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Advantages of synthetic turf today: Not your father’s surface

Aren’t sports meant to be played on natural turf? That’s what I thought when I first heard Mount Union College (now University) was trading in its natural grass for an artificial field in the summer of 2002. It wasn’t until after I investigated this new breed of synthetic turf that my perspective changed, and it led to my new career in the synthetic turf industry. Today, the proposed House Bill 605 would require Ohio professional sports stadiums that seat 10,000 or more and host preseason, regular season, and postseason events to be 90% natural grass. While this may sound ...

Summer concert season winds down with Willie

It’s been said that age is just a number. If you want evidence of that, look no further than the timeless Willie Nelson. As readers who regularly follow this column will know, my husband, Mike, and I often attend concerts as our form of getting away from it all. We did so again on Thursday, and the evening did not disappoint. For me, the main attraction was good old Willie. I believe it was 1992 when I saw Nelson play at Jamboree In The Hills. Although I was never a huge country music fan, something about those classic songs delivered in the way that only Willie Nelson can ...

September 11: One of America’s finest hours

There are events in our lives we remember clearly. I was in junior high shop class when I heard President John F. Kennedy was shot and died. I was in Chicago on a job site when the engineer, Alan, drove up and with his southern accent said, “You need to call your mama right away.” Mom told me Dad had died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Three hours later I was on my first airplane. A TWA flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh. Do you recall where you were on 9-11-2001 when the first plane slammed into the Twin Towers? I was working for Halliburton and in a meeting at Oakwood, in ...

What successful sales people know can help you

Last week I read a good column on the value of a tree — commercially (wood or fruit), beauty, shade in summer, fun like a tire swing or tree house and ecological benefits including taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and producing oxygen. Foreign visitors are amazed by the number of trees we have and “How green it is here.” Shale Crescent USA is working with a company met at SelectUSA from India who wants to expand to the Unoted States. SCUSA shared the business reasons for them to come, such as economical, dependable energy; abundant water sources like the Ohio River; an ...

Making the most of the summer ‘staycation’

I recently took my annual “staycation” — an opportunity to spend a few days at home with my husband, Mike, working on every project we can come up with. We managed to do a little better at relaxing this time around. Rather than spending all of our time off from work performing manual labor, we started our break by attending a family gathering. We followed that up with a visit to a local business, Giacinta’s Gelato & Cafe, where live music was offered on the patio. The following day was Mike’s birthday, which we celebrated by having breakfast at Denny’s and then just ...

Retired educator says it’s time for America to laugh again

Traditional comedy has always been based on situations that all of us face during our daily affairs at home, work and play. We need to return to such humanistic humor. The problem with some segments of society today is taking humor too seriously, feeling offended. Laughter is important to our mental health. And we need to be able to laugh at ourselves. It Is good for the human spirit. Likewise, we are witnessing contemporary comedy that is based on “hate humor” focused specifically on individuals and various groups. This comedic approach is truly hurtful, biased and prejudiced in ...