBBQ in the circles where it’s popular, is notable for being one of the most enjoyable ways to sample a wide range of high-quality grilled meats. For the uninitiated, it also can be one of the more overwhelming dining experiences, owing to the variety of items and the fact that diners have to cook the meat themselves. Here, we’ve broken down the experience to its essentials, starting with the setting.

The Grill Table

Upon arrival at a KBBQ restaurant, your group will be seated at a table with a circular gasfired grill sunk into its center. A panel on the side of the table controls the intensity of the flame, and your server will usually dial it to an optimal setting at the appropriate time. Utensils for grilling are provided, including tongs and scissors, with the latter used to divide longer strips of meat for sharing. Each diner also will receive chopsticks (ask for a fork if you’d prefer it) and a spoon (typically used for eating rice).

2

Ordering

Ordering is straightforward— menus usually have photos of the meat offerings, with composed platters of sliced, uncooked pork and beef being the primary choices. Among the restaurant owners we surveyed, a distinct preference was noted for the kalbi (marinated short ribs) and the thicker slices of pork belly, though bulgogi (thinly sliced, marinated ribeye) and spendier cuts of wagyu beef are also desirable options. Combination platters featuring a varied selection of cuts are commonly available. Vegetables, including squash, onion, mushroom, zucchini and asparagus, are also on offer, as is chicken at some locations.

Banchan

3

After ordering, expect an array of accompaniments to arrive shortly, collectively known as banchan. This assortment of complimentary cold sides served in small stainless-steel bowls is a mainstay of the Korean restaurant experience. The banchan selection is up to the individual restaurant—and can even change from day to day—but it will always include cabbage kimchi.

Also, expect a basket of romaine lettuce leaves, a bowl of green onions sliced into thin strips, a sauce selection and rice. The most typical sauces are ssamjang, a spicy soybean paste, and a serving of sesame

oil that’s meant to be salted to taste. (Salt will also be presented.) Please note that some restaurants may not provide all of these accompaniments without the diner requesting them, but all are available and all are expected components of the experience. If there’s something missing you’d like to try, just ask.

At this point, the table’s probably looking pretty full. And then the plates of meat arrive. It’s go time.

Grilling the Meats

The server is your friend here. They’ll make sure the grill is fired, and they’re generally happy to help first-timers at any point with the grilling process. Using the provided tongs, place selected morsels onto the grill surface. Grill time varies based upon protein and thickness, with beef requiring less cook time for safe consumption, and pork requiring enough cook time to achieve an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees. Note that the flavored meat selections will caramelize and eventually char more quickly due to the sugars in the marinade. Flip as you see fit, and in general feel free to use the in-table grill much as you’d use a gas grill at home.

Once any given piece of meat is cooked to your satisfaction, remove it from the grill. Larger pieces, particularly long strips of kalbi, can be cut with the scissors to share. This is the point at which everything else on the table comes into play—or not. It’s truly your choice.

To Wrap or Not

Many Korean barbecue afficionados suggest placing pieces of meat into a lettuce leaf. Some will add ssamjang, while others will opt for first dipping pieces into the salted sesame oil. A pinch of green onions and a spoonful of rice are both possible further additions, and once you’ve added everything you desire, fold the leaf like a taco and enjoy.

Or, as mentioned previously, don’t. Some KBBQ restaurant owners and em-

ployees express a preference for enjoying some meats with only the salted sesame oil to enhance flavor. Or even just salt. Everything provided is game for experimentation, even if that experimentation amounts to ignoring any or all elements of it. It’s as valid to want to enjoy the pure, unadulterated flavor of a high-quality cut of well-grilled meat as it is to want to dress it up, and it’s truly a matter of preference.

As the meal unfolds, you may notice the grill grate accumulating burnt bits on its surface. Your server will happily replace it with a clean one, and will often offer to do so before you even notice it.

