Plans for Yellow Springs’ longtime downtown grocery store, Tom’s Market, to change its business model are pressing ahead.
A press release from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, on Monday, Feb. 23, said that the foundation had struck an agreement with Tom’s Market owner Jeff Gray, with the goal of “transitioning the business into a form of community ownership in approximately two years.”
During this transition period, the statement reads, “Tom’s Market will continue operating as usual.”
The foundation’s announcement means Tom’s Market is one step closer to becoming a co-op, a cooperatively owned grocery store in which individuals could buy ownership shares, engage in decision-making, vote on operational matters, share in profits and receive discounts on products.
The sale price and exact terms of the agreement are confidential as dictated by the agreement, Project Manager and village resident Kumar Jensen wrote to the News.
“That being said, I can share that the purchase will include all assets owned by the business including such things as: inventory, equipment, vendor contracts, supplier agreements, licenses, business name, etc.,” Jensen wrote.
Having signed a letter of intent, both Gray and the foundation have entered into a 90-day due diligence period.
According to Jensen, that period allows the buyer — in this case, the Yellow Springs Community Foundation — the opportunity to “do as thorough [a review of] business operations as possible and complete any critical business transition tasks before the sale is finalized.”
Specifically:
• Conducting an equipment inventory and evaluation to ensure that equipment, including refrigerators, freezers and the like, are operating as described;
• Conducting an inventory audit of all goods that will be included in the sale of the business; and
• Identifying which licenses, permits and certifications will transfer with the business, versus needing new registrations.
“For example,” Jensen wrote, addressing the latter point, “We do not want to see a lapse in the grocery being able to accept SNAP, so the due diligence period gives us time to work to get the new owners authorized to accept SNAP.”
Per Gray and the foundation’s agreement, once this 90-day due diligence period is completed, both parties will enter into a purchase agreement and Gray will pass over the keys to the store. For 90 days after, he will remain on standby as a consultant for the new ownership.
“During [the 90-day due diligence] period, Jeff Gray will remain actively involved in management while YSCF recruits and trains new leadership,” reads the foundation’s press release.
All the while, YSCF will work alongside local and national experts, including participating in the Food Co-op Initiative’s Co-op Conversion learning cohort and support from Co-op Dayton, to “assist with transition planning and community ownership exploration.”
The release also states: “Throughout the due diligence period and into new ownership, the top priority is to ensure continuation of smooth operations at the grocery store, including investing in necessary business operations, and supporting the existing staff, which are and will remain one of the biggest assets of the business.”
The wheels for this potential transition — from a for-profit, privately owned store into one that’s community owned — began turning last fall, when Gray, the foundation, and community stakeholders began a discovery phase to determine feasibility and gauge local interest.
As previously reported, a community survey conducted by the foundation found that of the 280 unique responses, 269 people responded positively to the co-op possibility; 11 people responded negatively. Around 90% of all responders stated that “simply having a grocery store” in Yellow Springs was a top priority. Other priorities that followed included affordable product pricing, local ownership, quality and variety of products, and staff retention and fair wages.
The News spoke with Gray on Tuesday, Feb. 24, and he said that while he’s pleased the process of transitioning the store into a community-owned model is moving along, it’ll be bittersweet for him to step away after four years running his father’s downtown grocery.
“It feels like the end of an era,” Gray said. “My father’s time in this store started 61 years ago. But, it’ll be good for him to finally be able to retire and relax.”
Gray added that he’s looking forward to taking his own vacation — what will be the first in the last four years.
Wanting to address the community, Gray insisted that folks not read into Tom’s Market’s anticipated transition as “an act of desperation or motivated by wanting to get out from under something,” as he put it.
“I’ve gotten the financials of the store into a pretty good place, even as the economy isn’t doing us any favors,” he saidd. “We could keep weathering the storm as is for some time. However, a for-profit model would eventually get whittled down to the point where it wouldn’t make sense to stay open anymore. So, this is a way to make sure that a downtown Yellow Springs grocery store is here for many, many more years to come.”
Gray and the community foundation encourage the community to stay involved in and informed about the market’s transition.
Another town hall — this one to discuss the timeline and logistics of community ownership — is scheduled for Wednesday, April 15, 6–7 p.m., again in the Presbyterian church’s Westminster Hall.
Additionally, the foundation launched the Yellow Springs Community Market Fund — a fund designed for community members to support “the financial needs of a community ownership model” for Tom’s Market, according to the press release. Donations and pledges accepted are not in lieu of eventual membership dues.
More information on the transition can be found at http://www.yscf.org or by emailing communitymarket@yscf.org. To sign up for updates, go to http://www.forms.gle/bR4V5mhEeNBSjrjv9
The Board of Directors of Yellow Springs Community Children’s Center announced Tuesday, Feb. 17, that Executive Director Aillevrah Turner had submitted her resignation, effective immediately.
