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6 GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS | 2021– 2022 taxpayers, the village buys electric power wholesale and retails it over its own trans- mission lines. This nets us revenue that keeps municipal accounts a lovely shade of black. Such contrasts and con- tradictions are about par for the course in Yellow Springs. Our streets are so dreadful that motorists sometimes cut across vacant lots for a smoother ride. We suffer an appalling shortage of side- walks. But Yellow Springs is one of the few places in the world where all of Shake- speare’s plays were ever produced professionally by one man. It took the noted Shakespearean producer, Arthur Lithgow, five seasons to realize his lifetime dream, but they were enchanted sum- mers for our town. Politics? We’ve got all kinds. Our weekly paper, The Yellow Springs News, is jointly owned and harmoniously operated by a Republican, a Democrat and a Socialist. There are times when our town is described as a hotbed of radicals, but the fact is that at least half of our voters are registered Republi- cans and they have swept two out of the last three Presiden- tial elections. There’s one other contrast I would like to mention. Our citizens range from dirt farm - ers to old, conservative fami - lies to successful businessmen to intellectuals and on to uninhibited sculptors and art- ists. The density of Ph.D.s in our population is ridiculously high, including a battalion of about 150 research scientists in fields as widely disparate as animal psychology and astrophysics. “I never think of going out of town to hire an expert consultant,” a leading indus- trialist said recently. “I just pick up the telephone and call a neighbor. There’s always someone here who knows the answers to technical and scientific problems.” This has led to numerous profitable industrial innovations. Now that I’ve given a very sketchy idea of what our town is, I had better explain why it’s that way. Why, for example, is Yellow Springs besieged by people with profitable ideas? Ask the president of Morris Bean & Co. (aluminum cast- ings grossing five million dol - lars a year), or the president of Vernay Laboratories (chemical and engineering research and precision molded synthetic rubber parts, grossing 4½ mil- lion dollars), or the president of Yellow Springs Instrument Co. (electronic equipment and research), and you’ll get the same answer: “We’re here because of the college.” “The college” is Antioch, a liberal arts institution which Professor George G. Stern of Syracuse University rated one of the top eleven in intel- lectual climate of 67 colleges studied in a recent survey. Stern’s criteria, including “high energy level,” “free discussion” and “community commit- ment,” describe Yellow Springs about as well as they describe Antioch. This similarity is no accident. In 1921, Yellow Springs was a stagnant town and Antioch, whose first president was American educator Horace Mann, found itself broke and dying. Then Arthur E. Morgan, an engineer with little formal education, became president of the college. It was just the job he wanted. He had long held two unusual theories about the development of business and intellectual life in America. The college and the town gave him two perfect guinea pigs for testing his ideas. Under Morgan’s guidance, the college guinea pig went to From left, Arthur Morgan, Walter Anderson and Hardy Trolander led a march through Yellow Springs in May 1963 to protest discrimi - nation at Gegner’s Barbershop. More than 550 people partici - pated in the march. | YS NEWS ARCHIVE PHOTO Continued from page 5 Custom Jewelry & Repair Art & Office Supplies Unfinished Creations 243 Xenia Ave. • 937-767-7173 Precious & Semiprecious Stones