Where to Find KBBQ

Established restaurants Don Pocha Korean BBQ (Kenny and Reed roads) and Gogi Korean BBQ (Bethel Road) represent the higher-end and specifically the grilling-focused segment of the Korean barbecue spectrum, while newcomers like PJ Hot Pot (Sawmill Road south of 161) and KPot (Bethel Road) offer more budget-friendly, all-you-can-eat options and allow for the choice of KBBQ, hot pot or both. Both variations have their place, but it’s fair to say that, as with so many things in the food world, you get what you pay for. ◆

Wagyu beef ready to be grilled at Gogi on Bethel Road

Korean barbecue at Don Pocha:

1 On the plate to the left, thin-sliced pork belly. On the grill, pork shoulder, kalbi (marinated beef short rib) and thick-cut pork belly. 2

Side salad 3 Cabbage kimchi 4 Potato salad

5 Pickled radish 6 Soy-marinated daikon and pickled jalapeños 7 Scallion salad 8 Radish kimchi 9 Sauces include ssamjang and gochujang, and salt is another typical accompaniment 10 Sesame oil

It’s as valid to want to enjoy the pure, unadulterated flavor of a high-quality cut of well-grilled meat as it is to want to dress it up, and it’s truly a matter of preference.

Chef Johae Chong at his restaurant, Don Pocha Korean BBQ

Clintonville Community Gem

Cornerstone Deli & Café:

Sushi meets salad bar meets reuben sandwiches. With a fun neighborhood vibe, it works.

By Bailey Trask

When a friend’s husband went on tour with his band several years ago, she turned into a self-described bachelor and ordered all her meals from Cornerstone Deli & Café for two weeks. At any other restaurant, that could get monotonous, but not at Clintonville’s 16-year-old culinary chameleon.

Is it a sandwich spot? The deli moniker would imply so. Is it a breakfast hangout? That’s where the café part comes in. But Cornerstone is also a sushi spot, a place for pad thai and a full-service salad bar ($9.99).

The interior is just as eclectic as the food offerings. Natural light and snake plants in the windows provide a homey feel, and the soda fountain, serve-yourself coffee station, freezer of novelties and quarter-operated sticker machine give a bowling-alley-meets-hotel-breakfast -station vibe. Plastic decals saying “good friends, good food” serve as the restaurant’s sole décor, but owner Hadi Tjiang says they’re considering a remodel.

Cornerstone primarily hires high school and early college students and gives them agency to make the place their own, through such displays as handmade signs at the register.

Tjiang says McDonald’s and Wendy’s were the area’s primary dinner options when Cornerstone opened, so they added sushi and Asian dishes to provide dining diversity in the neighborhood. Having previously owned Oriental Kitchen and Saigon Palace in Downtown, adding these options was natural for Tjiang and his wife, Mediana Liem, who both emigrated from Indonesia and first met in Columbus.

While there’s an expansive menu and

Food & Drink | Short Order

plenty of items can easily be made vegetarian, the food itself is not groundbreaking. Portion sizes are moderate and the prices are excellent, competing with fast food in some cases, but without the deep-fried aroma.

Lunch options abound. The hot mini Italy sandwich ($6.99) features layers of salty and tangy salami, capicola, pepperoni, provolone and Italian dressing balanced with a tomato and crispy romaine. And the pizza bagel ($5.99) is a hit with the clustering teenagers. The barbecue eel rice bowl ($12.99) features seaweed salad and plenty of cucumbers with a decent portion of eel over sushi rice cov-

ered in a sweet sauce.

The bowls and sandwiches may draw you in, but the sushi will make you stay. Tjiang learned the art working at Whole Foods and has taught it to many of his more experienced workers. The dragon roll ($12.99)—barbecue eel combined with cucumber and topped with avocado and raw salmon—is a must.

Everything about Cornerstone is easy. It offers ordering and delivery from its website (without downloading an app), and it has a parking lot. With a community feel and a menu that will please the pickiest of eaters, Cornerstone is a Clintonville gem. ◆

Clockwise from top left: mini Italy sandwich, barbecue eel rice bowl, pizza bagel and dragon roll.

PHOTO: TIM JOHNSON

Market Magic

Common Greens is the nonprofit force behind farmers markets in Bexley, Clintonville and Upper Arlington, plus a new one launching in May.

By Katy Smith

Farmers markets are magical events. They appear seemingly out of nowhere, becoming a bustling hub of activity for a few hours. And then they’re torn down just as quickly, disappearing— until next time.

That’s to say nothing of the magic that’s traded at farmers markets. Produce in every color, shape and size. Handmade breads and pastries. Honey bottled by beekeepers. Cheese crafted by the people who raise the cows. But while the work of the producers is evident in their stalls, few people see the under-the-radar magic that goes into organizing the markets.

“A lot of people think farmers markets just happen,” says Marcie Todd, executive director for Common Greens, the nonprofit organization that runs the markets in Bexley, Clintonville and Upper Arlington. “But there’s a lot of behind-thescenes planning and premeditation.”

