FWR Search Results

727 Search Results found
Date	Story
2013-05-02	Dealing in school Keep drugs away from our kids’ schools — everyone can likely agree with that goal, right? Tough penalties for the guy who gets caught pushing drugs on a kid makes sense, don’t you think?
2016-08-07	Everything I've Learned About Everything The most humbling part of being a parent usually happens around this time of year, when school starts and your kid asks you for help with his homework and you realize that somehow you know even less than he does.
2010-11-08	Generation Skank I'm a great admirer of people who are willing to wage pointless battles against immovable social forces, so let me speak on behalf of the varsity cheerleading squad at Central High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
2016-08-23	Taste of the Arts 2016 The 8th annual Taste of the Arts festival kicks off on Friday, August 26 at 6 PM on the downtown Arts Campus on 300 East Main Street, and continues the next day.
2008-12-09	"Christmas Shoes" and Other War Crimes For someone who loves music as much as I do, it's somewhat embarrassing to admit that I'm still the last guy on my block without an iPod. It's true — I'm that relic from the past, the Luddite who still has that ancient CD crate in his car, the guy who nearly causes 10-car pile-ups by constantly changing discs while he's maneuvering through traffic.
2006-09-18	"Heroes" and "The Nine" – Early Reviews I couldn’t wait to see the pilot episode to the series Heroes, set to premiere this fall on NBC. Unfortunately, Heroes wasn’t worth the wait.
2009-03-10	"It's Alive!" Some people spend years trying to figure out what they want to do with themselves. Not Steve Blanchard. In high school, Blanchard decided that acting would be a great way to make a living, and set out to do just that…
2012-10-18	"Just A Bunch of Potters" 13th annual showcase Back in 2000, a dozen or so area artists — all working in the medium of clay — got together and decided to throw a holiday show…
2010-05-10	"We don't keep it serious, we keep it funky" “If we don’t always have something in the bag, I feel like we’re slipping,” Ryan Messmann, of local hip-hop group Third Frame, told me when I sat down with him and Derek Quandt the other night. Over the past decade, Messmann and Quandt have released an album every two years, like clockwork.
2008-03-10	"…and at least one of them lived unhappily ever after." Giselle is one of those fairy tales where a beautiful, charming young woman meets the man of her dreams and falls in love. Unfortunately, her love interest is a jerk who betrays her affections, and though he’s redeemed, he’ll spend the rest of his life knowing he has missed his chance at happiness. Still, in the end, he probably has it better than his love, Giselle — she’s dead.
2017-01-11	(Much more) common nuisance T.J. is a bit of a drifter. Instead of finishing his senior year in college, T.J. takes off with some friends and hikes parts of the Pacific Crest Trail…
2016-08-07	(Not) impaired driving It is against the law in Indiana to operate a vehicle with marijuana or its metabolite within the driver’s body. Indiana law also prohibits the possession of marijuana.
2014-03-06	16 years in the making (sort of) “Did you ever think you’d see 15 male dancers on stage at a Fort Wayne Ballet performance, fighting with swords?” asks Karen Gibbons-Brown, the Fort Wayne Ballet’s Artistic Director.
2006-06-05	1st Annual Artists Against MS Art Sale This June, dozens of Fort Wayne artists will use their creations to aid in the battle against Multiple Sclerosis (MS), an incurable disease that affects thousands of Hoosiers.
0000-00-00	2004 TV pilots on flight to nowhere It’s that time of year again - time for the television networks to begin production on next season’s slew of shows. If you’re unfamiliar with a television pilot - it’s essentially the first episode of a comedy or drama (or the made-up word “dramedy”) that introduces the characters, indicates what the tone of the show will be like, and demonstrates how the stories will unfold in a given show.
2007-07-09	2007 Maumee Music Festival The Three Rivers Festival really does have something to offer the music lovers — the Maumee Music Fest! The 2nd annual Maumee Music Fest takes over downtown Freimann Square on July 21 from noon-midnight, delivering an eclectic mix of Fort Wayne’s best original music. You’ll find everything from hip-hop to hard rock, pop to alt-country, folk to blues is represented at this totally free event.
2013-08-15	2013 Taste of the Arts Now in its 5th year, Taste of the Arts has quickly become one of Fort Wayne’s most popular festivals with its unique blend of music, dance, theatre, film and artists, demonstrating a vast variety of styles and talent from Fort Wayne, along with dozens of local restaurants serving a wide assortment of food choices.
2013-08-15	2013/14 TV Preview There's nothing new about sci-fi and horror series on network TV. But for every hit series like Star Trek, Lost or The X-Files there are three forgettable ones like Space Rangers, Threshold and Strange World.
2015-07-16	2015 Fort Wayne Fringe Fort Wayne Fringe is a week long performance festival that offers a snapshot of local, regional, and national talent, crossing all types of artistic boundaries.
2004-08-14	2nd annual NIPR Bikenic closes out the summer Long-time Fort Wayne residents might remember the WBNI Annual Classic Bike Tour, a 15-year summer traditon featuring a scenic bike tour through the countryside. Though very popular, the Classic Bike Tour had to be retired in recent years because, says Karen Fraser of Northeast Indiana Public Radio, “it was no longer a scenic country road.” Increased traffic made the route risky, and organizing the tour became more time-consuming.
2011-09-15	3, 2, 1… Yes! I have a friend who works for a modeling agency, and she told me of a curious phenomenon that exists amongst her students.
2013-06-20	46807 Artists The art neighborhood has become an international metric by which a community can determine the strength of its arts scene and market, as well as its ability to garner international tourism and capital.
2006-07-24	5 Bands You Should Know The ear-melting hardcore of Saints Never Surrender, the Beatlesque rock of The Orange Opera, the deft flow of Sub-Surface… there are plenty of original bands in Fort Wayne that you don’t hear enough about. FWR’s music critic Sean Smith seeks out five of the bands in Fort Wayne that you should check out. FWR's music writer Sean Smith brings you 5 local bands you should know.
2012-07-19	50 Shades of Oh yes, it kept me interested I’m usually way behind or out of the loop when it comes to pop culture.
2012-05-03	5th Tuesday comes of age For the last five years a debate has developed concerning Fort Wayne’s, and by extension Allen County’s, tax abatement policy.
2012-02-02	5th Tuesdays City Council President Tom Smith likes a challenge
2007-11-20	*Battlestar Galactica: Razor* To call the Sci-Fi channel’s television series Battlestar Galactica (BSG) a “modern television masterpiece” would not be an understatement. Since its debut in December, 2003, BSG has used science fiction as a guise to examine what it’s like to live on 21st century Earth.
2008-04-08	Battlestar Galactica: The End It seems a bit odd writing about the upcoming final season of Battlestar Galactica (BSG), especially since the debut of the series was one of the first things I (almost) covered for The Fort Wayne Reader. Back in late 2003 I had been approached by the publishers of The Reader to become their entertainment columnist. I accepted their offer and was given a pre-air DVD screener of the then upcoming new BSG mini-series for review.
2007-06-05	Expired magazine Like any city its size, Fort Wayne has many different cultures — punk, Hip-Hop, skateboarding, graffiti art and others — bumping up against one another. Some of these tend to be overlooked or ignored altogether. Recently three local artists have joined forces to change all of that. They are doing their part to bring these cultures and those spearheading them to the forefront and into focus. Eric Stine, Daniel Dienelt and Julie Morrison have created Expired, an on-line magazine which made its debut in May and spotlights all of the above and more at www.expiredmagazine.com and also offers exclusive music and video content.
2014-07-03	*Forever Into Space* Greg W. Locke is the kind of guy you want to know. Someone you could spend hours getting drunk with and espousing about art. He's the kind of creative and artistic soul that has long suffered the pain of the dreamer. No matter how impossible something may seem he doesn't back down…
2010-08-08	Mad Men: Good or Great? The fourth season of the most critically acclaimed drama on TV, Mad Men, returned to AMC a few weeks back. I’ve been a huge supporter of the series since it debuted, but the fourth season of any TV series is unusually important for the long-term viability of a show.