Turner led the organization as executive director for three years. According to a press release, Turner strengthened enrollment and the financial position of the organization during her time at the helm.
As the News reported in February of 2023, Turner studied child psychology at Wilberforce University and became part of the teaching staff at the Children’s Center in 2018, when she was hired as the lead teacher in the center’s then-new infant classroom. In mid-2022, she became assistant director of the center, before becoming interim director in the fall of that year and then officially named director in December 2022.
“I am grateful for the opportunities I have had during my time here and for the work we have accomplished together on behalf of the children and families we serve,” Turner said in the press release. “I wish the board and the center continued success moving forward.”
Board President Deborah Downey said the board is “very grateful for Aillie’s dedicated service, hard work and contributions to the Children’s Center over the past several years.”
The board has initiated a search for a new executive director and, Downey said, “has plans in place for smooth operation and seamless transition at the center.”
Turner will work closely with the board and center staff during the transition, the press release said.
By Chris Wyatt
Jan. 31, 2026
Well, we got fourteen inches of snow and brutally cold temperatures (it was -11°F at 6 a.m. this morning).
The University closed for the whole week, which has never happened in the 19 years that I have been there.
Our main sewage line froze and then un-blocked, miraculously. Then, this morning, the water lines to our kitchen froze, which is frustrating but not unexpected. Plumbers will be making a fortune when all this thaws out.
Our neighbors out at the Hall plowed our driveway, which was very generous of them. I could not have driven the Subaru through 14 inches of snow. Nor did I want to shovel a quarter mile long gravel drive by hand. Thank you, Rebecca and family.
I dislike teaching from home and can’t wait to be back at work. It sounds like it might be nice but I am constantly distracted by books, beasts and breweries. During COVID my Ph.D. student and I had special permission to be on campus, which meant Ryan could complete his final experiments and I could teach on-line without my dogs interrupting.
It was pretty post-apocalyptic on campus. Much like Chernobyl, the wildlife moved in quickly and there were herds of deer on the quad. Ryan would hand feed baby groundhogs Cheerios by the neuroscience building. It was a peaceful time.
Indeed, it was during this time that I realized I needed somewhere to retreat to and that eventually led me to Patterdale Hall.
But for now, I have to plan. We escaped the frozen sewer, but frozen pipes mean we can’t clean pots and pans. Fortunately, the water lines to the upstairs bathroom run through the middle of the house and so we do still have water, it’s just upstairs. I shall pop to Kroger in a bit and buy a plastic bowl so I can wash pots in the bath. I’ll also get more paper plates so that we can reduce the amount of things that need to be cleaned.
We never get weather this severe in the UK, it remains a novelty even after 19 years.
Feb. 4, 2026
Stasis. It remains frozen outside but we have some water in the kitchen now. Not an emergency, so I will wait for the thaw before bothering a plumber.
Patterdale Hall is icebound. There is little point being out there, as Karen’s ankle will not allow her to tramp through deep snow, and ice fills her with terror. She is crafting quietly in Yellow Springs: necklaces and brooches made from old buttons. They are beautiful.
I’m focused almost entirely on work, but will help Bob put his curriculum vitae together this afternoon. He will apply to graduate school in the next cycle, and will spend a year visiting campuses and talking to people in assorted social psychology programs. This seems sensible — he needs a job and a year out of academia will allow him to focus on what exactly he would like to do.
But I think he is keen on Rutgers University, which is exciting. They would allow him to start in the spring ’27 semester if he was accepted.
Feb. 5, 2026
A couple of days interviewing candidates for an important job in our department. This assistant professor position would also direct the undergraduate physiology and neuroscience program. It will be good to have another colleague, as we have had retirements and horizontal moves to administration that left the department weakened.
Oooh, there was an absolutely beautiful hoar frost on my way into work this morning. Trees, bushes and fields all garlanded with white and silver. Very pretty indeed. I really should get out to the Hall when this day is done. We have six more weeks of Winter predicted, so I may as well embrace it.
Pesky rodent.
Feb. 8, 2026
My wife is the Ice Queen. It snowed on her birthday and she was delighted. This delight has turned into two weeks of ice box temperatures, and when I woke up this morning it was snowing again.
Now, to be fair, its only snowing a bit and its very pretty but this is easily the longest spell of sub-freezing weather that I have experienced in my 19 years here. However, the bulk of the snow has been dealt with, roads are safe and as long as we don’t get freezing rain, we should be fine.
Well, I say “fine.” Next month’s gas bill will be the stuff of legend. As is our Yellow Springs property tax bill. The property tax bill for Patterdale Hall is four times smaller than the one for our three-bed 1,600-square-foot house in Yellow Springs. My income will likely halve when I retire, and bills like this are deeply concerning. Bills will continue to rise at a rate that outstrips my salary and then once I shift to a fixed income, we will need to make major adjustments.