Event permits must be filed with the respective municipalities for each market, for example. It takes administrative muscle to offer customers the ability to buy their food using public benefits programs such as EBT/SNAP and WIC. Organizers create detailed vendor maps for every market and do marketing and social media outreach.

Common Greens gives its member markets economy of scale by consolidating back-office operations like marketing and finance, a way of doing business that’s only fairly recently made its way to Columbus farmers markets, says Todd, who joined the organization in January 2023. The organization is funded by sponsorships, stall fees, grants and donations.

Todd is a farmer herself. She also owns and runs Freshtown Farm, an urban farm that grows food at multiple sites around Columbus and operates a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program. At Common Greens, she’s joined by a parttime, year-round market manager and mostly seasonal staff.

Food & Drink | In Season

New this year, a fourth market is launching. The OhioHealth farmers market will operate 4-7 p.m. every third Tuesday from May to October at the blue entrance to Riverside Methodist Hospital. Visitors can park free for two hours in the red or green garages.

IF YOU GO

Clintonville Farmers Market

9 a.m.-12 p.m. Saturdays April 27-Nov. 23

3535 N. High St.

OhioHealth Farmers Market 4-7 p.m. each third Tuesday, May-October

May 21, June 18, July 16, Aug. 20, Sept. 17, Oct. 15

3535 Olentangy River Road

Upper Arlington Farmers Market 3:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesdays May 15-Oct. 23

2140 Tremont Center

Bexley Farmers Market 4-7 p.m. Thursdays May 16-Oct. 24

East Main Street and Dawson Avenue

Todd also has helped organize a new Common Greens community advisory committee composed of farmers market shoppers. The committee is helping the organization with ideas for change and improvement.

In 2023, the three Common Greens markets had nearly 4,000 shoppers a week and showcased more than 120 vendors. “It’s magical because it’s a space where you’re connecting with your community, where you’re seeing all of these beautiful things and tasting all of these amazing products,” Todd says. “There’s really no place like it.” ◆

Marcie Todd, executive director of Common Greens (center in yellow shirt), with many farmers market producers in front of Global Gallery in Clintonville.

Marcie Todd is the executive director of Common Greens, an organization bringing together the Bexley, Upper Arlington and Clintonville farmers markets.

Lancaster’s Rockmill Brewery is Sold at Auction

Plus more in local food and drink news

By Nicholas Dekker

Openings & Announcements

Austin and Taylor Caulk, who have been operating Rockmill Brewery since last year, announced in a March 26 social media post that they are now owners of the Lancaster property. The couple had been trying to purchase the land in a short sale before it foreclosed, but the property went up for auction in March. After three bids, the auction ended on March 25 with a winning bid of $2,400,600.

As part of a new initiative called the Ground Floor Growth Program, a series of women- and minority-owned businesses are moving Downtown near the intersection of Broad and High streets. In early April, Isabella Bonello, owner of Three Bites Bakery and 2022 Columbus Monthly Tastemaker, announced that her bakery will join forces with Little Cat Boba and move to 12 E. Broad St. as part of the program. Little Cat Boba currently operates a stall inside East Market and will maintain that location, while Bonello will move from her current King-Lincoln Bronzeville storefront.

Shawnee Station Kitchen & Taproom debuted on April 4 in Shawnee Hills. Operated by the owners of Maumee Bay Brewing Co. in Toledo, Shawnee Station combines Maumee Bay brews with a full bar and an upscale gastropub menu. The Delaware County eatery is located at 6058 Glick Road in a new development that includes Boston Stoker Coffee.

Land-Grant Brewing Co. announced that

it is expanding with a new bar called the Extension in Franklinton. Located between the Idea Foundry and the newer Gravity Experience Park, the Extension will open sometime this spring and feature experimental beers, ciders, cocktails and wines.

I Like It Like That, a new cocktail bar inside Natalie’s Grandview, opened in March. Led by Genevieve Johnson and Lindsay Koontz, the intimate and eclectic space is open for dinner from 5-9:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, then late-night hours until midnight or 1 a.m. those days. Natalie’s is located at 945 King Ave. in Grandview.

Haley Henderson, barista and head of retail operations for Brioso Coffee, took home first place in the Latte Art World Championship Open at the Coffee Fest in New York City. Operating since 1992, Coffee Fest is one of the top trade shows for the specialty coffee industry.