2004-04-05	Night Shift returns with a twist of reality If comedy is a science, then Kevin Ferguson and his crew have it down. Well, almost.
2009-10-05	Quilt: a musical celebration and a timely reminder For nearly three decades now, HIV/AIDS had been such a prevalent national and global health issue that many people under 40 might find the sort of fear and paranoia that surrounded the disease when it first began to creep into the national consciousness back in the early/mid 80s hard to believe.
2017-09-03	Red Notice by Bill Browder As much as I'm opposed to "recency bias" and the modern world's compulsion toward immediate perspective, I have to admit I'm becoming a bit of a fanatic in reading about the investigation into the 2016 election and the numerous, recently-published books about the current administration.
2008-08-04	Spaced: A cultural touchstone you might have missed I had heard of the UK TV series Spaced years before I ever saw an episode. It was a series so popular with those who had already seen it that they used it as a reference point for critiquing other shows. Before I saw Spaced, I figured the series was a sci fi drama based on the title alone, but in reality Spaced is a modern day comedy that deals with a group of twenty-somethings living and (sometimes) working in London.
2017-01-24	The Expanse — The future will still kinda stink Most sci-fi things that take place in the future obviously focus on how the future’s going to be different then today.
2012-11-01	The Women of Lockerbie at IPFW On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Its 16-member crew and 243 passengers died, and debris from the massive body of the 747 rained down over the seaside town of Lockerbie, killing 11 more people on the ground.
2016-01-22	The X-Files and the steamroller of pop-culture It’s surprising just how fast the TV series The X-Files went from one of the cornerstones of pop-culture to being crushed to gravel on the entertainment super highway in just a few short years.
2007-11-20	A 20-year holiday tradition The 2007 production of The Nutcracker marks the 20th year in a row that the Fort Wayne Ballet has produced the holiday classic in its entirety, and the ballet’s artistic director Karen Gibbons-Brown (this is her 9th production in Fort Wayne) says she is asked all the time why they do The Nutcracker every year. “The answer is, of course, that it’s a community holiday tradition,” she says. “Not just in our community, but in communities all around the US.”
2004-05-17	*A Twilight Zone* kinda day** It was one of those Twilight Zone type of days: striking resemblances and kindred spirits in the strangest places.
2017-02-21	A Billion, Give or Take, in Projects Of the $300-$350 million to be invested in the GE redevelopment about $40 million, one-seventh of the total, will be the developer’s money.
2007-04-10	A Brief History of Touch… When playwright Jack Cantey jokingly refers to "A Brief History of Touch and other plays" as a “big bowl of theater,” don’t mistake the collection of original one-act plays as the dramatic equivalent of comfort food.
2018-10-05	A conversation with Barbara Ehrenreich Since I'm the queen of crap jobs, Barbara Ehrenreich is a hero to me. Her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, is something I return to time and again.
2011-04-18	A Eulogy for Sym-Bionic Titan I have an eclectic taste in TV series. Not only do I watch shows that do well in the ratings like Big Bang Theory and Modern Family, I also watch shows that are outside the norm. One of these kinds of shows I've fallen for the last few months is the series Sym-Bionic Titan.
2005-11-14	A legendary story In 1954 a book was released which still has a cult following along with scores of movie directors trying to adapt it to the big screen. Though the general public might not have ever read (or heard of) Richard Matheson’s (The Twilight Zone, Somewhere in Time, Duel) book I Am Legend, they no doubt have felt the effects of I Am Legend on modern horror through the years.
2004-08-30	A middle-aged man and his dog Now that their two grown children out of the house, Greg and Kate are looking forward to enjoying all the rewards of a comfortable middle-class life, with enough time, enough money, and enough energy to do all those things they had always meant to do. For Kate, she finally completes her Master’s degree and is looking forward to teaching Shakespeare.
2014-04-22	A Music Collective : The Music and Art of Von Strantz When I first heard the musical collective known as Von Strantz I couldn't believe they were from the same general area where I'm from. But alas, they are from an area known as Michiana…
2016-07-14	A real no brainer According to a 2016 Prison Policy Initiative report, approximately 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. More than half of all inmates return to prison within three years from the date of their release.
2014-05-20	A second chance 2014 Effective March 26, 2014, lawmakers made it even more appealing for people trying to clear up an old criminal record.
2014-02-11	A short round up Sandy Kennedy is Fort Wayne’s mom. She certainly is that to most current and past members of city council.
2017-11-06	A Steward of the Common Wealth I have no idea when I first met Bobby Kennedy; perhaps it was at a late 70s Young Democrats meeting where his late sister was the chairwoman...
2004-08-14	A trip around the Great Lakes leaves nothing out Whether it's a hunting lodge straight out of a high-end men's magazine, a rustic log cabin in the woods, or a tropical cottage on the sand, spending a vacation in your own private dwelling far from the crowds is special experience.
2006-11-21	Aaron Sorkin and the Myth of an 8-hour Workday The characters in television shows written by Aaron Sorkin don’t live by the union mantra “eight hours for work, eight hours for play and eight for what we will.” They live their lives through and for their jobs. Outside of work these characters have no life, no identity. Sorkin’s world is like our own, but with snappier dialogue: when people can be in constant communication with the office via e-mail, cell phone or Blackberry, there is no escape.
2005-02-07	Accentuate the positive… Last issue, we gathered a few of the gripes people had about Fort Wayne, and explored them a little further. We talked about lack of all-ages concert venues, the fact that it takes forever for non-mainstream movies to get here, and the old fort just sitting there, among other things. We’ve also heard a few new gripes since then.
2018-02-03	Accidents and crimes Accidents happen. And so do crimes.
2015-12-04	Admitting fault Meet Jill. On her way home from work, she stops by the store to pick up the ingredients for a quick dinner…
2011-12-01	Affairs of State (and Clinton) There is not much pretty or inviting about Coliseum Boulevard. It is a gaggle of wires, signs, malls, asphalt and heavy traffic. Envision that along State Boulevard and you will understand why City councilman John Shoaff and scores of neighborhood leaders are fighting to protect the boulevard from becoming Coliseum II.
2018-02-15	Ah, the speculation… Jehl, Crawford, Peters, Henry, Smith, Pape and who knows who else. So far, this is the line up for next year’s mayor primary and they are all busy testing the waters.
2017-11-18	Ah, Weakening the Backbone Years ago, a writer named Teddy White in his four Making of the President books chronicled presidential elections from Kennedy’s 1960 victory over Nixon to Tricky Dick’s ’72 win over McGovern.
2004-08-20	AIHS to launch new ‘Grandparents Raising Grandchildren’ Program Aging and In-Home Services of Northeast Indiana, Inc. (AIHS) will soon launch its new ‘Grandparents Raising Grandchildren’ Program. The program is designed to help grandparents adjust and cope with the stresses of raising their grandchildren.
2008-08-04	All-star line up at Roots & Rhythm festival The Roots & Rhythm Festival — an all-day event happening Saturday, August 16 at Headwaters Parks — showcases a diverse line-up of national and regional talent, and festival organizer Bruce Lehman is still reeling at how quickly the show came together. “We just came up with the idea eight months ago,” he laughs. “Now it’s just a few weeks away.”
2008-12-09	Alt-country icon Tim Easton plays the Brass Rail If you need an idea of how highly regarded singer-songwriter Tim Easton is, you need know nothing more than Wilco served as the guy’s backing band his second solo album The Truth About Us (2003). Among alt-country fans, Easton is considered one of the brightest talents out there, with four albums to his credit, (his first, Special 20, came out in 1998) and the fifth, Porcupine, due in April 2009. Last August, he released an album with fellow songwriters Leeroy Stagger and Evan Phillip that, like much of Easton’s work, has received an enthusiastic response from critics.
2017-05-23	Ambush John Urbahns is a calm, soft-spoken man who works now for Greater Fort Wayne, but previously was one of the City’s leaders in economic development.
2006-03-06	An Actor’s Notebook “I keep a list of options,” declared Holly Kaplan, in the last scene of playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others. “Just from today’s lunch, there’s law, insurance, marry Leonard Woolf, have a baby, bird watch in Bolivia. A myriad of openings.”
