Randy Edwards

Miller’s laser focus on safety — whether in an official capacity or “just speaking up when nobody else would speak up” — altered his career path. 

Culture of safety

Today, Miller’s nine-member safety team works in Ohio and West Virginia to coach, train, and support not only the 375 lineworkers employed by the co-ops, but all 1,500 cooperative employees in the state, with an aim to keep everyone safe. 

“As soon as they know who wins, they are making these balls and they are shipping them out,” says Lindsay Hollar, director of the Ada Area Chamber of Commerce. “The guys just want to get their hands on them.” Hollar doesn’t work for Wilson, but like lots of people in and around town, she speaks with a sort of proprietary pride about the local treasure that is the Wilson football. 

For decades, the pole barn has reigned supreme on American farms. But the pole-frame structures of today have come a long way from the simple pole barns of the Depression, says Caleb Miller, owner and president of MQS Structures in Lancaster. Pole framing remains a popular design for farm outbuildings, but these days, Miller’s company, a member of Lancaster-based South Central Power Company, may just as likely be using pole-frame construction to build the shell for a far more complex structure.

Telling the story of the Shawnee — and their relationship with Ohio settlers — is the motivation behind the creation of Great Council State Park, scheduled to open early this year on State Route 68 between Xenia and Yellow Springs. 

Wallace, who has tangled with state officials on other issues, praises ODNR and the Ohio History Connection for the efforts to accurately present the Shawnee story in the new park. “I’ve always told them, ‘Don’t talk about us, talk with us,’ and that has happened from day one with this project,” she says. 

The initial meeting didn’t go so well, as Lincoln remembers in his autobiography, Vice President in Charge of Revolution.

Shown into his office, I told him that we of the Farm Bureau wanted to avail ourselves of the benefits of this legislation and set up our own utility plants. 

“What do you know about the utility business?” Mr. Cooke asked.

“Nothing,” I admitted cheerfully. “I was trained in dairying and animal husbandry.”

Powering Ohio’s co-ops

“We all take electricity for granted, until you’re at your own house and you lose it, and then you say, ‘Where’s the power company?’” laughs Schunn, plant manager for the Cardinal Power Plant in Brilliant, a small town on the Ohio River in eastern Ohio. Cardinal’s three coal-burning units produce up to 1,800 megawatts of power at a given moment. It’s the main baseload generating plant for Buckeye Power.

“In June, we were working 16 hours a day in 90-degree weather, for about a week,” says Wise, 22. “Then winter storm Elliott hit (in December) and we worked a lot of overtime when it was minus 30. We’ve seen the hottest of the hot and the coldest of the cold.”

“Sure, I want to be home,” Wise says. “But there are people out there who don’t have power and if we’re not out there doing this, then who is?”

If that seems like a modest aspiration, understand that I’ve coveted a rain garden for many years. Designed to temporarily capture and slow the flow of water off your property, rain gardens are a practical and beautiful landscape feature that is becoming popular, especially for those looking to lighten their footprint on the Earth. 

Mad River has been owned by Vail Resorts since 2019, when the Colorado-based company purchased all 17 properties previously owned by Peak Resorts, Inc., including three other Ohio resorts. Mad River isn’t the oldest resort in Ohio — Snow Trails in Mansfield opened a year earlier — but it lays claim to being the largest in the Buckeye State, covering 144 acres, with a peak elevation of 1,460 feet above sea level.