In early March, the Ohio Distillers Guild officially announced the full Ohio Distillery Trail, launching on May 22. Guests can collect a passport at any participating distillery, then check in at each stop to earn rewards. Visitors will get to experience tastings, tours and workshops while

on the trail. Currently, six Columbus distilleries are involved: 451 Spirits, Echo Spirits Distilling Co., High Bank Distillery Co., Middle West Spirits, Noble Cut Distillery and Watershed Distillery.

Closings

Fat Girl Bakery closed for good on March 30. The bakery was located at 6457 N. Hamilton Road in Westerville; it had relocated there from Lewis Center in 2023.

Mackenzie River Pub shut down its Polaris location at 1515 Polaris Parkway and removed it from its website. Its location at 1281 Hill Road North in Pickerington remains open.

In early April, Louisville-based Goodwood Brewing closed its Columbus location at 401 N. Front St. in the Arena District.

To keep up with the latest restaurant/bar openings and closings, visit columbusmonthly.com and subscribe to our food newsletter, Copy & Taste.

Rockmill Brewery’s tasting room at its Lancaster property

let’s eat

WHERE TO DINE THIS MONTH

Editor’s Note: Please call restaurants to check hours and menu availability.

$$$$ Very expensive, $26 and higher

$$$ Spendy, $16–$25

$$ Moderate, $11–$15

$ Affordable, under $10

NEW Restaurant has opened within the last few months.

Outdoor Seating

B Breakfast BR Brunch L Lunch D Dinner

2024 Best New Restaurants

Let’s Eat comprises Columbus Monthly editors’ picks and is updated monthly based on available space. Send updates to dghose@columbusmonthly.com.

AMERICAN

Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace

A hip hot dog joint with retro décor and oneof-a-kind wieners that can be topped with condiments such as sauerkraut, baked beans and Fritos. 248 S. Fourth St., Downtown, 614-824-4673. LD $

The Keep Kitchen & Liquor Bar

This hotel restaurant is a convenient (if inconsistent) option for pre-theater dinner and drinks, offering LeVeque Tower luxury without being overly fussy. Menu items range from fresh oysters and pierogies to burgers and Arctic char. The adjacent bar is darkly lit with an emphasis on craft cocktails. 50 W. Broad St., Mezzanine Level, LeVeque Tower, Downtown, 614-745-0322.

BBRD $$$

Milestone 229

Milestone 229 fills a niche on the Scioto Mile: a lively and unpretentious place to eat and enjoy spectacular views of Downtown, coupled with classic American fare. 229 Civic Center Dr., Downtown, 614-427-0276.

BRLD $$

The Brewed Leaf

ASIAN

A bubble tea shop where patrons can customize their tea with add-ins such as

Visit columbus monthly.com to read about the latest restaurant openings.

bubbles, barley, nata jelly, red beans and more. 2060 N. High St., Campus, 614-3698095; 809 Bethel Rd., Northwest Side, 614914-8821. LD $

Lemongrass Fusion Bistro

You’ll find Asian fusion and sushi at this casual yet refined Short North spot. Experience anything from Monsoon Shrimp and pho to pad thai and Cajun scallops. 641 N. High St., Short North, 614-224-1414. LD XX

BARBECUE

B&K Smokehouse

Owner James Howell serves excellent Memphis-style ribs and soul food at this no-frills carryout spot. 1114 E. Main St., Olde Towne East, 614-252-7017. LD $$

Ray Ray’s Hog Pit

Since launching Ray Ray’s food truck at Ace of Cups, owner James Anderson has built a thriving barbecue business and snagged a James Beard nomination. Expect excellent barbecue fare, with ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket sandwiches, plus sides. 237 King Ave., Dennison Place, 614-441-1065; 424 W. Town St., Franklinton, 614-4049742; 1256 Columbus Rd., Granville, 740920-9103; 2355 W. Dublin-Granville Rd., Linworth, 614-698-6311; 2619 High St., Old North, 614-753-1191; 5755 Maxtown Rd., Westerville, 614-329-6654. LD $$

CARIBBEAN

Ava’s Taste of the Caribbean

Authentic Caribbean cuisine is the focus of this carryout spot, with jerk chicken, curry goat, fried plantains and more. 2836 W. Broad St., West Side, 614-266-9308. LD $$

Ena’s Caribbean Kitchen

Founded more than 20 years ago by matriarch Vinell “Ena” Hayles, a native of Jamaica, this Linden area restaurant offers authentic Caribbean fare like jerk chicken, callaloo and curry goat. 2444 Cleveland Ave., North Linden, 614-262-0988. BRLD $$

