For Stephen Carr Hampton, the Scott’s oriole is a beautiful bird with an ugly name—so ugly, in fact, that he won’t say it out loud. Hampton, who recently retired from a career at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is an avid birdwatcher…

Nearly forty years ago, a protracted battle between developers and a grassroots collection of neighbors proved to be a turning point in the history of conservation on the Island. At Waskosim’s Rock Reservation in Chilmark, a 185-acre swath of public…

The Intel deal brings a bitter truth to Johnstown residents: "Progress" is one heck of a bulldozer. Ray and Vicki Rusmisel never imagined just how quickly the homestead they had built over 36 years could be obliterated. The couple, now retired from…

A political bridge-builder seizes the moment. In early November, Joyce Beatty stood in a hallway in the U.S. Capitol outside a closed-door meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Behind the door, members of the left-wing group of lawmakers…

An explosive book, a horrifying discovery and an idyllic suburb forced to confront its racist past Back in the 1960s, when young Kim Shoemaker (now Shoemaker Starr) was an only child looking for something to do, she sometimes rode her bike around the…

How the new president and Columbus' favorite artisanal ice cream maker fell for each other sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com Editor’s note: After this story was published in the January 2021 issue of Columbus Monthly, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams…

sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com Editor’s note: The coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of “The Poppea Project” in April. Opera Columbus hopes to reschedule, but no new date has been announced yet. It’s 6 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, and the…

COLUMBUS MONTHLY, OCTOBER 2019. By Suzanne Goldsmith; photos by Tim Johnson. She risked life and limb fleeing an abusive Somali boarding school for Muslim women and girls. Then Jasmin Osman did something just as courageous: She told her story.

sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com Hash marks on an index card. That's how Edith Espinal keeps track of her weekday trips up and down the stairs at Columbus Mennonite Church. Forty-two steps down the front stairs to the basement, a brisk walk past the…

sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com On the steps of the Ohio Statehouse, a young black activist named MarShawn McCarrel found a "life-giving" sense of purpose. It was the fall of 2013, shortly after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of…

sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com It's just past 9 a.m. on a raw January morning, and inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women are crisscrossing the prison grounds bundled in blue. For most, it's a day like any other. But for those in the Tapestry…

The series of new paintings by former Columbus College of Art and Design president Denny Griffith provokes some unusual responses from viewers. They use words like "aliens," "brutal," "bloody" and "funny." Artist Tim Rietenbach loves the paintings…

The Delphi plant now sits empty, leaving a once-robust community to struggle with more bad news. Hope, however, has yet to be extinguished. This story is from the April 2008 issue of Columbus Monthly. The parking lot in front of the empty Delphi…

Spring brings out the osprey lover in me. Some might even call it an obsession. On a recent family tour of Florida real estate, I was in charge of taking pictures of the properties. But I kept forgetting my assignment, distracted from the lanais and…

sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com We bought our first house when our second child was born. That spring, a pair of house finches built a nest in a hanging basket on the front porch. I watched the female’s long vigil over her eggs from a rocker while I…

sgoldsmith@columbusmonthly.com For a prison, the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville opens its doors surprisingly wide. Outside groups tour the facility several times a week. The prison hosted a November symposium on issues particular to…