Those adjustments will not include selling the extremely affordable Patterdale Hall. It is our sanctuary.
My concern for the day is to get out to the Hall and remove the liquid fertilizers that are on a shelf out there. They will have undoubtably frozen by now, and the last thing we need is a pint of liquid fish guts exploding in the living room. That would be a disaster that is difficult to mitigate. High nitrogen fish-based fertilizer is great for plants in growth phase, but terrible for book shelves covered in books.
The horror.
*Originally from Manchester, England, Chris Wyatt is an associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology at Wright State University. He has lived in Yellow Springs for 19 years, is married and has two children and an insane Patterdale terrier. “The Patterdale Hall Diaries,” by Chris Wyatt, is now available in book format via Amazon for $11.99.
Antiochiana Archivist Scott Sanders will present a monthly series of one-hour talks exploring the history of Antioch College on the second Wednesday of each month, 12:30–1:30 p.m., beginning March 11, in the Olive Kettering Library.
Sanders has worked at Antioch since 1994 and has stewarded the college’s historical collections for more than three decades. The presentations are intended to examine Antioch’s past through institutional history, biography and personal reflection through a balance of nostalgia, documented history and factual context. Each session will include time for audience questions and will be recorded and later posted to Antioch’s YouTube channel.
The series is free and open to the public. Those who cannot attend in person may view each session live via Zoom; the meeting ID for the events is 820 8896 1530, and the passcode is 405208.
The schedule is as follows:
March 11 — “150 Years of Antioch in 60 Minutes or Less”
April 8 — “Fact and Fiction of Antioch College”
May 13 — “Red, Russians, and Spies”
June 10 — “ Why So Many Damn Colleges in Ohio”
July 8 — “Antioch and the Civil War”
Aug. 12 — “The Devil and Daniel Ellsberg, or How Scott Got Fired”
Sept. 9 — “The Life of Hugh Taylor Birch”
Oct. 14 — “Women of the Glen”
Nov. 11 — “My Hero Horace Mann”
On Palm Sunday weekend, actor Ted Neeley will once again step into Little Art Theatre to screen the film to which he’s been inextricably tied in the title role for five decades, “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
The experience will look much like it has the past times he’s visited: The desert will bloom across the screen, Roman guards in purple tank tops and camo will stride into frame and audiences will sing refrains of “Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ho,” with Neeley among them in the theater seats.
The only difference this time is that it will be the last time.
Neeley will be in town Friday–Sunday, March 27–29 for three screenings of the 1973 film version of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” in a stop on what he and longtime manager Frank Munoz have dubbed his “Farewell Tour.”
Yellow Springs has seen Neeley three times before, in 2015, 2017 and 2019, via the ministrations of longtime villager and “Superstar” superfan Gilah Pomeranz Anderson, who’s part of the “Team Neeley” road crew and social media management. During his first visit to the village, Neeley and the late Barry Dennen, who played Pontius Pilate, came for a weekend of screenings and conversation. Back then, Neeley told the News that playing Jesus had had a profound effect on his life in the years that followed filming.
Originally released as a concept album before becoming a Broadway show, “Jesus Christ Superstar” was among the earliest rock operas, pairing electric guitars with the final days of Jesus’ life. With music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, the work presented Jesus as a man who questioned, doubted and was occasionally overwhelmed by the movement around him.
That framing drew young audiences in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“The main thing [fans] love the most is that it looks at Jesus as a man,” Neeley told the News in 2015, ahead of his first visit to the village. “And everybody can relate to that, because they can see a little bit of themselves in the characters.”
(Submitted photo)
But the production also drew backlash, with some relegating it to the realms of blasphemy. When Neeley first performed in the show as part of the ensemble on Broadway, he said protesters crowded the sidewalks outside the theater. He invited critics inside to watch before judging, and many stayed.
The controversy followed the project to film. Director Norman Jewison later received the blessing of Pope Paul VI, helping clear the way for the movie’s 1973 release, which cemented Neeley’s long association with its title role.
“When you play the most important character in the history of the world and people perceive you that way, it affects you,” he said. “Even to pretend to walk in those sandals every day of the week, I am lifted and elevated.”
The News caught up with Neeley again this month, more than a decade since his first appearance in Yellow Springs. He said that feeling of elevation from a role he first played at 30 still sustains him now at 82, as he prepares to make his final pass through the village.
“I’m lucky to still be alive, first of all,” Neeley said with a laugh. “I am overwhelmed with the fact that it’s actually so successful. … People are crazy about it because they’ve introduced several generations of children … to the film, and the children love it too. So it’s a miracle, honestly, a miracle.”