CHINESE

ChiliSpot

This casual restaurant in Kenny Centre is one of the city’s best options for authentic Sichuan cuisine. Think: mapo tofu, Chongqing popcorn chicken, cumin lamb, dry pot dishes and more. 1178 Kenny Rd., Northwest Side, 614-929-5565. LD $$$

Jiu Thai Asian Café

Located in the Olentangy Plaza shopping center, this restaurant specializes in flavorful, authentic cuisine from northern China. Go for the tofu skewers, lamb dumplings and handmade noodles in generous portions at low prices. 787 Bethel Rd., Northwest Side, 614-732-5939. LD $$

NE Chinese Restaurant

Authentic dishes from the Dongbei region of China are the specialty at this unfussy Old North spot. Go for the cumin potatoes, spicy twice-cooked fish or any of the hot pots. 2620 N. High St., Old North, 614-725-0880. LD $$

Ena’s Caribbean Kitchen

CONTEMPORARY

Agni

At his fine-dining restaurant, chef Avishar Barua (Top Chef Season 18) entertains guests with multicourse tasting menus that showcase Barua’s Bengali roots, penchant for creative hijinks and live-fire cooking chops. Reservations are a must or try snagging a bar seat. 716 S. High St., Brewery District. D $$$$

Comune

Joe Galati’s restaurant and bar fills a void in Columbus with a plant-based approach to upscale dining. The seasonal menu includes shareable dishes like tahdig, house-made pita with dipping sauces, tempura cauliflower and semolina cavatelli. 677 Parsons Ave., Schumacher Place, 614-947-1012 D $$$

Hiraeth

From the owner of Chapman’s Eat Market comes this modern wood-fired grill, with nods to global cuisine. Hiraeth (a Welsh word for a deep sense of longing) features two distinctly different dining-anddrinking areas: one bright and airy, one dark and moody. Don’t miss the longanisa, wholefried fish and beef-fat potatoes. 36 E. Lincoln St., Short North, 614-824-4516. D $$$$

ETHIOPIAN

Lalibela

Some of the city’s best Ethiopian food is served at this modest East Side spot where diners gather around large platters of gomen, doro wat, shiro, tibs and more—all served atop injera. 1111 S. Hamilton Rd., Whitehall, 614235-5355. LD $$

Nile Vegan

Vegan meets Ethiopian at this restaurant, where customers can expect affordable combination plates of stewed or puréed veggies on injera. Go for the mushroom combo, a mushroom stew with curry split peas, a beet medley and Puy lentils. Don’t forget the chai. 1223 Goodale Blvd., Grandview, 614-223-1288. BLD $$

FRENCH

La Chatelaine French Bakery & Bistro

Handcrafted woodwork and a crackling fireplace lend the feeling of a French castle to this bakery, bistro and wine bar with equally inspired dishes that range from beef bourguignon to croissants. 65 W. Bridge St., Dublin, 614-763-7151; 1550 W. Lane Ave., Upper Arlington, 614-488-1911; 627 High St., Worthington, 614-848-6711. BLD $$

The Refectory Restaurant & Wine Shop

At this Columbus icon, chef Richard Blondin puts more effort into a single plate than an ordinary restaurant does into an entire menu. Inside this church-turned-fine-dining spot, expect impeccable service and a world-class wine cellar to pair with your meal. 1092 Bethel Rd., Northwest Side, 614-451-9774. D $$$$

GASTROPUB

101 Beer Kitchen

At this expertly executed gastropub (its owners could school others in the art of developing a restaurant), craft brews are paired with madefrom-scratch, seasonal dishes. 7509 Sawmill Rd., Dublin, 614-210-1010; 397 Stoneridge Ln., Gahanna, 614-934-5501; 817 Polaris Pkwy., Westerville, 614-776-4775. BRLD $$

Hoof Hearted Brewery and Kitchen

This collaboration between A&R Creative (the Crest, the Mercury Diner) and popular Marengo-based brewery Hoof Hearted represents all the good things happening in Columbus: lots of craft beer and locally sourced food in a cool, modern space. 850 N. Fourth St., Italian Village, 614-401-4033. BRD $$

