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.”

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.

Yellow Springs Schools Treasurer Jacob McGrath told school board members at their Feb. 18 meeting that the district remains financially stable through the end of the decade.

At the same time, he said the district faces growing uncertainty as new state property tax laws begin to affect both local revenues and the district’s future levy options.

McGrath presented the district’s five-year financial forecast during the meeting; he noted that the district began deficit spending in fiscal year 2025, and explained that expenditures are projected to exceed revenues consistently moving forward, with the district drawing from its reserve cash balance for operations.

“The cash balance does remain positive through fiscal year 2030,” McGrath said.

This month’s five-year forecast marks the district’s first time incorporating the anticipated effects of four property tax bills signed into law in December — House Bills 129, 186, 309 and 335 — which take effect March 19. As the News previously reported, McGrath, Superintendent Terri Holden and current and former school board members raised concerns about the legislation last year, warning that it would limit revenue growth and narrow the funding tools available to school districts.

Of the four bills, McGrath identified HB 186, which affects the 20-mill floor, as being of particular concern to the district. The 20-mill floor is the minimum effective school property tax rate districts must collect, which previously allowed tax revenues to rise as property values increased. According to McGrath, property tax reappraisal in 2023 lowered the district’s millage rate to the 20-mill floor, allowing its revenues to grow.

Now, however, the new law retroactively caps property tax growth at the 20-mill floor based on inflation.

“So money that we have received, the state is changing property tax law and saying that we’re not going to get that,” McGrath said.

Because of the retroactive nature of the law, previously collected revenue will be “clawed back” in fiscal year 2027, and at the same time, the district will feel the effects of the first full year of reduced property tax growth, McGrath said.

“Fiscal year 2027 will see the full brunt of it,” he said.

Based on current estimates, McGrath said HB 186 could cost the district about $421,000 in fiscal year 2027, followed by roughly $280,000 annually through fiscal year 2030. The state has indicated it will provide temporary payments to offset some local property tax losses, but McGrath said the Ohio Department of Taxation hasn’t yet released any “authoritative figures” on how much they’ll provide to districts.

“Without the details on how these bills are going to be implemented, it’s difficult for us to anticipate exactly what our revenues are going to be,” he said. “We’re waiting for the Ohio Department of Taxation report to come in April.”

HB 129 also affects the forecast by changing how the 20-mill floor is calculated. Beginning with the next county reappraisal cycle, emergency and substitute levies will be included in that calculation, where previously they were excluded.

“For us, this is very impactful,” McGrath said.

The district estimates the change will reduce property tax revenue by about $313,000 beginning in tax year 2026, collected in 2027. McGrath said the shift could also affect revenue growth from new construction that districts would otherwise expect.

“Instead of seeing growth on the 20-mill floor like we would anticipate, we might see no growth whatsoever,” he said.

McGrath said the new laws also change what kinds of levies districts can place on the ballot. Previously, districts could put emergency levies before voters, asking for a fixed sum of funding that could later be renewed at voters’ discretion in the form of a substitute levy.

HB 129 effectively eliminates the traditional use of emergency and substitute levies for school districts unless they were passed prior to 2026. Now, school districts can only pass five-year, fixed-sum levies if they are in fiscal distress or affected by a disaster as declared by the president or governor.

“It’s good that we passed our substitute levy when we did,” McGrath said, referring to a levy passed in late 2024 that combined and continued two previous emergency levies originally set to expire this year. The levy collects annual revenue of $1,975,000 for a period of 10 years.

He also noted that districts that carry over a cash balance equal to 100% or more of their annual general fund expenditures will no longer be allowed to propose new operating levies. Yellow Springs Schools does not currently meet that threshold, but McGrath said the restriction adds another layer of complexity to long-term planning for school districts.

“We do have limitations on what we can do to have new operating money in the future,” he said.

Despite projected property tax losses, McGrath said district revenues are expected to remain relatively stable over the forecast period.

“If you look at our total revenues, we’re doing OK,” McGrath said. “We’re up about $500,000 more than anticipated on income taxes.”

At the same time, costs for the district are expected to continue rising. Salaries account for about 50% of expenditures, benefits nearly 19% and debt service for the district’s facilities are about 15%.

McGrath said the district is not planning to seek new operating levies in the immediate future, but the new property tax laws will require the district to keep an eye on and discuss its levy strategy and timing in advance.

The district will revisit the forecast later this year after receiving updated property tax data from the state.

“We should be able to have a much stronger forecast in August,” McGrath said.