2008-04-21	An altogether different pet For some, the hairless tail is what triggers the squirm factor. For some, it's the beady eyes or the scuttling in the shadows. For others, it's the reputation as disease-carrying vermin. We're talking about rats. Their depiction in movies and on television (the murderous hordes of Willard and the sequel Ben come to mind) hasn't helped. But some people think rats are getting a bad rap.
2014-04-03	An appreciation of Parker The character of Parker has been around in one form or another for more than a half century. Created by author Donald Westlake under the pen-name Richard Stark, there's been 23 original Parker novels since the first was published in 1962 as well as a total of eight films based around the Parker character.
2017-08-03	Animal cruelty In Indiana, a person who knowingly tortures or mutilates a vertebrate animal commits a Level 6 felony punishable up to 2.5 years in jail.
2017-07-08	Animal rescue A person who rescues a domestic animal from a motor vehicle might be immune from criminal and civil liability under certain circumstances.
2015-09-17	Answering his call: Brian Jenkins preserves the past through film Not that long ago (March to be exact), I spoke with Fort Wayne native, current San Diego resident, and Riot House Records owner Brian Jenkins about his move from the Midwest, his growing San Diego roots, running a record label, and his involvement in the excellent vinyl collecting doc Records Collecting Dust.
2016-08-08	Anthony Wayne in Hayden Park - 1951 This familiar statue of General Anthony Wayne astride his horse was first located here in Hayden Park on Maumee Avenue at Hayden Street…
2009-04-21	Apocalypse of Reason I'm a pretty hard guy to shock, but I have to admit I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a copy of The Turner Diaries at the Allen County Public Library last month.
2012-12-06	Appearance of wrongdoing Okay, get this: a police officer pulls over a car full of college-aged folks and one adult. The police officer smells alcohol, but not being able to determine who has been drinking, lets them all go their way without a breath test. Does that really seem plausible to you?
2004-08-14	Are you paying 'made-up fees'? Anyone with a cell phone knows that a $39.95 monthly plan really costs more like $45.
2007-04-24	Arf for Art's Sake Larry Wardlaw has been Master of Ceremonies for countless events over the years. He’s M.C.’d the Junior Achievement annual meeting, functions for IPFW, several mayoral events… name an awards ceremony or recognition banquet held in the Grand Wayne Center and Wardlaw says he’s probably done a stint behind the podium as M.C. at one time or another.
2009-02-10	Art Off Main With all of this dreary Fort Wayne winter weather, the people of our great city need some kind of artistic opiate (in addition to the great shows currently available at FWMoA, Artlink, and elsewhere) to take their minds off of the reality of at least four more weeks of cold.
2017-09-15	Art This Way Art This Way Art Crawl on Saturday, September 23, is the kick off event for a larger project led by artist Alexandra Hall to activate alleyways in downtown Fort Wayne with visual arts. The Art Crawl raises funds and brings awareness to the Art this Way Alley Activation Project, whose intent is to bring new life and walkability to downtown Fort Wayne.
2008-02-04	Artist Michael Israel brings his “Art In Concert” to the Scottish Rite At every one of his “Art In Concert” shows, artist Michael Israel gets the kind of rapturous reception from his audience that most performers would chew on glass for. They sing, they dance, they scream… there’s even a few tears. And what exactly does Israel do at these “Art in Concert” shows to elicit that kind of overwhelming response?
2011-07-04	Artists as soap bubbles In the book Afterglow, film critic Pauline Kael talks about a painful encounter she had with the director John Boorman. The critic had attended a screening of the director's latest film, and the two, who were friends, had agreed to meet for drinks after the movie ended.
2005-05-30	Artlink gets new Executive Director Deb Washler remembers her first encounter with Betty Fishman, Executive Director of Artlink. Washler was an art student at Saint Francis, and she had dropped off her first piece for the annual Artlink member’s show. “Betty called me at home and said ‘You need to come back in.’” Washler says. “So, she takes me to the back room, and proceeds to take my whole piece apart, instructing me the whole time. She puts it back together, looks at me and says ‘can you do it right the next time?’”
2006-07-24	Artlink Members' Show For nearly three decades, Artlink has been one of Fort Wayne's greatest success stories in the arts. Artlink has served the community as a not-for-profit organization since 1978, and has resided in its current home in the Hall Community Arts Center since 1991.
2005-10-31	Artlink offers retrospective of local artist and teacher George W. McCullough The Fort Wayne art world lost a great painter and a great teacher when George W. McCullough died on October 15 of this year at the age of 82. The Artlink gallery was already preparing a retrospective of McCullough’s work at the time of McCullough’s death. The retrospective opens with a reception from 7 – 9pm on November 11th, and features 53 pieces from George W, McCollough, mostly paintings, drawings, and etchings.
2008-11-25	As the ax falls The sordid soap opera that was the 2009 City of Fort Wayne Budget debate appears to be settled. City employees will have to go without raises, but no one will be laid off due to belt tightening.
2012-03-15	Asleep on her feet The story of Sleeping Beauty is well known, and when the Fort Wayne Ballet’s executive Director Karen Gibbons-Brown refers to it as “a Disney ballet,” she means it in the best sense.
2007-11-01	Assuming you’re elected… We asked Republican Mayoral candidate Matt Kelty and Democratic Mayoral candidate Tom Henry five questions on what they would do if they were elected. Here are their answers.
2009-03-10	At Least “Wifeswap” Makes Your Family Look Normal I’m watching “Wifeswap” right now and I’m chuckling at the domestic train wreck they’ve put together for this week. It’s a highly educated, worldly, driven California family vs. a paintball playing, junk food eating Missouri clan. It’s always amusing to watch these freaks clash. Whoever the producers of this show are, they manage to pick some seriously weird families to mix it up.
2005-05-17	At Old Crown, it's all about the coffee Step into Old Crown Coffee Roasters at 3410 North Anthony and the first thing you’ll notice are the bins: over a dozen bins filled with freshly-roasted coffee, bearing names as evocative as their aromas — everything from French-Kissed Kona to a particularly potent brand of bean labeled the 9th Degree of Darkness. Behind the bins, toward the back of the shop, a huge, metallic machine that looks vaguely like a big bass drum rattles and sizzles as it turns raw coffee beans into one of the many tasty offerings you’ll find behind the counter and in the bins.
2017-07-20	At the Drive In It's summertime in Indiana. I'm riding on U.S. 30, not quite into the sunset. It's a perfect day, weatherwise. I'm riding with a friend, chatting about this and that, headed towards sightseeing and fun in northern Indiana…
2018-08-06	At the Drive In It's summertime in Indiana.I'm riding on U.S. 30, not quite into the sunset. It's a perfect day, weatherwise. I'm riding with a friend, chatting about this and that, headed towards sightseeing and fun in northern Indiana. My friend's eyesight isn't so great, so I don't think she is as bothered by the bug carcasses and dirt on her windshield as I am.
2016-09-15	At the drive-in I was watching the film Grindhouse the other week, which is a celebration of low-rent movies that used to play in low-rent theaters.
2004-05-03	Author and illustrator Claire Ewart conjures prehistoric skies in Fossil You may not think that the rocks and stones littering the bottom of a dry river bed or scattered across a field hold much mystery, but to Fort Wayne-based children’s book author and illustrator Claire Ewart, those stones represent a world of wonders, a world she recreates with stunning vibrancy in her third picture book, Fossil.
2012-10-18	Author, Author Fort Wayne has received a lot of negative attention over the years—we're fat; we're dumb (according to Men's Health magazine, that hotbed of academia) and thanks to city officials putting the kibosh on naming the new government building the Harry Baals Government Center, we have no sense of humor…
2015-04-21	Autonomous car Google is in the process of perfecting an autonomous car. This is a car that does not need a human driver. Google’s cars look a little funny and don’t reach high speeds… yet.
2004-08-30	Back in the habit of going to school Getting up each morning during the school year can be tough. Getting up that first morning after a long summer of late nights and late mornings is even tougher. But that is exactly what millions of children will soon be doing.