ITALIAN

Basi Italia

Nestled in the heart of Victorian Village, Basi Italia serves clean, simple Italian fare with innovative twists in a setting so intimate, you’ll feel like the chef invited you over for dinner. Basi offers one of the city’s best patios. 811 Highland St., Victorian Village, 614-294-7383. D $$$

Giuseppe’s Ritrovo

This unfussy Bexley restaurant is the place

to go for classic Italian pasta dishes, such as Gamberi Diavola and Fettucine Calabrese. Italy plays just as big a role behind the bar with a lengthy wine list, a solid amaro selection and outstanding craft cocktails. 2268 E. Main St., Bexley, 614-235-4300. LD $$$

Pelino’s Pasta

At their cozy restaurant, Vinny and Christina

Pelino serve a prix fixe menu featuring house-made semolina pastas and seasonal ingredients. Don’t skip the scratch desserts. Menus change monthly. 245 King Ave., Dennison Place, 614-849-6966. D $$$$

POLYNESIAN

Hai Poké

The North Market Bridge Park eatery offers Hawaiian island-inspired poke bowls— deconstructed sushi with raw fish (or tofu), rice, vegetables and delicious sauces. 6750 Longshore St., Dublin, 614-683-8785. LD $$

Huli Huli Tiki Lounge & Grill

This bar in historic downtown Powell celebrates tiki culture with carefully crafted rum drinks like mai tais and zombies. A food menu includes kalua pork sandwiches and combo plates with rice, mac and your choice of protein. 26 W. Olentangy St., Powell, 614396-8437. D $$

SEAFOOD

Cousins Maine Lobster

Lobsters shipped directly from Maine are carefully prepared in small batches to provide a traditional New England experience. Offers lobster rolls, lobster tots, shrimp tacos and whoopie pies. Food Truck, Citywide, 614448-1256. LD XX

Best Tacos Al Pastor In The City!

Pelino’s Pasta

Mitchell’s Ocean Club

With wood-paneled décor, live piano music and martinis shaken tableside, the Ocean Club evokes the Rat Pack era. On the menu, expect high-end seafood like yellowfin tuna, teriyaki salmon and jumbo lump crab cakes. 4002 Easton Station, Easton, 614-4162582. D $$$$

SMALL PLATES

Black Radish Creamery

This cut-to-order cheese shop also offers artisan preserves, chocolate, crackers and more. 59 Spruce St., Short North, 614-5179520. BLD $

Denmark on High

A European-style cocktail bar focusing on vintage and modern drinks, craft Ohio beers and seasonal small plates. On the second floor of the Yankee on High building. 463 N. High St., Short North, 614-914-6700. D $$

SOMALI

Darbo Restaurant

A small eatery serving authentic and traditional Somali cuisine, with goat stew, shawarma and pasta dishes. 3764 Cleveland Ave., North Side, 614-475-8004. BLD $$

Hoyo’s Kitchen

This family-run restaurant started serving

fast-casual Somali cuisine in the historic North Market in 2019. Order a bowl of flavorful spicy rice (or salad), top with proteins such as chicken suuqar or hilibari (goat) and then choose from a variety of veggies and sauces. Don’t skip the house chai. 6750 Longshore St., Dublin, 614-683-8798; 59 Spruce St., Short North, 614-745-3943. LD $$

SANDWICHES

Cravings Café

This café from Matt and Lindsey Tewanger offers sandwiches made with locally sourced ingredients, house-baked brioche and roasted meats. Also featuring small-batch coffee and breakfast pastries. 114 N. Front St., Downtown, 614-670–4439. BL $

Katzinger’s Delicatessen

A German Village mainstay, Katzinger’s is a traditional East Coast-style deli, with 60plus sandwiches, potato latkes, pickle barrels, specialty foods and cheeses. 7160 Muirfield Dr., Dublin, 614-389-8444; 475 S. Third St., German Village, 614-228-3354. BLD $$

Krema Nut Co.