To view McGrath’s Feb. 18 presentation in full, go to http://www.youtube.com/@yellowspringsschoolsboe; supporting documents for the presentation are available online at  www.go.boarddocs.com/oh/yellowev/Board.nsf

Last week, some folks received a visit from Miami Township Fire-Rescue’s newest hire, who brought with her not a fire hose, but a wide array of health and safety information and community and area resources.

Steffinie Brewer began work late last year as MTFR’s first community paramedic, a position Fire Chief James Cannell pitched to Township Trustees as a prevention-focused complement to the department’s ongoing emergency response work. Trustees approved Brewer’s hiring in December; her role officially began Dec. 27, and the new program launched Thursday, Feb. 19.

Brewer has been in EMS work for nearly five years, beginning with an EMT class in high school before becoming a paramedic. She has worked in Harrison Township in Montgomery County and Union Township in Miami County, and serves on the Greater Miami Valley EMS Council. Speaking with the News this week, she said she’s also one of only a few dozen in the state to hold licensure in community paramedicine.

Brewer credited a family connection with bringing her to Yellow Springs: her brothers, Casey and Cassady Brewer, are firefighter/EMTs for MTFR, and she said it was the latter brother who suggested to her and to Cannell that she would be a good fit.

Since taking the job, Brewer said she has been laying the groundwork for a program that operates outside the traditional emergency system, visiting residents in their homes to identify risks before they become emergencies and connecting people to needed services.

 

“Community paramedicine can be very broad,” Brewer said, describing a field that can range from providing help navigating social services to intensive medical monitoring at home. MTFR is starting with what Brewer called “the more social services aspect,” with hopes of expanding as the program grows.

Community paramedicine programs are becoming more common in the Miami Valley: The Dayton Fire Department has partnered with Premier Health to offer community paramedicine, and late last year, the City of Xenia authorized a one-year community paramedicine pilot within Xenia Fire & EMS, which will include home visits, medication reviews, safety assessments and partnerships with health and social service agencies.

Here in Miami Township, Brewer said, one big local focus is on falls, to which MTFR crews routinely respond with “lift assists.”

“Lift assist is one of our number one nonremoval calls,” Brewer said, referring to calls where MTFR doesn’t transport a patient to a medical facility.

Looking through the department’s reports, she said, one resident called for lift assistance “over 20” times in the past year. Sometimes, she added, lift assists are provided for folks who haven’t fallen, but who otherwise need help getting up or even out of a vehicle.

Those calls are a prime example, Brewer said, of how community paramedicine can be of use: identifying why someone is falling and what supports could be added to the home to reduce the risk of injury.

“Falls can be detrimental to the elderly, so we’re trying to prevent that as best as possible,” Brewer said, adding that the Greene County Council on Aging and CareSource offer free installation of “grab bars” — safety handles used to pull oneself up — for those who qualify.

Brewer said much of the community paramedic job is connecting people with “the right resources,” like those grab bars, and helping residents learn what help is already available. Thus far, MTFR has identified about 20 potential clients and has begun enrolling and working with a small number of initial participants.

She noted that community paramedicine has some of its roots in emergency response to calls related to congestive heart failure. Data collected by emergency services agencies nationwide since the early 2000s found that patients with congestive heart failure were frequently readmitted to hospitals within 30 days of initial treatment. As a result, Brewer said, programming was built up to enable paramedics to help those patients by administering medicine and education on how to manage congestive heart failure, as well as follow-up visits to check in and make sure management was going smoothly.   

“The goal was to decrease unnecessary trips to the hospital,  because it’s expensive — and nobody likes to go to the hospital if they don’t have to,” Brewer said.

A few national studies within the last several years support the success of the model: peer-reviewed evaluations summarized by the National Institutes of Health and the Rural Health Information Hub have reported drops in readmission rates by 30% or more within 30 days for patients participating in community paramedicine programs.

Brewer noted that the Ohio Legislature is currently weighing Senate Bill 220, which would encode community paramedicine programs in state law and require insurance coverage for services provided under those programs.

She said she believes the passage of the bill would be a boon for community paramedicine programs, particularly with regard to funding via insurance; presently, most programs offer their services for free. MTFR’s “Community Paramedicine” page lists its offerings as including in-home assessments, medication reviews, fall risk evaluations, post-hospital follow-ups and help connecting to medical and social supports, most of which are offered at no cost.

Brewer said she’s modeled MTFR’s up-and-coming program in part on established community paramedicine operations in Trotwood, Montgomery County; and Violet Township, Fairfield County, where programs also emphasize proactive outreach and follow-up. Sustained contact and relationship-building, she said, is a foundational part of community paramedicine.

