2024 In Review | Village Life

• By Lauren Shows
• Published: January 16, 2025

• No Comments

Annual celebrations

• In January, the theme of the 2024 MLK Day celebration was “Disenfranchised: NO MORE!” Coretta Scott King Center Director Dr. Queen Meccasia Zabriskie was the keynote speaker, and villager Basim Blunt was presented with the annual Peacemaker Award for his community service to the village.

• Juneteenth celebrations were kicked off this year with a gathering outside Antioch College’s Olive Kettering Library and a walk that proceeded through the village past several sites of significance in the Black history of Yellow Springs. The walk concluded on the grounds of Mills Lawn with music, historical presentations and a community meal, followed by music.

• The village celebrated Pride in late June with a day-long schedule of events, including the annual parade and musical performances throughout the day. The parade featured a new addition this year: The Purple March, created by Ms. Demure, the producer of “Harper’s Bazzaroworld,” the oldest LGBTQ+ public access variety talk show in the U.S. to highlight reproductive rights and the ongoing fight for diversity and inclusion.

• The annual Independence Day parade and fireworks were halted this year due to rainy weather — but through the combined efforts of the Chamber of Commerce, YS Police Department and Miami Township Fire-Rescue, they were rescheduled for early August and combined with the Village’s annual Touch-A-Truck event to form Yellow Springs Community Day.

• The third annual Wheeling Gaunt Day, honoring  the famed local 19th century philanthropist, was celebrated in September at the statue of Gaunt located in Hilda M. Rahn Park.

The 2024 Community Thanksgiving in First Presbyterian Church. (Photo by Matt Minde)

• The annual Yellow Springs Community Thanksgiving Dinner returned to First Presbyterian Church this year. The event featured turkeys, traditional sides and vegan and vegetarian dishes, and about 200 community members attended.

• The 77th annual School Forest Festival returned in early December, yielding only a few dozen trees for early-bird attendees, but hot chocolate, cookies and tractor-trailer rides for all. The annual downtown tree-lighting followed that evening, complete with a visit from Santa Claus — as well as sometimes-naughty holiday icons Krampus and the Grinch. The crowd was serenaded by the McKinney and YSHS choirs and the World House Choir.

Milestones

• Longtime Village Council member Marianne MacQueen, who served on Council for more than 10 years, stepped down from the dais in January after choosing not to run for reelection the previous November.

• The Glen Helen Association announced in February that it had completed its $4.25 million campaign, launched in June 2020, to purchase Glen Helen Nature Preserve from Antioch College, reopen the preserve to the public, restart educational programs and address urgent needs related to public safety and the ecological health of the preserve. Later in 2024, the Glen opened a new parking lot on State Route 343, replaced the bridge over the Cascades and improved the Talus Trail. In addition to the money from its $4.25 million campaign, the Glen Helen paid for these improvements from the contributions of 857 donors and an additional $750,000 in capital funds.

• Local radio station 91.3 WYSO announced in March that it had received a $5 million grant to fund the preservation of radio station archives for the 29 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, in the U.S. with a radio station.

• In April, Agraria broke ground on Mary’s Way, a paved, multiuse trail beginning at East Enon Road near Yellow Springs High School and winding through woods and wetlands for about a mile before ending at the local nonprofit’s barn. The path, named for the late Mary Donahoe, opened for community use in October.

Photo by Ransome Phelps

• The village had a front row view of a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event on Monday, April 8 — a total solar eclipse. Villagers gathered at Gaunt Park, Ellis Park and in the backyards of friends and neighbors to witness the event, which won’t be repeated in Ohio until 2099.

• This year marked the 50th anniversary of the April 3, 1974, Xenia tornado — an F-5 storm that touched down in Xenia and Wilberforce, killing 32 people, injuring more than 1,100 and causing over $100 million — nearly $600 million, adjusted to 2024 values — in damage.

• Organizers announced in April that beloved local music festival Porchfest would go on hiatus in 2024, with the hope that the event will be revived by another group in the future.

• In May, Yellow Springs Community Foundation celebrated 50 years of supporting the village’s 100-plus nonprofits, spearheading social justice initiatives, bolstering the arts and providing economic relief. At the time of the anniversary celebration, the local foundation had provided $9,850,000 in grants.

• Ohio unveiled its newest state park in the village’s backyard this summer. Centered around Shawnee and natural histories, Great Council State Park opened its doors to the public in early June. It’s located at the site of the now-demolished Tecumseh Motel near Xenia.

• The village’s own Krista Magaw announced this summer that she would run as the Democratic candidate for representative of Ohio House District 71. Magaw ultimately lost the seat to Xenia-based Republican Levi Dean in an election that saw Republicans win an overwhelming number of contests across the state.