2011-04-04	Back in town A few years ago I had the inspiration to take advantage of the video producing facilities at Access Fort Wayne and make my own documentary…
2016-02-09	Back on track There's nothing better than being with a group of friends you connect with on a musical level. Maybe you don't go have a beer or a cup of coffee after practice, but when you get in a room with instruments in hand things just click. Those creative juices flow and magic is made.
2009-03-23	Barking Up the Pet Peeve Tree. Someone at work (Hi Sarah!) asked me if I’d ever done a column on pet peeves. There’s plenty of stuff that makes me mad, but I guess I’ve never done a list of them. Until now.
2011-12-19	Battered The question isn’t whether you have ever been battered. Instead, the question is how many times throughout your life have you been the victim of a battery.
2013-12-19	Battery Charge In Indiana, a person who touches his or her spouse in an angry manner resulting in pain within the presence of a child commits a Class D felony.
2006-05-22	Battle at the BMV; and (don't) smoke 'em if you've got 'em BMV Battle Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard is experiencing major road rage over Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Richard Silverman’s decision to move the Southgate BMV branch to Waynedale.
2007-07-09	Battle of the Bike The Roman god of war wants to cure diabetes. He’s also from California. Wild black hair falls slightly in the young man’s eyes, shading others from the full intensity of a strong but friendly gaze. His birth name is Mariano Deneken, but he’s known as Mars to those around him. And though the 24 year old isn’t really a god, he’s been fighting as hard as one.
2008-01-07	Best & Worst of 2007 Our opinionated and highly arbitrary rundown of things we liked and didn’t like in 2007 reflects nothing more than the fact that we spent a lot of time thinking and talking about these things in FWR Towers this year. A lot of them have to do with local politics, and why not — it was a good year for it.
2017-01-24	Better communications New year, new president at City Council, where the gavel moves from the combative Russ Jehl to the affable Tom Didier…
2007-10-08	Bhavna Shah: Renaissance Woman Born with an abundance of energy and creativity, Bhavna Shah, a native of India, started drawing, painting and creating unique crafts from coconut shells at the age of six. Many years before she moved to Canada, and then to Fort Wayne, she was exploring a vast array of visual art techniques.
2006-03-06	Big cable vs. big telephone Down in Indianapolis, state law makers and lobbying interests are hurling accusations of lying, obfuscation, and public deception at each other. The cause of all this discord isn’t a Democratic walkout or a Republican monopoly. It isn’t about time zones or the sale of the toll road or legalizing electronic gambling. No, what’s stirring up all this heat are two pieces of legislation dealing with telecommunications deregulation.
2006-11-08	Big family time Anyone who remembers the plot of Big, the 1988 box office hit starring Tom Hanks, can recall that one of the story’s themes is the seemingly huge gulf that separates the world of children and adults, kids and parents. So there’s a little bit of irony in the fact that the Civic Theater’s production of Big: the Musical has so many family members in the cast.
2012-05-21	Birthday Nicer than Last Year's My birthday was better this year than it was last year, probably because I spent the majority of it out of town…
2012-11-15	Black Friday… and beyond When Black Friday comes, big stores and national chains will clamor for your dollar by offering enormous discounts and one-time-only deals, and we’ll respond in droves…
2016-01-22	Blind Dates are More Fun To Watch Since my trip to San Francisco made me broke, my winter break wasn’t too spectacular. I knew it wouldn’t be. I’d accepted that fact way back in November.
2014-03-06	Block that dream Every few years you'll notice that there are words and phrases that have become so over-saturated and abused by popular usage that they become nearly meaningless.
2014-07-03	Blue flu two? So, what is it about the uniformed unions that scare the bejesus out of our rugged, manly politicians?
2010-02-04	Blues with a feeling When harmonica player Bill Lupkin and the Chicago Connection take the stage at the First Annual Blues & Soul Food Bash at the Arts United Center on February 20th, they’ll be bringing a whole lot of history with them.
2014-03-25	Bodies at rest It's one of the perversities of life, that the very moment you decide you're going to stop being such a mean-spirited, misanthropic jerk that suddenly you're introduced to an absolutely perfect object of ridicule.
2018-09-23	Bonehead or Brilliant? 4th district city councilman Jason Arp does things that make you scratch your head. Case in point, his rating of his fellow councilmen on a freedom to authoritarian index with him as the almost champion of freedom, and all the other councilmen comparing more favorably to Stalin than Katy Stanton.
2018-08-18	Bonsib, Biggs, and Aboite for Aboite John Bonsib died a giant. Tall, round faced, speaking with a slight impediment, John was the man who brought a communications revolution to Fort Wayne.
2006-07-10	Books Oprah Would NEVER Endorse! It’s time for more wacky book reviews! Oprah, eat your heart out!
2013-04-04	Born Under a Bad Sign We Are Hex have a sound all their own. It's a cross between blues, psychedelia, and a bloodletting. Think The Kills, Dead Weather, and Siouxie Sioux thrown into the same cauldron and boiled until their collective essence floats on top of the bubbling sludge.
2004-08-25	Boxer Ward clinches medal with win over Russian ATHENS, Greece - Andre Ward could sense the scorn when he boarded the bus.
2017-04-09	Brainwashed by Photoshop I'm talking to more people lately, and that means eavesdropping. I learn stuff that way; I encourage you to give it a try. Anyway, I'm listening to what men say, and it's kind of disturbing.
2015-03-19	Bright Young Things: 2015 Scholastics Art and Writing Awards at the FWMOA Nearly a decade has gone by since this writer has covered the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s “Scholastic Art and Writing Awards” exhibition, which highlights young talent drawn from high school students throughout the tri-state area.
2009-05-18	Brookview Beautiful 2: the City responds FWR #124 featured a cover story on improvement and development projects in and around Fort Wayne’s historic Brookview neighborhood, and the efforts of the residents there to have a say in the various changes the City of Fort Wayne and the Indiana Department of Highways have planned for their area.
2009-04-21	Brookview beautiful? Last summer, Michelle Briggs Wedaman, a resident of Fort Wayne’s historic Brookview neighborhood just north of downtown, called David Ross at the City Engineer’s office, seeking some information about a proposed project on State Boulevard that had recently hit the local media.
2009-06-04	Budget battle With state lawmakers headed back to the Indiana Statehouse after failing to pass a budget during their regular session, Governor Mitch Daniels has unveiled his new budget proposal. Daniels' plan calls for huge cuts in state spending and dipping into the state’s rainy day fund.
2017-12-02	Budget battles Councilman Russ Jehl stared at City Controller Len Pohler and said, “do you think you’ll be able to brief council on the highlights and new positions before presenting it publically?”
2004-01-28	Building Fort Wayne’s Technological Future Bill Westrick’s story is familiar to anyone who has tried starting their own company. A Fort Wayne native with experience in several technology-based companies in the area, Westrick and three other partners formed Photosphere, a software company that produces visualization and color-theory software for the home improvement and interior design industries. Westrick and his partners incorporated in early 2003, then set about trying to get equipment for the new business.
2004-08-31	Bush attempts to showcase agenda NASHUA, N.H. - President Bush on Monday sought to showcase an agenda to address the concerns of economically stressed Americans, but his campaign found itself forced to explain why he told a television interviewer earlier in the day that it might not be possible ever to "win" the war on terror.
2004-11-11	Bush honors vets, meets with Blair As U.S. troops battle insurgents in Fallujah, President Bush pays his annual Veterans Day tribute to the armed forces Thursday.
2014-11-07	Bush League Young artists have always been at somewhat of a disadvantage within the art world. While needing to focus on an intense study of their chosen genre and style, these students must also be increasingly conscious of their “brand,” connecting to professionals within their field, and building whatever kind of spotlight they can on their artwork.
2004-11-22	Bush reiterates support for immigration reform SANTIAGO, Chile - President Bush on Sunday assured Mexican President Vicente Fox of his continued desire to ease the predicament of millions of foreigners working illegally in the United States.
2004-10-01	Bush, Kerry face off in first debate CORAL GABLES, Fla. - President Bush and Sen. John Kerry clashed at length over the war in Iraq Thursday night with Bush maintaining that Iraq is an integral battleground in the war against global terrorism and Kerry denouncing it as a "colossal error in judgment."