“As much as I love the fast-paced aspect of EMS … I’ve also come to realize in my career that we don’t make that much of an impact just doing 911 calls,” she said. “I’ve really grown to appreciate the aspect of community paramedicine where you foster relationships and you see the same people over and over, and it’s more possible to really change their life for the better.”

That relationship-building is also where MTFR’s new program overlaps with the YS Police Department’s community outreach specialists, Florence Randolph and Danny Steck. As the News reported last year, the pair connect residents and visitors to food, housing, transportation and other supports.

Brewer said Randolph and Steck have already helped MTFR overcome some barriers for participants in the community paramedicine program. In one case, Brewer said, a resident needed help reaching a nursing home more than an hour away; she called Steck, who found an option within minutes.

“We’re going to have every-other-month meetings to integrate [our services], so that way we know who’s receiving what, and we don’t double up or miss anyone,” Brewer said.

The community paramedicine and community outreach specialists also recently began a joint wellness check program, “Safe at Home.” The program offers scheduled weekly calls, as well as calls before forecasted severe weather, to at-risk residents within Yellow Springs, Clifton and the unincorporated areas of Miami Township.

Brewer said the community paramedicine program is also looking at ways to reach residents who don’t have a permanent address. She pointed to MTFR’s in-station exam room, a small clinical space the department may use to visit with community members who are unhoused or transient.

“We have been exploring that as an option,” Brewer said, adding that the room also offers a place for a “quick exam” for potential walk-in patients with minor injuries.

She said good candidates for the local community paramedicine program include older adults who fall frequently, as well as those struggling with mobility, medication compliance, chronic disease management, hoarding, food insecurity, housing insecurity or unsafe home conditions. She added that new parents are on her radar, too.

“In the last week, we’ve responded to two calls from people in active labor,” she said. “I’m hoping to reach out after they settle in at home and make sure they have everything they need for their babies, educate them on safe sleep and just make sure mom and baby stay safe, healthy and happy.”

Referrals to MTFR’s community paramedicine program can come from family members, neighbors, caregivers, hospitals, social service agencies or residents themselves. At present, Brewer said the community paramedicine program does not offer mental health services — the Village’s community outreach specialists do offer such resources, she said — but said MTFR may include such services as the program grows.

And she said she’s optimistic that it will, indeed, grow.

“I truly believe that if a program like this is going to succeed, it’s going to succeed in a community like this,” she said. “This is such an involved community, and people care about their neighbors.”

For more information on MTFR’s community paramedicine program, to make a referral or to be added to the “Safe at Home” call list, go to http://www.mtfr.org; email communityparamedic@mtfr.org; or call 937-767-7842, ext. 4. Program hours are Monday–Friday, 7 a.m.–7 p.m., excluding major holidays.

A new film festival will make its first appearance in the village next month — accompanied not by a red carpet, but by $5 admission and films made far outside the mainstream.

The Ohio Underground Film Fest will debut Saturday, March 28, noon–9 p.m., in Glen Helen’s Vernet Center.

Festival organizer Victor Bonacore — a Yellow Springs resident, filmmaker and general admirer of movies that marry the magnificent and the messy — described the upcoming event as a gathering for movies that don’t fit neatly into the usual festival boxes.

“This is for, like, the real outsiders,” Bonacore said. “These are filmmakers or films that might not be taken seriously by other festivals.”

Bonacore, who is general manager of the Dixie Twin Drive-In, previously worked at Little Art Theatre and curates “Cult Movie Night” at the Neon in Dayton, said he’s been “a maker and a purveyor” of films for years; his own interest in filmmaking began in childhood.

“I’ve been making backyard horror films ever since I was 10, 11 years old, on video cameras, camcorders,” he said.

Bonacore said that growing up on Long Island, New York, he spent school breaks roping in siblings, cousins and parents to make horror movies with whatever was available, and with a heart for the act of play rather than perfection.

“That was the most fun I ever had with anybody, was just making movies,” he said. “Not a care in the world.”

Though Bonacore’s filmmaking career as an adult has dipped a toe into the more traditional — he said his most well-known film is the 2015 documentary “Diary of a Deadbeat,” which follows Dayton filmmaker Jim VanBebber over the course of several years — his work has tended more toward the scrappy than the sacrosanct, with experimental shorts that include the titles “Ice Cream Sunday” and “Triangle.” More recent works include the 2022 feature-length post-apocalyptic girl gang romp “Thrust!” and the forthcoming sci-fi horror “Amityville Aliens,” filmed in part in the defunct Miles Budd Goodman amphitheater at Antioch College.

