The annual Martin Luther King Jr. march, magic shows, a baseball diamond dedication, the return of Community Thanksgiving — 2023 was a great year to gather in Yellow Springs.

At its Dec. 14 regular meeting, the Yellow Springs Board of Education took its first step toward realizing the district school facilities improvements that were approved by voters last month.

This year, affordable housing nonprofit YS Home, Inc. reached two major milestones: The first phase of its upcoming 32-unit combined senior rental and all-ages, for-sale townhome development, The Cascades, was fully funded — and the nonprofit celebrated its 25th anniversary.

On Thursday, Dec. 14, the YS Federal Credit Union, or YSCU, tallied final votes from member-owners that would determine if the longtime local credit union would merge with central-Ohio-based Bridge Credit Union — and member-owners overwhelmingly voted “yes.”

Though the Yellow Springs School District hasn’t seen interruptions in providing bus services to students, the local district is not immune to the nationwide shortage.

The proposed project, tentatively called the Aviation Energy Center, comes after the December 2022 Ohio Power Siting Board, or OPSB, denial of Vesper’s previously planned 1,500-acre, 175 MW utility-scale Kingwood solar project, which was also slated to be located in Greene County.

On Jan. 13, 2024, the Mad River Theater Works will debut “Keep Marching: The Road to the March on Washington.”

On Monday, Dec. 11, the last of the paperwork was signed to purchase a half-acre parcel of land from Antioch College, where the center aims to build and open a new facility.

Villagers showed up bright and early Saturday, Dec. 2, to trek into School Forest and fell their own Christmas trees.

During the most recent regular meeting of the Miami Township Board of Trustees on Monday, Dec. 4, longtime Zoning Inspector Richard Zopf was terminated from his position, which he’s held for 24 years.