2010-05-10	Butcher, baker, candlestick maker It’s probably a lot easier to tell you what Working: the Musical is not than to attempt to describe what it is. You’d probably get the wrong impression.
2015-05-04	Buzz in the air emits the kind of energy that can only be generated by a gaggle of earnest over-achievers on the verge of adolescence and so eager to prove themselves that they can barely stand it.
2011-08-21	Calhoun & Creighton Like the title says…
2009-08-25	Calhoun conversion Plans to reconfigure the one-way section of Calhoun Street that runs between Washington and Berry have been floating since 2006, but as expected it only took a few days after Fort Wayne City Council’s 6 – 3 vote in favor of the project for construction crews to get busy.
2015-11-22	California Dreaming… of an Agent and Book Deal I’m writing this in a small hotel room in California. Corte Madera, to be exact. I finally made it out here, although I’ll be honest, I never really had a yen to go to California.
2014-11-25	Canadian nutjobs captivate columnist I’m in grad school for a few reasons, and trying to adjust to being in school again. However, as much as I’d like to moan about the WTF moments I’ve had sitting in class, I’d rather talk about the fact that I get a chance to write an “engaged research paper” about one of my favorite crime cases from the last 25 years.
2011-01-09	Cartoon Renaissance? The action/adventure TV cartoon once typified by the likes of G.I. Joe and Transformers in the 1980s became something fresh and new with the premiere of Batman: The Animated Series in 1992…
2009-07-21	CasiNO Mayor Henry’s hopes to have a special referendum on a casino in Fort Wayne were disappointed last June when the bill necessary to set up the referendum did not make it through committee during the extended legislative session in Indianapolis.
2009-01-16	Casino boogie Rumors of a casino in Fort Wayne pop up every few years, but gambling talk reached a fever pitch in late 2008. Stories appeared in local media, the question came up at a city council meeting, and a local businessman announced plans to develop a casino, waterpark, hotel and theater…
2011-07-04	Catching up with Dan Wire and Friends of the Rivers Dan Wire has had a busy week. Heck, he’s had a busy year. When we attempt to catch up with Wire — “point man” for the organization Friends of the River and a tireless advocate for Fort Wayne’s waterways — he’s in the midst of serving as moderator for the 2011 Rivers Summit, a two day event focusing on issues surrounding Fort Wayne’s rivers and featuring local, national, and regional speakers and guests.
2010-10-04	Catching up with the Hayhurst campaign During a heated election year, predicting the strategies and outcomes of political races seems to rank near baseball as the nation’s favorite past time. Yet despite the constant stream of pundits telling you what’s going to happen weeks or months before it actually does, you’ll still hear the maxim “but anything can happen” added as a cautionary note at the end of even the most self-assured bit of forecasting.
2004-09-22	CBS mistake a blow to journalism Dan Rather, the CBS News anchor and correspondent, is not the first journalist to be misled by a source. And CBS News is not the first news organization to be duped by phony documents. But not in recent memory has a journalist as prominent as Rather, or a news organization as respected as CBS, so defiantly stood by a story about which serious doubts were raised.
2004-09-15	CBS News faces credibility questions Dan Rather devoted one-fifth of his CBS newscast Friday to defending a report, aired on "60 Minutes," raising questions about President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the National Guard.
2010-10-04	Checking in with Mike Conley Last April, FWR talked to Mike Conley about his run for Allen County Council’s 2nd district chair. The story interested us because, as 2010 political candidates go, Conley seemed an unusual one.
2004-11-22	Cinema Center’s ORNAMENT not your usual silent art auction Cinema Center presents an interesting and fun twist on the standard silent art auction with Ornament, a fund-raiser for the organization on Sunday, December 2nd.
2006-06-20	Civic Theater honors this year’s best with the 54th Anthony awards As the entire nation breathlessly watched the Tony Awards on the evening of June 11 (okay, maybe “entire nation” is overstating the case, but I’m sure plenty of people outside New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut care a whole bunch. I don’t know any of them, but…), a Fort Wayne theatrical institution was holding its own awards ceremony for the best stage performances of the past theater season.
2015-01-15	Close to the Vest A few years back I'm in a barber shop in Fort Wayne, one of those old-timer places where the candy stripe gizmo twirls all day and all night…
2004-06-28	Colonized by box stores We hear it constantly: Fort Wayne is a growing city. In fact, we don’t need to be told. We see it everyday. Housing developments seem to pop up overnight like fresh crops; new construction projects are as much a staple of the summer months here as humidity, mosquitoes, and the Three River Festival; and enormous grocery stores cover what was formerly farmland.
2017-06-19	Columnist quits Facebook — Part 2 So far, I've not been on my personal Facebook page for about a month, and it's bliss.
2017-05-23	Columnist Shuns Facebook, Gets a Life I've deactivated my personal Facebook account, and I don't really miss it. I have other pages that I run for various things, but my Gloria Diaz page? Deactivated.
2008-09-10	Comics in the Fort A few of Fort Wayne's finest cartoonists…
2016-06-30	Coming 2018 (hopefully) On June 29, Mayor Henry unleashed a couple brand new — and very striking — riverfront development renderings for us to “ooo” and “ahhh” over.
2015-05-04	Common wage, campaign finance, and public perception John Crawford was recently overheard at a Republican candidates’ foo-faa promising to go after common wage, what you might call a minimum wage for carpenters and other construction pros.
2013-05-02	Complaining is futile A few days ago, a couple of people were complaining—one about a co-worker, the other about her health. A few minutes into their complaints, they apologized for complaining.
2018-04-19	Concordia Lutheran High School – 1984 Public elementary schools were mandated for the first time by the State of Indiana in 1852.
2016-12-16	Confessions of a Santa We can all agree that Christmas is a busy time of year. We’ve all got a billion things to do around the holidays. But without a doubt, Santa Claus has us all beat.
2017-12-18	Confessions of a Santa We can all agree that Christmas is a busy time of year. We’ve all got a billion things to do around the holidays. But without a doubt, Santa Claus has us all beat. He’s literally got a billion things to do, and that’s not even counting all the pre-Christmas meet-and-greets and other promotional activities.
2013-12-19	Conflicts, trains, and Boy Scouts You can imagine how Belinda Lewis must have felt when she walked into court and saw Mitch Harper. Belinda runs Animal Care and Control. Mr. Harper is a powerful councilman.
2015-09-17	Conley for City Council While he’s out meeting people on the campaign trail, Mike Conley sometimes has a question for constituents of Fort Wayne’s First District: when it comes to local politics, do you vote for the party, or do you vote for the individual?
2010-04-22	Conley for Council “I love Northeast Indiana, I’ve lived here my whole life, and I feel as though I can make a difference,” says Mike Conley. “It’s a pretty simplistic answer, but it’s the truth. What more do you need beyond that?”
2013-04-04	Control Freak Author Meets Stunt Double One of my many flaws is that I am a control freak. I also have trust issues, so mix them together, and you get someone who is neurotic and also convinced that if she tells someone to do something, it won't get done right.
2013-06-20	Controller: Breaking the Mold One listen to Fort Wayne's Controller and you know right off that they mean business. There's no gimmicks or labels. There's no fronts being put on, and there's sure as hell isn't a "concept" behind their songs…
2004-09-03	Convention aide recalls staring down the 'face of evil' NEW YORK - Shane Wolfe has stared down Saddam Hussein, literally. So when President George W. Bush talked about Iraq Thursday night in his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, the Baltic native and 1991 Garaway High School graduate could reflect on his "experiences of a lifetime" in that country.
2014-12-04	Cracking the airwaves It's taken a few years, but the dream of LPFM — Low Power FM radio — in Fort Wayne just got a little closer to reality. With the issuance of a construction permit, the Allen County Public Library has established WELT on the FM dial.
2012-01-19	Crawford investigates John Crawford waited until most of the other councilmen had taken their turn during “open mic” at a recent city council meeting.