One of the oldest peanut butter companies still operating in the United States also has a little shop serving up sandwiches like the Kicker, the Buckeye and the traditional PB&J. 1000 W. Goodale Blvd., Grandview, 614299-4131. BL XX

Katzinger’s Delicatessen

TEX-MEX/SOUTHWESTERN

Casa Hacienda Grill

This popular Tex-Mex restaurant features elaborate décor with colorful Mexican tiles and an extensive menu including mole enchiladas, nachos, fajitas, burritos and more. 1356 N. Hamilton Rd., Gahanna, 614532-8644. LD XX

Local Cantina

These kitschy, Mexican-themed neighborhood bars with a heavy focus on craft beers also happen to serve good, Americanized Mexican fare, like fajitas, quesadillas and tacos, plus self-serve chips and salsa. 743 S. High St., Brewery District, 614-564-9775; 20 W. Waterloo St., Canal Winchester, 614829-5139; 3126 N. High St., Clintonville, 614754-8554; 4537 Bridge Park Ave., Dublin, 614-389-1684; 1423 Grandview Ave., Ste. B, Fifth by Northwest, 614-488-6146; 1644 Oak St., Franklin Park, 614-670-8171; 101 Mill St., Ste. 100, Gahanna, 614-337-1977; 3937 Broadway, Grove City, 615-782-2545; 3975 Main St., Hilliard, 614-363-4931; 600 N. High St., Short North, 614-914-8840; 1670 W. Lane Ave., Ste. 150, Upper Arlington, 614-6746269; 667 N. Cleveland Ave., Westerville, 614394-8720. LD XX

THAI

Bamboo Thai Kitchen

This bright spot in a drab strip mall offers well-executed Thai staples like som tum (green papaya salad), flavorful green and red curries and pad thai, plus some Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese dishes. 774 Bethel Rd., Northwest Side, 614-326-1950. LD $$

Bangkok Grocery & Restaurant

A family-owned, carryout-only eatery specializing in authentic Thai fare for more than 30 years. Go for some of the city’s best pad thai, tom yum soup, nam tok and Thai curries. 3277 Refugee Rd., East Side, 614-2318787. LD $$

Siam Orchid Thai Restaurant

Authentic Thai dishes served in an ornate setting, with tom yum gai, Panang curry, pad thai and pad prig. 7654 Sawmill Rd., Dublin, 614-792-1112. LD XX

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN

Seitan’s Realm

This devilishly named deli specializes in plant-based sandwiches such as Reubens and gyros. Try the vegan cheesesteak sandwich with curly fries for a great combo. 3496 N. High St., Clintonville, 614-230-2889. BLD $$

Two Dollar Radio Headquarters

An indie bookstore/bar/café residing on the South Side. The bar serves cocktails and draft beer (except on Sundays) while the café focuses on plant-based salads, burritos, sliders, sandwiches and dips. 1124 Parsons Ave., South Side, 614-725-1505. BRLD $$

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My Neighborhood

DOWNTOWN

Center Stage

When they became empty nesters, Traci Martinez and her husband, Heath Wagner, decided to move from Galena. “The draw for Downtown was the theaters, the Scioto Mile, Columbus Commons and all the festivals,” says Martinez, the managing partner of Squire Patton Boggs law firm on Capitol Square. “We went from two cars to one, and we walk everywhere.”

—STEVE WARTENBERG

The Next Stage

“Our current passion is CAPA’s Broadway in Columbus; we have season tickets,” Martinez says. Her favorite is “Moulin Rouge!,” while Wagner’s is “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Artistic Awakening

“I’d never been to the Columbus Museum of Art prior to moving Downtown,” says Martinez, who’s now a regular. “A colleague of mine is getting married there, and I’m really excited to go there for the wedding.”

Fitness and Fillets

The couple spend a lot of time working out at the Athletic Club of Columbus on East Broad Street.

“My husband is on the basketball team there, and we dine at Carmichael’s [in the club] at least once a week,” Martinez says. “I love their fillet, and they have a rotating wine list.”

Café Klatch

Another regular hang is Parable Café on South High Street. “The vibe there is awesome,” Martinez says, adding she can’t resist the lattes and the fresh-baked pastries. “By day it’s a café, and at night it’s a little bar.”

Uncommon Music

Another of the couple’s artsy adventures is the summer concert series at Columbus Commons. “We’ve done it with a picnic for just us, and we’ve also sat with friends,” Martinez says, adding her favorite concert was Boyz II Men.

Festival Fans

There are several festivals in and around Downtown. “Because I’m Hispanic, I love the Festival Latino,” Martinez says. “The music and the food are spectacular, everything’s delicious, but I’m partial to the taquitos.”

Lotsa Pasta

Speck Italian Eatery on North High Street is another favorite. “You can watch them make the pasta on-site; it’s so fresh,” says Martinez, whose favorite dish is the crumbled sausage and marinara sauce on a bed of fresh pasta.

PHOTO: TIM JOHNSON

Traci Martinez at the Ohio Theatre

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