Joel Oliphint

I never thought I’d be the guy writing a eulogy for Columbus Alive. For one, the final iteration of Alive is the brainchild of former editor Andy Downing. It was his vision that led to the rich, sometimes find-able treasure trove of stories on this…

Artists and advocates remember photographer Kojo Kamau’s beloved nonprofit arts space that paved the way for other galleries and launched the careers of some of the city’s best-known Black artists People gave Richard Duarte Brown all sorts of reasons…

Back in the summer of 2009, Bela Koe-Krompecher started a blog and began posting huge chunks of unguarded prose about a bygone era of his life — before sobriety, before his best friends died, before this insatiable city swallowed up High Street…

Bigfoot investigator Marc DeWerth is also the founder of Big Trees Ohio, a volunteer group that has discovered more than 1,000 of the state’s largest trees, some of which are national champions During the past year, as pandemic-induced isolation kept…

Mayor Ginther and the police union are bargaining over a new contract on the heels of a racial justice movement and high-profile shootings of Black men by law enforcement. What’s at stake? And how did we get here? No other mayor has as much…

Several years ago, Stephen Palmer went to see Ohio jam band the Werks with a friend who liked to spin mini hula hoops. While hanging out after the concert, his friend taught him a few things with the hoops, and ever since, Palmer has been hooked on…

joliphint@columbusalive.com This story was produced in collaboration withPacific Standard, a social and environmental justice magazine. “OK, so we’ll just listen for a few minutes.” Brian Harnetty sits in a metal folding chair in a clearing at the…

joliphint@columbusalive.com The smell would always hit her first. Kateresa Lee tried to ignore the musty, dank odor inside of her Reynoldsburg apartment, just like she tried to ignore the seedy characters engaging in handshake deals outside of her…

joliphint@columbusalive.com There’s a long, narrow building at the corner of East Kossuth Street and South Washington Avenue, a couple of blocks west of Parsons Avenue on the South Side of Columbus. If you’ve ever driven by it, you probably didn’t…

joliphint@columbusalive.com When Michelle Dalton's mother died on July 8, she had to break the news to her three daughters that their grandmother was gone. But she couldn't find her youngest daughter, Donna. Michelle and her husband, Michael, raised…

Travis Irvine strolled by the Statehouse on a particularly idyllic morning this past spring. Church bells were ringing, the sun was shining and the flags representing Ohio's 88 counties were flapping gently in the breeze. The whole scene felt…

joliphint@columbusalive.com Several years ago, Saintseneca frontman Zac Little was living at the Monster House, a South Campus rental property whose brown, nondescript exterior belied its importance to the arts community. While serving as the locus…

Columbus' historically-Black neighborhoods are still feeling the effects of redlining and racial covenants during the 20th century. For his 1913 book, The Color Line in Ohio: A History of Race Prejudice in a Typical Northern State, Knox College…

joliphint@columbusalive.com *Editor's note: Alive has continued to follow the eviction issue since the publication of this cover story. For a recent update, read this follow-up on City Council's retaliatory eviction legislation or see "Related…

joliphint@columbusalive.com In September of 2016, for the first time in years, Jenny Mae took the stage. Anyway Records, the local label with a national following that released Jenny Mae's only two albums in the '90s, was celebrating its 25th…

joliphint@columbusalive.com Editor's note: For an update to this story, see the Jan. 15, 2019 blog, "Lame duck passage of bill gives Dale Johnston's case new life." Dale Johnston didn't do it. He didn't shoot and kill his stepdaughter and her fiance…

After nearly five years at Bollinger, Stephen Arthur is no longer there. Were he and the other 90-plus residents neighborhood outliers? Or essential threads in the fabric of their community? Stephen Arthur gets up at 6 a.m. every day, and by 6:45…

joliphint@columbusalive.com I. Joey LaBute wasn't the type to barhop. He was a homebody, content to play videogames and watch “Sleeping Beauty” or episodes of “Game of Thrones.” He liked to knit scarves. But on Friday, March 4 of last year, he…

In the early afternoon of Saturday, Jan. 14, a brown-brick office complex in an unremarkable section of suburban Worthington is on lockdown. A security guard and an off-duty police officer hired by building management stand beneath the cantilevered…

It's Nov. 10, exactly one month from the day Peppercorn and two dozen local musicians will perform every album by the Beatles - 215 songs in all - in chronological order, plus selected tracks from the band members' post-Beatles solo careers, at the…