In 1975, the Ohio General Assembly chose the ladybug as the official state insect, citing attributes shared with the great people of the Buckeye State.
This orange-and-black or red-and-black speck of an insect (which is technically a beetle rather than a bug) is the size of a pencil eraser, and it brings a welcomed utility to orchardists and farmers alike. Ladybugs, as cute and dainty as they may be, are voracious predators of other bugs, including some destructive ones that are too small for the human eye to see.
When Dewey Scott retired from the hustle and bustle of Cincinnati to the peaceful hillsides surrounding Ripley — an hour to the southeast on land hugging the Ohio River — he thought he’d enjoy life without much on his to-do list.
That was more than a decade ago. Today, Scott is the manager and docent at the John Parker House museum in Ripley, armed with a knack for storytelling and a wealth of knowledge about the historic home and about Ripley’s standing as a pivotal stop on the Underground Railroad.
“You were a free person once you came into Ohio at that time,” he says. “It was known that there were free blacks living in Ripley, and fugitive slaves knew they could come here and live among them.”
I have a recurring daydream where I try to imagine what it must have been like to see the Ohio country hundreds of years ago, long before European settlement.
Large apex predators once lived here, too: mountain lions and wolf packs preying upon myriad white-tailed deer and elk. Ohio even had buffalo herds (I’ll write more about those later this year).
I have a recurring daydream where I try to imagine what it must have been like to see the Ohio country hundreds of years ago, long before European settlement. We know that half a dozen major Indian tribes lived on the land — it would have been interesting to visit their villages and learn their way of life.
Just to the west of Cleveland and a little south of Lake Erie, Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative (LMRE) serves more than 16,700 consumer-members on 1,541 miles of electrical line across five counties. Hometown pride is a defining characteristic of the people in the area, who believe in bettering the community and looking out for one another. LMRE prioritizes providing opportunities for their youth.
Just to the west of Cleveland and a little south of Lake Erie, Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative (LMRE) serves more than 16,700 consumer-members on 1,541 miles of electrical line across five counties.
Who they serve
In addition to residential service, LMRE provides service to some unique companies. They serve Green Circle Growers, one of the largest greenhouses in North America. Green Circle Growers is a family-owned company in Oberlin with over 100 acres of indoor space for growing seasonal crops, tropicals, foliage, succulents, and more. LMRE also serves Goldrush Jerky, a company that originated with its owners selling snacks out of the back of a car. Goldrush Jerky now sells beef jerky and beef smokies in all 50 states.
Our state’s very name, translated from the language of its original inhabitants, means “Good River.” While Ohio is named specifically for the mighty waterway that forms its eastern and southern borders, that name serves as an apt description of the entire place.
Rivers, to me, are analogies of our humanity: They begin as spindly streams, unglamorous trickles, and, like people, they find their way — carving their character as they go, widening and deepening with distance. If a river can have such an ignominious beginning yet end with a glorious, glowing connection to something larger, then couldn’t that be a template for a life well-lived?
Kyle Hicks sat at his computer at his Lancaster-area home, the homework assignment for his College Credit Plus course due in a few hours. He knew he was cutting it close.
Like a vast number of people in rural areas of Ohio and the rest of the nation, Hicks and his family have limited access to high-speed internet. The one company that provides broadband service where he lives promises connection speeds “up to 5 megabits per second,” but he says tests on the line show it’s rarely above 1 Mbps. What’s more, service in his area, even at that level, is expensive.
Satellite broadband could be an option but costs even more.