2008-11-25	Creating the magic of a holiday tradition Karen Gibbons-Brown, the executive director of the Fort Wayne Ballet, knows exactly when she started work for this year’s production The Nutcracker — December 9, 2007.
2018-02-15	Crime shoppers In Indiana, a person who knowingly exerts unauthorized control over property belonging to another person with the intention of depriving that person of the use or value of that property commits the offense of theft.
2009-08-09	Crosstown Traffic While a final vote isn’t expected until the Tuesday, August 11th meeting of the Fort Wayne City Council, plans to convert a downtown portion of Calhoun Street from one-way to two-way appear to be a done deal.
2009-04-21	D-Day for EACS The April 21st meeting of the East Allen County Schools Board could prove to be explosive for the district. Some parents are bracing for Superintendent Kay Novotny to endorse a cost-cutting plan that calls for the closing of Paul Harding High School.
2016-03-18	Dan Wire Vs. the Giant Green Blob That Devoured Lake Erie In August 2014, Toledo experienced a severe water crisis caused by an outbreak of blue-green algae in Lake Erie. A state of emergency was declared, and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency told city officials to issue a “do not drink” warning — the city’s first — to area residents.
2013-09-06	Danza Towards the beginning of my talk with Karen Gibbons-Brown, the Fort Wayne Ballet’s Artistic Director, she offers up a direct and unassuming answer to a pretentious and silly question
2007-10-22	Darth Vader Banks, Watches, Televisions and Foam The late summer installment of our twice yearly association garage sale was coming up, and since I hadn’t met my quota of moving heavy, awkward furniture in over a year, I decided it was time for not just a little extra money, but a hernia as well.
2016-03-04	Dating Profiles Highly Entertaining, as well as Horrifying I’m back on another dating site, and this time, it’s for entertainment purposes only.
2007-03-07	David Fincher, A Career in the Shadows You may not recognize the name David Fincher, but I can almost guarantee that you've seen at least one of the movies he's directed. Though Fincher started his career overseeing music videos in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many consider several of the feature films he’s directed since, me included, as modern-masterpieces.
2004-09-27	Death wears pointed shoes The stories that form the basis of a lot of classical ballet have an element that is often overlooked — there’s a lot of death haunting all those fairy tales, legends and myths. Think of all those poor mice that meet their demise at the hands of the toy soldiers in The Nutcracker.
2007-03-20	Depressing Literature Makes One Woman's Life Not Seem So Bad There are certain books I like to read when I want to know someone is in worse shape than I am. I've faced a very stressful last few months, and escaping into someone else's misery makes me realize, "okay, things COULD be worse." Here are a few books I turn to when I'm depressed or feeling hopeless:
2011-09-01	Design from out of this world When Jim Martin talks about his latest course offering, his enthusiasm makes him sound a bit like a kid who has just discovered this new field of illustration and design, and realized that he has a knack for it…
2017-05-05	Designing influence A couple years ago, Wunderkammer Company undertook a research project called the Creative Census that attempted to take stock of Northeast Indiana’s “creative economy.” The study found that over 30% of that creative economy in the area is within the design fields…
2004-11-08	Despite smooth voting Tuesday, experts press for more reforms WASHINGTON - While the nation avoided a repeat of the 2000 election debacle Tuesday, disputes that erupted over provisional ballots, voter registration and touch-screen voting show that further reforms are badly needed, poll watchers and election experts say.
2013-03-15	Devotion to dance Anyone who has seen Lucia Rogers dance — and, if you’ve seen any Fort Wayne Ballet production in the past decade plus, you’ve seen Lucia Rogers dance — might describe her as a graceful dancer, or an elegant dancer, or an ebullient dancer, or a half-dozen other complimentary adjectives, depending on which part she’s playing.
2006-06-05	Diaz finds marriage leads to kids, divorce, cold wet butts My birthday is very close to Mother’s Day, and with the passing of those two dates, it makes me realize I’m a rare species. I’m a woman in her late 30s who doesn’t have kids. And I’m glad.
2012-09-21	Dinner (& Dancing) for Hundreds When the annual Gay and Lesbian Dinner Dance — a fundraiser for the Fort Wayne AIDS Task Force — takes place on Saturday, October 6 at the Grand Wayne Center, it’ll mark the 24th year for the event.
2015-11-22	Dirty tricks and more Just before the city election there was an announcement by “Anonymous” of the release of a list of names of politicians with KKK connections. Over a period of a couple weeks Facebook carried blurbs that teased the release.
2016-05-19	Dispatches from the front n Vienna the government provides free wifi for refugees. In Indiana, we have Governor Pence, and Donald Trump. Most of we Hoosiers are the descendants of political or economic refugees.
2004-10-11	Do bad movies brain your rot? What was the question again? Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of movies. My usual habit of viewing a few movies a week has suddenly turned to a sick addiction. In the past week I’ve managed to watch twenty movies as well as my usual television schedule of six hours a day. Some of these movies include “Bloody” Sam Peckinpah’s masterpieces Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia and Ride the High Country, the classic King Kong, Smokey and the Bandit (“The first thing I’m gonna’ do when I get home is punch your mamma in the mouth.”), Deliverance and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow to name a few.
2011-03-07	Doll House Karen Gibbons-Brown, Executive and Artistic Director of the Fort Wayne Ballet, explains where Coppelia fits in the canon of some of the great ballets. “The Nutcracker is magical,” she says. “Swan Lake is stunning; Cinderella is poignant; Romeo & Juliet is tragic… but Coppelia is charming.”
2014-11-25	Don't BYOB Stan always has a plan. He's a twenty-two year old college student with a part-time job. Like a lot of young students, Stan spends more than he earns.
2013-04-18	Don't just leave the scene Thousands of traffic accidents occur every day. Fortunately, many don’t involve injuries. Some accidents involve damage to things other than vehicles. Street signs, mailboxes and fences are just a few examples of property that vehicles damage.
2013-04-04	Don’t wait for rock bottom Over the years, I’ve met with hundreds of families struggling with a substance abuser or addict. In most cases, by the time the family meets with the lawyer, the addict has already gotten himself into legal trouble.
2018-04-05	Don’t wait for rock bottom If you or someone you know is out of control, don’t wait for something to change. Take action. Do something. If that doesn’t work, try something else.
2009-12-06	Don’t ya wanna live with me? “The dream of a joint solution to City of Fort Wayne and Allen County space needs through co-location just died today,” said Mayor Henry in a statement on November 19, referring to the Allen County council vote to not pursue co-habitation of the building at 200 East Berry (Renaissance Square).
2006-02-06	Dr Who, an introduction It’s been a long wait, but the Brit import series Doctor Who is finally returning to our shores after a decades’ absence. Originally broadcast here in the America via syndication from the 1970s to 1990s (in Fort Wayne on PBS), Doctor Who vanished from the cultural landscape after an aborted attempt at Americanizing the show in the mid 1990s.
2014-06-09	Dr. Crawford’s fuzzy numbers… and logic In the spirit of John Crawford’s analysis of how the city will save by ending collective bargaining, I have done my own calculation of how it will affect me…
2009-04-07	Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Poopdeflex If ever there were a situation where it is necessary to separate the art from the artist, this is it. When he is performing as Poopdeflex, Scott Snyder’s personality takes on a brash, crass, vulgar, and often hilarious tone. Off stage, however, it’s a completely different story. The real Scott Snyder, I found, is so nice a guy that I walked away from our recent meeting hoping that I hadn’t somehow offended him.
2014-02-11	Driving in snow Meet Joe. Joe is a twenty-three year old owner of a snowmobile, pick-up truck and a pet snake named Boiler.
2017-06-19	Drones – careful where you fly that thing Many new laws will hit the books on July 1. A few of those new laws criminalize certain behaviors involving the use of drones – also referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles
2017-11-18	Drowsy driving Have you ever nodded off while driving? Well, you aren’t alone.
2011-12-01	Drug dealer in your house? Several weeks ago I wrote an article explaining just how easy it is for a drinker to commit the crime of public intoxication. You might be surprised to know that it might take even less effort to commit a drug crime.