In addition to his previous work with the Chamber, Phillip O’Rourke is the marketing manager for Emporium Wines and Underdog Cafe, president of YS Pride, a member of and frequent soloist with the World House Choir and the host of “The PHILLIP Show” on YS Community Access Channel 5. (Submitted photo)

• The YS Chamber of Commerce announced  in July that it had hired local resident Phillip O’Rourke to serve as its executive director, filling a position that had been vacant since 2021.

• Villagers were reintroduced to former resident Shane “The Walking Man” Johnson this summer; Johnson returned to Yellow Springs after more than 20 years away and has begun again to offer his pick-up and drop-off services — completed, as his nickname implies — on foot, which had been established when Johnson was a young adult in the 1990s.

• In August, the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO 91.3 gained a new — but familiar — voice at its helm, when it hired former resident and longtime radio producer and educator Will Davis to lead the center.

• In October, local adult softball league champs The Leftovers won the annual tournament for the third year in a row.

• Friends Care Community announced in October the tenure of a new administrator-in-training: Kelli Baxter, a 2019 YS High School alumna who has had a lifelong passion for healthcare.

While on her routine jog down the bike path, photographer Kathleen Galarza spotted an all-too common sight on Corry Street: a herd of at least 15 dear grazing and frolicking in a front yard. As several naturalists told the News recently, the growing deer population in Yellow Springs and throughout Ohio poses a number of detrimental threats to regional biomes and human safety. (Photo by Kathleen Galarza)

Environmental efforts

• In February, the News caught up with local resident and biological sciences professor Don Cipollini, who spoke about recent ecological surveys and studies showing that white-tailed deer populations in the state continue to grow beyond human control.

• In September, a small fire caused by an illicit campsite broke out in Glen Helen during an extreme drought in Greene County and elsewhere around Ohio. Though Miami Township Fire-Rescue had the fire extinguished within 30 minutes, the dry conditions wrought by the drought could have meant much more dire consequences; the Ohio Fire Marshall ordered a statewide burn ban that stood for a month and a half before being lifted. Meanwhile, regional crops browned, gardens wilted and trees dropped leaves ahead of their typical fall defoliation.

• A native prairie established at Ellis Park celebrated a year of growth this fall; what was once a grassy perimeter around Ellis Pond became a dappled patchwork of milkweed, aster, ironweed, coneflowers and other native flowers.

Newly formed group YS UPROAR staged a pro-Palestinian march throughout Yellow Springs on Saturday, Jan. 27. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)

For a good cause

• In January, about a dozen local residents hosted a Village Cafe event in the Mills Lawn gym. The event gave community members the opportunity to “engage in civil discourse, to build new relationships and to hear and be heard.”

• Social action group Yellow Springs Uproar formed in January and led a march of more than 100 local residents to call for a ceasefire and end to Israeli military action in Gaza. The group later urged Village Council to demand a ceasefire, which Council members did via a unanimous resolution in February.

• In May, longtime local residents Carl Moore and Jim Zehner began operation of “Who’s Hungry?” at MAZU restaurant, offering twice-weekly free meals to anyone who walks in the door in an effort to address a need that’s increasingly apparent in the village and the wider Miami Valley. In December, two fundraisers were held to benefit the nonprofit.

Local resident Amy Wamsley recently completed an 11.5-mile swim around Coronado Island. The swim was intended as a qualifier for Wamsley’s upcoming 2025 swim across the English Channel. Though unexpectedly warm water temperatures during the swim exempted it from qualification, Wamsley continues to train and focus on her nonprofit, Amy’s SwimVenture. (Submitted photo)

• In September, local resident Amy Wamsley launched her newly established nonprofit, Amy’s Swimventure, aimed at both advocating for water conservation and empowering women. The nonprofit’s establishment coincides with Wamsley’s plan to swim the English Channel in 2025. Wamsley completed a six-mile swim around Coronado Island in California on Halloween as her qualifying swim for the Channel. Unseasonably warm water temperatures disqualified the swim, but she plans to give it another go-round ahead of her spring departure for the English Channel. 

• First Presbyterian Church of Yellow Springs launched an online fundraiser in October to help offset the nearly $40,000 cost of removing bats from the church’s sanctuary, which was closed for a few months due to the presence of the animals.

• In October and November, fundraising campaigns were launched for local residents Phyllis Braun and Keith Grzelak. Braun was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and Grzelak with complex regional pain syndrome.

• In December, nonprofit StoryChain received a $3,000 grant to continue its work recording the voices of incarcerated parents as they read stories to their children. The nonprofit aims to begin working in Pickaway and London correctional facilities in 2025.

• Comments
• |
• Login
• |
• Community Standards
• |
• Help

No comments yet for this article.