The miracle continued in 2014, when Neeley reprised his role for an Italian stage production of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” 40 years after the film’s release. The show was initially intended to run for six weeks, but extended over five years, with runs stretching beyond Italy into other European countries.
“We had such a magnificent experience,” Neeley said.
And he said the miracle extended into his personal life, too: Neeley met his wife, Leeyan, while filming “Jesus Christ Superstar”; she was an ensemble dancer and appeared in both “Simon Zealotes” and “King Herod’s Song.”
“It changed my life, and it changed it for the better,” Neeley said.
It’s one of the reasons, Neeley said, that he still talks about the film less like a job and more like a gift. And though he acknowledged that even the most beloved rituals don’t go on forever, he said it’s also why he’s loath to say that a farewell tour means he’s going to retire or sever his connection to “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
“To be honest with you, I haven’t decided any of that,” he said. “Cher has been doing a farewell tour for over 20 years.”
With a laugh, he added: “If she can do that, I’ll give it a shot.”
In practice, Neeley’s manager Munoz said, the farewell tour means that once Neeley visits a theater, he doesn’t go back.
“We’ve technically been on this farewell tour since December of ’24,” Munoz said.
The tour has moved through a number of states since then, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, Texas and Michigan. Coming up this year are Easter weekend screenings in Orinda and Sacramento, California.
Another aspect of the farewell, Munoz said, is the increasing difficulty in finding independent theaters that can host an event like the one he and Neeley bring. When they began touring in 2013, Munoz said, they set their sights on community venues where they could get to know the folks in charge and work together to create a fun event. Since the pandemic, a number of their old stomping grounds have disappeared from the map.
They’ve tried the big chains, too, but Munoz said the lack of dedicated point people and the strain of corporate rigidity have made them inelegant substitutes for small theaters.
“There’s no projectionist at these places — it’s often a teenager who just punches a button,” Munoz said, adding that he’s seen big venues, not used to special events, roll the wrong movie.
In that sense, the tour is also something of a “goodbye” to the way Neeley has taken “Jesus Christ Superstar” on the road, and to the relationship those events have long had with theaters like the Little Art.
After more than a decade watching “Jesus Christ Superstar” with fans, Neeley has, perhaps, seen the film more times than anyone else — the events in Yellow Springs will mark screenings number 423, 424 and 425 since 2013. Nevertheless, he said the film keeps revealing new things to him.
“Every time that we do the screenings, I see things in the film that I hadn’t seen before,” he said.
Part of what he sees every time, he said, is a group of dear friends — some of whom are now gone from the world, but who live eternally on the screen.
“The only bad thing about it is we’ve lost several of our cast members,” Neeley said, adding with a wistful laugh: “They’re celebrating now, and I try to reach them all the time, but they never call me back.”
Carl Anderson, whose turn as Judas in the film is legendary, died in 2004. Neeley had already performed with Anderson in “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Broadway as part of the ensemble, with both understudying the roles they would eventually set to film. Famously, Neeley originally auditioned to play Judas in the stage show, but said he couldn’t imagine anyone but Anderson in the role on film.
“Every time I see the movie, I love seeing what everybody does, but Carl — oh my God,” he said. “There are so many moments with Carl that are so precious and so powerful.”
Neeley and Munoz also noted the death last year of Bob Bingham, who sang the part of Caiaphas with a deep, resonant bass. And they spoke with tenderness of Barry Dennen, whose voice still turns the opening words of “Pilate’s Dream” — “I dreamed I met a Galilean…” — into a haunted prayer on screen.
“We miss him tremendously,” Munoz said. “But he’s there in spirit at all of these screenings.”
Still, Neeley said he returns, again and again, to what the role has given him — and to what, in turn, it keeps giving other people.
Over the years, he’s met with thousands of fans at screenings who want to share a word, a memory or a hug in the lobby after the credits have rolled. One fan interaction has never left him, he said: As he was standing in a theater lobby talking to a couple, their young daughter stepped out from where she’d been hiding behind her mother’s legs, clearly ready to speak her truth.
“She looked up at me and said, ‘Mr. Neeley, you are my Jesus,’” he said.
It’s the kind of interaction, Neeley said, that explains why he’s taking his “farewell” slowly, and why retiring in full is hard to think about.
“I’m gonna miss it terribly, because everybody who comes up to talk to me and we hug, it’s just absolutely incredible,” Neeley said. “They make me feel like we’re all just a big, beautiful family.”
And as he prepared to bid “goodbye” to Yellow Springs for the last time, he insisted that his story is one of gratitude: a rock-and-roll drummer from Texas who got to sing those songs, in that place, with those people, and be met for years after with open arms.
“I’m the luckiest man alive,” he said.
“Jesus Christ Superstar” with Ted Neeley will screen Friday–Sunday, March 27–29, at Little Art Theatre; go to http://www.littleart.com or http://www.tedneeley.com for ticket information.
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