In Your Neighborhood

Step inside BookMarx Bookstore, a double storefront property with event flyers plastered on its front windows, and one might recall a different time. The days back before free-shipping giants like Amazon took the literary marketplace by storm. Reading couches, placed near the streaming sunlight in […]

Driving around Monroe County’s jutting hills and past protruding cliffs of layered limestone, a world traveler might compare the region to Bern, Switzerland. In the early 19th century, the region’s geography is exactly what attracted Swiss and German immigrants. Remnants of Swiss and German traditions […]

The Idea The idea for The Fear Project was inspired by a kitchen table conversation. After Ohio University Professor Julie M. Elman asked her husband to describe a personal fear to her, she paired his words with a doodle. Now, three years later, the Fear […]

Joshua LaBello and his brother, Michael, two tattoo artists in Gallipolis, Ohio, recently hosted a scar cover-up contest for at their shop, Envy Ink Tattoo. Joshua wanted to help people who had been psychologically affected by some sort of trauma—to help make a positive change […]

Brewce Martin has skating in his blood. He has always wanted to own a skate park, and in 1995, he finally got his wish. Brewce and his son, Brandon, who was 10 years old at the time, were evicted from their West Virginia home for […]

Karen Smith and Lori Kelly were looking to come up with a unique way to set Gallipolis apart from its surrounding cities. Smith and Kelly came up with an organization called Gallipolis in Bloom. In 2005, Gallipolis began promoting its new organization.  Residents of Gallipolis […]

Lynx rufus, otherwise known as the bobcat, is a feral cat native to Ohio. Bobcats, however, are hard to spot statewide, because they are solitary and territorial animals. But Suzie Prange, a Wildlife Research Biologist for the Division of Wildlife, says that Southeast Ohio is […]

During a routine Tuesday afternoon lesson at the Athens Chinese Culture Center, while some students watched a video on traditional Chinese culture dance, 11 year-old Alison Russ recited sentences and arranged magnetic Mandarin words on a board. Working to arrange the words just right, she […]

Ever since Julie Chafin took her daughter, Ally, to compete in a cheerleading competition in Columbus, Ohio, she has wanted to make a difference in the lives of children with disabilities. Chafin was shocked by the amount of special needs children that were competing at […]

The holiday season is a time to gather with friends and family. With all of the distractions in today’s consumer culture, community tends to be forgotten. This is not the case during Friends of Serpent Mound’s annual winter solstice illumination. The winter solstice occurs every […]