2012-09-06	Drug driving Most people in Indiana know that it’s illegal to possess or use marijuana within the state, but many don’t know that it’s against the law to drive a vehicle the day after or even a few weeks after a person last smoked marijuana.
2017-07-08	East State Village ca. 1960 The roughly eight block long East State Village is made up of approximately 20 commercial properties largely developed during the city’s trolley era in the 1920’s.
2007-10-08	Education mayor Republican Matt Kelty wants to be the education mayor. During a recent news conference, Kelty promised to create a partnership between the Mayor’s Office and Fort Wayne Community Schools declaring that the mayor must take a “hands-on approach to public education and the difficulties faced by the city’s urban schools.”
2006-08-21	Election Investogation and more… The Allen County Election Board tossed the names of 11 townships candidates - all Republicans - from the November ballot when it was learned that the candidates’ names were forged on election documents. Douglas Foy was fired from his job as Allen County Republican Party executive director for his role in the matter, and election officials are asking Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards to launch a criminal investigation.
2016-05-05	Ernesto's legacy “You have the right to remain silent.” I’m guessing you’ve heard that line before a few times on TV and in the movies.
2013-01-07	Escape to Fort Wayne When your back is against the wall, Fort Wayne can be a salvation. It saved me. I was born and raised in our city of Fort Wayne. I am among the legion of kids who sat on Santa’s (Phil Steigerwald) lap at Wolf & Dessaurs. I thought W&D was Macy’s. I never forgot opening day of the Zoo or Glenbrook (both summer 1965) when Dinoland (and Sinclair Oil) brought their full-sized fiberglass dinosaurs to FW and exhibited them in Glenbrook’s parking lot.
2014-10-04	Even visionaries fail sometimes Bill Bean should be commended even in failure. He dreamt big, offered some tantalizing ideas for the big dig downtown but in the end things just didn’t work out.
2007-04-24	Extra Innings The Tuesday, April 24th meeting of the Fort Wayne City Council could easily go into extra innings. During their last meeting - a marathon session itself—council members voted to hold a public hearing regarding the much-debated Harrison Square project for downtown Fort Wayne.
2012-10-04	Extra special education Do you know a youngster who is struggling in school? Does that child receive poor grades despite putting forth effort?
2016-05-05	Eye in the sky The haunting swirl of a synthesizer evokes impressions of something robotic and threatening, while in the background another voice hints at the human element behind the machine…
2004-08-14	Eyes on the X Prize The early days of the space race nearly half-a-century ago evoked images of a high-tech, off-world future that, we were assured, was just around the corner. Putting men in orbit and sending astronauts to the moon was just the beginning. By the 90s, we were going to have colonies on the moon. By the end of the century, men would be on Mars. Traveling by rocket was going to be as common as traveling by bus, or at least airplane.
2008-03-24	Faces of Fort Wayne The mission statement for Faces of Fort Wayne tells you that the event will showcase the artistic talents of the city’s diverse international community.
2014-08-14	Failure to appear Meet Dave. Dave doesn’t always make good decisions (and he’s not a real person, either). Two months ago, Dave punched a guy who charged at him at a concert. The prosecutor charged Dave with misdemeanor battery, a Class A misdemeanor.
2007-11-20	Fall Brawl The Saturday after Thanksgiving, a small army of women decked out in skirts and kneepads and boasting names like Whiskey Soured, Malice Cooper, and Chainsaw Mary will converge on the Memorial Coliseum for a day of no holds-barred, knee bruisin’, lip bustin’, roller derby action.
2015-09-03	Fall TV preview There’s quite a few new series to look forward to on TV this fall. In fact there are FIVE series/mini-series based on influential novels set to premiere later this year on cable and streaming services and a few other interesting shows to boot.
2017-02-21	False informing In Indiana, a person commits the misdemeanor offense of false informing when he gives false information during the official investigation of a crime knowing that the information is false.
2015-11-22	Familiar Faces, New Sounds Rock and roll. It's something that when you fall for it, you fall hard. You know the words to your favorite songs. Hell, you know the words to your favorite albums. The lyrics speak to you. The music gets you through good and bad times. It's a life preserver for disenfranchised youth.
2007-09-07	Fan clubbed The last time I talked to actor Robert Scrimm, he was preparing for Stones In His Pockets, a full length play with a two-person cast. Now, several months later he’s preparing for the Civic Theater’s production of Misery, another full length play with a two person cast. “I’m a glutton for punishment, apparently” he says. That would be especially true in this case…
2006-09-04	Fantasy author Terry Brooks visits Mitchell Books Visit the fantasy/sci-fi section of your local bookstore and take a look at all those multi-volume epics and cycles and series and chronicles. They all owe a huge debt to fantasy novelist Terry Brooks.
2007-02-06	Fantasy worlds collide in Fort Wayne Youtheatre’s "Dorothy Meets Alice" Pity poor Judson, the young hero of "Dorothy Meets Alice, or the Wizard of Wonderland." As if dealing with one bizarre world isn’t headache enough, he has to deal with two.
2013-10-07	Feeling The Music When you see Fernando Tarango performing on stage with the Wickersham Brothers, it's easy to get wrapped up in the energy he puts into the act.
2010-06-07	Fetishist Fans, Charter Club Members The Replacements were my favorite band in the 80's, a scruffy, sloppy, post-punk Minneapolis group who always managed to screw it up just as they were about to get famous.
2011-01-09	Film Indiana Filmmaking is difficult. It is generally requires several different resources that are not usually readily available if the filmmaker wants to shoot in a place like Indiana. However, Indiana filmmakers have some relief in the form of Film Indiana.
2018-12-09	Final exams Mike is stressed about his final examinations. He’s a first year law student who plans to get into politics after law school. Mike has very little to show so far from all of his hard work. Mike attends all of his classes.
2018-03-16	Finding her way If you're not familiar with Lexi Pifer, chances are you will be someday. She's a Fort Wayne native with one hell of a voice and a keen knack for intimate, personal songwriting.
2012-06-22	Fireworks How long do you think a candy bar would stay on the shelves if it were causing kids to be hospitalized?
2004-11-10	First changes to Bush's cabinet as Ashcroft and Evans resign In the first of what many analysts believe will be several changes to President Bush’s cabinet during his second term, Attorney General John Ashcroft, the face of the administration's tough tactics against terrorism, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a longtime friend of the president, resigned Tuesday, the first members of the Cabinet to leave.
2004-09-01	First lady and Schwarzenegger headline second night of RNC NEW YORK - On a night devoted to displaying the "compassionate" side of President Bush's policies, first lady Laura Bush joined with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Republican National Convention Tuesday to salute the president as a leader who agonized over going to war and cries over its casualties but has the strength needed to prevail in the battle against terrorism.
2005-11-14	Fixing the Festival Mountain ranges may crumble into dust. Glaciers melt, the continents shift, civilizations rise, fall and rise again… and through it all, the question of what to do about Fort Wayne’s Three Rivers Festival remains.
2004-10-06	Flu-shot supply to fall short of need SAN DIEGO - Healthy adults across the nation were asked Tuesday to forgo flu shots this season so those in high-risk groups can get vaccinated following the stunning disclosure of a major shortage of doses.
2008-05-20	Foot traffic Fort Wayne fears a lot of things. Flooding. Change. A Democrat in the White House. And walking. Ask what the biggest impediments to downtown development are and on the shortlist will be “lack of convenient parking spaces.” By this we usually mean we might have to walk an entire city block or two to get where we want to go.
2005-07-25	Foreign exchange Say you’re from Seoul, South Korea. Or Paris, France. Or Reading, England. And say you’re about to visit the United States of America for the very first time. Where would you go if you wanted an accurate glimpse of average American everyday life? Would you go to one of the nation’s cultural and historical hubs — New York, Washington D.C. Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago…
2007-02-21	Fort Wayne Hip-Hop Dance: Anything But Routine When I was eight years old I saw the movies Breakin', Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Beat Street and quickly became determined to learn and recreate the moves I had seen in those films. My cousin and I would take a sheet of cardboard to the local grocery store and lay it down on the linoleum floor next to the video games and vending machines where mothers left their children while shopping. We would try and cram as many moves together as we could, while also trying to impress one another with something new we had thought up to try, before our parents were done picking up everything they needed. Things sure have changed since those days and it's been a change for the better.