The March 28 lineup, Bonacore said, will have plenty of works that fit similar descriptions, including blocks of short films, as well as features and special presentations. Bonacore didn’t take submissions for the festival this year — it came together quickly, he said. Instead, he curated the nine-hour event from filmmakers he knows locally and across the region.

“I know enough really talented people in the area that it was easy to gather a lineup,” he said.

Festivalgoers can expect work by filmmaker and Antioch alumna Lola Betz, whose work Bonacore described as “really underground gang films.” Other local filmmakers include Bryce Logan, who wrote and shot the 2023 pulpy slasher thriller “Murder in Black Satin,” and recent Antioch grad Chachee Valentine, whose metier is experimental shorts.

The festival will also include a tribute to the late Dayton filmmaker Andy Kopp, screening his 1998 film “The Mutilation Man,” with permission from Kopp’s family. Another highlight will be the 20th anniversary of “The Wolf Hunter 2,” a bloody spectacle featuring a werewolf turf war in Ohio. Beyond Ohio, the fest will feature “Busted Babies,” by Kentucky filmmaker Casper Melted Hair, whose film Bonacore called “insane and amazing in the best way.”

Bonacore said many of the films in the lineup don’t receive much play outside the realms of those dedicated to following the kinds of outsider artists whose names will fill the festival bill — which is why he aims to give them an audience.

“This is new stuff, weird stuff, or stuff that is just not mainstream at all,” he said.

Several of the films in the lineup — which, at press time, was still being finalized — were shot on VHS decades ago, simply because it was “the most readily available, cheapest way to film,” Bonacore said. Some newer creations were shot in the same way as an aesthetic nod to the format that made filmmaking accessible for generations of broke, ambitious weirdos.

That’s true, too, for Bonacore’s own most recently completed production, “Video Vixen,” which will have its Ohio premiere closing out the film festival. “Video Vixen” was shot and produced in and around what Bonacore called “every inch of Yellow Springs.”

Bonacore said “Video Vixen” was produced very much like the childhood projects on which he cut his teeth: “No script, coming up with it on the fly, getting our friends together, playing dress-up and using household items to make special effects — and it was a blast,” he said.

The film features a cast of locals who play various social media and influencer types who, without spoiling too much, find that their “10 seconds of fame are up,” as the movie’s tagline espouses. Included in the cast are aforementioned filmmaker Lola Betz, Little Art Theatre Manager Caleab Wyant and local hip-hop artist Tron “Tronee Threat” Banks, who Bonacore said plays the “rapping chief of police.”

“It’s not a satire of the town, but Yellow Springs is our backdrop,” Bonacore said. “It’s almost like a character in itself.”

Much of “Video Vixen” was shot using an old Hi8 camcorder — visually similar to VHS — whose battery life, Bonacore said, lasted only about eight minutes at a time. That limitation shaped the way the film was made, as scenes were planned around what could realistically be captured before the battery died.

“You can’t do more than a couple takes,” Bonacore said with a laugh. “You’re in the woods, snow on the ground, shooting a death scene in the snow, but like, battery’s dying, battery’s dying!”

The constraints, he said, allowed the cast and crew to lean into imperfections and work creatively, but quickly. Some scenes were filmed during the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop on Short Street as 2024 turned to 2025, and features  actual crowds as unintentional extras. Other scenes were shot in familiar local spaces, including in Kieth’s Alley, apartments above downtown businesses and the Emporium.

“Anytime we needed to ask somebody, ‘Can we shoot here?’ people were always very kind,” he said. “That’s what I like about this town. People are willing to let you try things.”

And that’s how Bonacore hopes folks will approach the Ohio Underground Film Festival: with a willingness to give it a try.

Bonacore said the Vernet Center in Glen Helen — surrounded by wilderness and with a quite literal “underground” feeling — seemed like a perfect space to hold this particular festival. And while the festival embraces fun, low-budget chaos, he was up-front about what “underground” can mean on-screen: Some selections may be subversive or uncomfortable — including horror, gore and nudity — and the festival is for those 18 and older.

“Just know what you’re getting into,” he said. “This stuff can be extreme.”

But he emphasized that he hopes to foster a kind of come-and-go format, with folks free to show up just for the flicks they want to see, or stay for the whole thing. That’s enabled, in part, by the price of admission — $5 — which he said he hopes will make attendance accessible to anyone who’s interested.

“Keeping it dirt cheap is the most important thing,” Bonacore said.

Ultimately, Bonacore said the festival is community-first — “no competition, no best in show,” he said — and he hopes it will be a chance for people who like their movies made on the cheap and for the love of it to find each other in the same room.

