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MOV Climate Corner: Dolly’s mountain legacy: Keeping Appalachia wild

Local Columns

On Aug. 25, the world lost a giant in so many respects. Especially in this day and age, you are hard pressed to find a person who bridges nearly every divide and who so few people, if any, have an unkind word to say about them. Dolly Parton, a self-proclaimed country girl from the mountains of east Tennessee, created a legacy that spans so many pieces of today’s popular culture, but almost none more than her love and respect for our natural world, and the lengths she went to keeping them as wild as could be. If you’ve never heard Dolly talk about her beloved Smoky Mountains or ...

Early Marietta: Early salt making on the Ohio frontier

Local Columns

Today, there seems to be too much salt in our diets. But salt on the frontier was a scarce yet vital resource. Blueridgetales.com: "Life (then) hinged on one thing: salt. It preserved food, kept animals and humans healthy, and was used as trade currency..." Salt in Washington County in the 1790s was $8 ($200 today!) per bushel if bought in the east. Finding local sources was imperative. Most salt deposits had been discovered centuries ago by animals and indigenous people. Animals were attracted to “salt licks”; buffalo (yes, they roamed the Midwest) wore paths to the salt which were ...

Cracking the Code: Learn from others and the past

Local Columns

Last week, Lynnda and I hosted a foreign company we met at SelectUSA who visited our region looking for potential sites for their high-energy manufacturing business. They will create over 100 high-wage jobs. We were their tour guide and chauffeur. We had a full schedule of meetings and site visits. Everyone involved did an excellent job. This company makes several important products the USA currently imports from China. They said, “We are coming to Shale Crescent USA because you have…” * A large and existing market. * A stable operating environment. * Freight cost and time ...

Keep up momentum of solving home health care shortage

Editorials

As Ohio's population ages, the number of older adults who need at least a little help is increasing, while the number of people qualified to offer that help is dwindling. It's a nationwide problem -- by 2030, the number of Americans over age 65 will be greater than the number of those under 18. According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, that problem is already evident in the Buckeye State, where the population has been aging since the 1990s. “Our health care is a triumph of human ingenuity, but while we’re living longer, we’re spending more years in less than good ...

Build on business success with focus on southeast Ohio

Editorials

Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel took a victory lap of sorts after CNBC said Ohio is the No. 1 state for business, with a nine-stop "Heart of Opportunity Tour" that wrapped in Springfield at the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence. Other stops were in Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, Lima, Piketon, Middletown, Columbus and Cincinnati. Regarding his stop in Springfield, DeWine said. "The investments we’re making in aviation infrastructure, workforce, research, and innovation are creating an environment that’s allowing companies to build the future of flight ...