A dog’s sense of smell is thousands of times more sensitive than that of a human being. So-called cadaver dogs, for example (working dogs trained to detect human remains), can even locate a drowned victim whose body is still underwater.
“The first water-detection dog in the U.S. began working in Arkansas several years ago,” said Lohr. “That K-9 program proved so successful, and now there are a dozen or more such dogs scattered throughout the country.”
A little more than six months after Hurricane Helene rampaged through the southeastern United States, it’s become apparent that some hard-hit areas will take months or years to recover — if they ever do.
Helene was the costliest — and one of the deadliest — storms ever to hit the United States. It came ashore in Florida in the overnight hours of Sept. 25, 2024, and dissipated only three days later near the Tennessee-Kentucky border. But in that short span, it had damaged hundreds of water and sewer systems, destroyed long stretches of entire roads, washed out countless bridges, and mangled or swept away hundreds of thousands of homes.
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9331 Mitchell-Dewitt Road, Plain City, OH 43064.
937-243-0635, www.mitchellsberries.com
I think we all can relate to the amazing feeling of those sunny, 70-degree days that start coming regularly in April, giving us hope that winter is finally over. We also know that crushing feeling of 30 degrees and snow the next day — bringing us back to the reality that winter isn’t quite finished with us yet.
At the end of a dead-end road in rural Hancock County, creativity unfolds in an unexpected yet aptly named setting — an open art studio called MONGallery, run by artist and entrepreneur Jennifer Sowders.
“Drawing was one thing, but adding a medium and learning to master that is a whole other world,” she says. “Art school definitely helped with that aspect, and today I call myself a painter.”
In 2017, she rekindled her passion through a plein air painting group with the Hancock Park District. She immersed herself in painting landscapes, experimenting with acrylics, palette knives, and vibrant watercolor on Yupo paper.
Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz is the scientist you did not know that you knew. His walkabouts through Ohio impressed upon him a desire to discover more about plants and fishes and a prehistoric culture that predated him by millennia.
The family moved to Italy to escape the terrors of the French Revolution. It was there that a self-educated Constantine came of age and took an ardent interest in natural history and languages, which would come to have its consequences in the names of organisms — through the eastern U.S., in Ohio, and even into the American Southwest.
It takes a certain mindset to be a lineworker. Those in the profession must be fearless yet completely committed to safety; procedure-followers who are also able to adapt and problem-solve; individuals with a work ethic that makes it unthinkable to leave a job undone.
There was just one problem. Because of political red tape, the crew had to leave before they were able to “flip the switch” and energize the lines.
Ohio’s cooperatives have sent line crews to Guatemala four times since 2016, each on a mission to bring electricity to places where previously there was none. The celebrations in La Soledad in 2016 and Las Tortugas in 2018 when lights came on for the first time are scenes none who were there will ever forget.
Of Ohio’s 88 counties, eight are named for Indian tribes: Delaware, Erie, Huron, Miami, Ottawa, Seneca, Tuscarawas, and Wyandot.
In development since 2019, Ohio’s newest state park is located along U.S. Route 68 just north of Xenia, where “Old Chillicothe” — a historic Shawnee village — once stood. As Gov. Mike DeWine said at its June 2024 grand opening, “The land had a story that needed to be told.”