For more information, including the forthcoming full programming lineup, go to http://www.instagram.com/ohundergroundfilmfest

75 years ago: 1951

Fels finds snow was radioactive. “Fels Research Institute scientists Monday reported radio activity in snow falling last week in the village of Yellow Springs … but none in the village water supply.”

Antioch Pioneer seed. “A stockholders’ meeting of the Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn company was held Monday morning in President Douglas McGregor’s office at Antioch College. … The Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn company grew out of the Antioch hybrid corn project.”

Boy Scout Week observed by Yellow Springs troop. “Second Class badges were awarded to Jack Stewart, Dick Dillon, Bill Mefford, David DeWine, Douglas Williams and Kingsley Perry.”

Not a Browns fan. “[Yellow Springs resident] State Representative Lowell Fess is reported [to have been] vocal in opposition to a resolution in the Ohio general assembly yesterday which would have commended the Cleveland Browns professional football team. Mr. Fess said he could concur in the praise of some individuals in the resolution, but not of Arthur McBride, Sr. [Browns founder who in 1951 was accused of considerable mafia connections].”

50 years ago: 1976

Dogs in the Glen. “The Glen Helen administration’s drive to get rid of unwanted stray dogs in the Glen netted only two, caught last Wednesday, Glen director Ralph Ramey reports.”

Scouts not frozen. “The local Explorer Post braved five-below-zero weather Saturday night to camp in tents during an expedition to eastern Ohio. Eleven Post members and counselors Don Hollister and Helen Mengelsdorf made the trip. … ‘Everyone survived,’ Don said.”

Anthrax scare. “The possibility that rug yarn imported from Pakistan and sold by Yellow Springs Strings (Kings Yard) could be infected with deadly anthrax spores has brought an abundance of newspaper columns and radio air time to the shop this past week.”

35 years ago: 1991

Water tests. “Recent tests on samples of Village well water show that a contaminant [1, 1-dichloroethane] first found in Village wells in 1989 is still present in one of the wells, but seems to be decreasing in concentration.”

Read-In-Chain. “The Wilberforce alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority will host a Read-In-Chain of African American Literature on Sunday … at Central Chapel AME Church. … The Read-In-Chain is a national event sponsored by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English.”

WYSO. “When WYSO public radio station went on the air 33 years ago, it was a 10-watt station that could barely be heard outside of Yellow Springs, its home base. … Since the beginning, WYSO has functioned as a training ground for Antioch student volunteers. … The station currently employs five full-time staff members, who supervise a corps of 80 volunteers, 20 of whom are Antioch students.”

25 years ago: 2001

Dogs tops in Metro Buckeye league. “With aggressiveness and hustle, the Yellow Springs High School boys basketball team claimed [won!] the Metro Buckeye Conference title, for the third straight year, with a 92-79 win at home on Friday over Miami Valley. The Bulldogs finished 11–1 in the conference and 15–5 overall for the regular season.”

Local filmmaker wins at Sundance Film Festival. “Jim Klein thinks of himself as an ‘independent journalist’ who happens to edit movies. His nose for news and skill in editing movies was recently praised when Scouts Honor, a recent movie Klein edited, shared the Documentary Audience Award and won the Freedom of Expression Award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.”

No smoking? “Children’s Medical Center is offering a five-week smoking cessation program for students at Yellow Springs High School beginning in mid-February. Any student wishing to quit smoking is encouraged to participate.”

10 years agO: 2016 

Snow dazzle. “On Feb. 11 at 10:20 a.m. an officer responded to a call that a vehicle that had been swaying erratically as it was driven through town was stopped at Young’s Jersey Dairy. The officer found the driver was an elderly man who said he was OK, but had had a hard time seeing the road due to snow reflection.”

Central Chapel celebrates 150 years. “The church was founded in 1866 by a Xenia pastor named Charley Jones, his son and a group of 13 men and women from Yellow Springs. The group first met at Old Central School House off of what’s now Route 370 [Bryan Park Road].”

Future of food. “The Antioch College Food Committee will present ‘Visions of a Sustainable Food System: Imagining the Future of Food” on … March 4 … in South Gym of the Wellness Center.”

Oh, deer — guess what’s for dinner. “A motorist struck and killed a deer on Xenia Avenue. The officer who responded attended not only to the frazzled driver but also to the unfortunate deer, which was dead upon impact. … Yellow Springs, like many jurisdictions in the state, has a plan for such circumstances: the deer-strike list, a list of people whom police dispatchers call to retrieve the deer.”

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