2005-09-05	Fort Wayne Kid’s Marathon helps kids go the distance Confucius said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The same holds true of a 26.2 mile run, except most people probably find a thousand mile walk a lot less intimidating than running a marathon.
2012-07-19	Fort Wayne Museum of Art: Illuminated interiors and landscapes In art, like most human endeavors, the focus is many times placed on the largest, flashiest examples, gaining headlines and earning generous purchase prices.
2006-08-07	Fort Wayne Music in 2006: So Far, So Good With another year half gone, it seems like a good time to review what we’ve seen and heard in the recent past. The music and the overall scene have really grown considerably and it looks like it isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. There have been some tremendous albums released, some fantastic shows put together, and some real growth in different genres. There’s no better time than now to reflect on what has been and what shall be.
2011-08-09	Fort Wayne Musicians Pay Tribute to One of Their Own This past January, Fort Wayne lost one of its most beloved musicians, guitarist George Ogg, after a battle with cancer. Before passing away, Ogg stated that he wanted his team for the “Light the Night” walk (sponsored by The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society), Team Ogg, to make a contribution to the event…
2005-02-07	Fort Wayne Radio Aside from the one or two stations programmed in your car radio (maybe at home too), who or what stations can you name, with certainty, that dominate AM/FM broadcasting in this area?
2018-02-03	Fort Wayne Rocks I know you were pretty busy in 2017. There was a lot going on for all of us, really. Lots of internal and external crisis keeping our brains on full alert and giving us little time to sit down and relax a bit…
2005-02-21	Fort Wayne to Indy in 28 minutes?! Imagine this: you’re a student living downtown with a 10:30 am class out at IPFW. So, you walk a few blocks to a central terminal in the city center, and hop on a “people mover” that carries you out to campus. After your classes, the same conveyance takes you to work, or a shopping center, or back home again.
2007-07-09	Fort Wayne's Music Veterans Fort Wayne has always been fortunate enough to have a varied and vibrant music community, but how does the present compare to the past? Have the amount of venues increased? Has public support decreased? What pitfalls should today's musicians avoid? These were the questions I put to some of the area's veteran musicians. Thanks to Bob, Duane, Geo, George and Michael for the stories, the laughs and most of all, the music.
2008-04-08	Fort Wayne: Hotbed of Higher Education Many moons ago, FWR took an informal survey for an article on what residents of Fort Wayne liked about their city. People mentioned the low cost of living, the arts, and how folks here were generally “nice” (hey, that’s what they said). But the response we did not see coming: the number of great educational opportunities for working adults.
2005-02-21	Fort Wayne: Prettier than Detroit, but not as Pretty as Toronto Imagine walking around in a city, downtown, late at night. Imagine you can walk and not be afraid of being mugged. Imagine shopping late on a Sunday night, and after browsing, stop at a donut shop for a snack. Imagine riding the subway and not worry about crime. Imagine a big city full of friendly strangers who are genuinely sorry if you ask them something they don’t know the answer to.
2005-06-27	Fort Wayne’s answer to School of Rock For decades, there have been a few tried and true rehearsal spots that rock n’ roll bands have turned to in times of need — the garage, the basement, even the living room, if your family or housemates are especially understanding, or at least absent during practice time. But any musician knows that for band practice, these spaces are hardly ideal. They present all kinds of problems, including (but not limited to) acoustics, inadequate electrical outlets, and shouts of “turn it down!” from the neighbors.
2015-03-05	Fort Wayne’s First Father of Rock-n-Roll If you’re a long time resident of Fort Wayne who frequents the local music venues, odds are that at one point, you’ve seen and heard Gary “Meatball” McMeekin do his thing on guitar. Meatball has been performing for over 40 years in countless bands, locally and otherwise. I’ll get to the details of his lengthy career in a moment, but first, a personal story…
2008-06-10	Fort-4-Fitness Tim Kenesey, CEO of Medical Protective and the Chairman of the Fort-4-Fitness health festival taking place in September, is trying to come up with a tactful way of addressing the big elephant head that pops up anytime the words “Fort Wayne” and “health” are mentioned in the same sentence.
2006-04-24	fortwaynemusic.com gets its act together Back in 1999, when Chris Wallace started the Fort Wayne Music web site (www.fortwaynemusic.com), his basic goals were pretty simple — to provide a community-oriented network environment to benefit musicians and fans in the area, a place where bands could post news, fans could hear about upcoming shows, and everyone could exchange information on local artists.
2010-07-04	Friend of the River When Dan Wire takes City luminaries, policy makers, and other local public figures out on his pontoon boat for a cruise down the St. Joe river, he can usually count on a certain reaction. “After a while, they’ll say ‘Wire, why do you want people to know about this? There’s nobody here. It’s all yours!’” Wire laughs. “And I always tell them ‘just as you’ve enjoyed it, we need to have a lot of people enjoy it’.”
2007-03-07	From the bargain bin to the belle of the ball When the Fort Wayne Ballet first launched as an incorporated not-for-profit organization in 1956, its premier full-evening ballet was Cinderella. And to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Fort Wayne Ballet is performing Cinderella over a two weekend run starting March 16 .
2009-01-05	From the mind of Sterling Clark Professional comic book illustrator Sterling Clark became fascinated by comic books as soon as he was able to read. He was first exposed to them at local drug stores, department stores and vending machines. His favorites were published by Marvel Comics…
2009-04-07	Full House The Dance Collective brings Wonderboy to town; the Fort Wayne Civic Theater presents the edgy work of Christopher Durang in 5 in 1; and Sweetwater hosts the other-worldy sound of the SEAMUS conference.
2014-07-31	Funeral driving 101 Attending a funeral is tough. Driving in a funeral procession can be even tougher…
2006-11-08	FWMoA Heats Up with ¡Arte Caliente! This winter, visitors to the Fort Wayne Museum of Art will have the good fortune to meet dozens of Joe Diaz's best friends. And they've got quite a lot on their minds. ¡Arte Caliente!: Selections from the Joe A. Diaz Collection – an exhibition featuring over 70 works by contemporary Chicano artists – opens Saturday, November 18.
2013-01-17	Gambling Have you ever bet on a game or participated in a fantasy football league? Ever played cards for money or entered a college basketball tournament office pool?
2004-09-10	Garry Shandling: the 56th annual Emmy Awards When it comes to hosting awards show, nobody does it better than Garry Shandling - a man who knows the thrill of victory and the agony defeat, year after year after year.
2015-03-05	Gary “Meatball” McMeekin: Fort Wayne’s First Father of Rock-n-Roll If you’re a long time resident of Fort Wayne who frequents the local music venues, odds are that at one point, you’ve seen and heard Gary “Meatball” McMeekin do his thing on guitar. Meatball has been performing for over 40 years in countless bands, locally and otherwise. I’ll get to the details of his lengthy career in a moment, but first, a personal story…
2012-11-15	Gateway drugs? “Hallway” drugs are the bigger threat OK. It’s official. Recreational marijuana use is legal in Colorado and Washington. When the new law takes effect in a month, a person in Colorado who is at least 21 years of age will be able to legally possess up to one ounce (28 grams) of marijuana or harvest up to six plants.
2010-06-07	GearFest 2010 Schedule At GearFest 2010's FREE workshops, scores of industry veterans will share their experiences to help build your music-making skills. In addition, you can take in more than a dozen product demos featuring some of the best players in the business.
2018-06-15	GearFest 2018 It is right and good, of course, that a city of Fort Wayne’s size should experience a steady parade of festivals and celebrations to light up our weekends during the warmer months. But if you’re a musician and love all the gear and technology — from stage mics to Pro Tools — that goes with it, Sweetwater’s GearFest is the only summer festival that really matters.
2006-01-06	Gen X What happened to Generation X? Over a decade ago, they were in the spotlight as the generation born after the “Baby Boomers” of the post war years. They’ve been classified as being whiny, spoiled, lazy, and apathetic.
2012-03-01	Get Lugar Unless you’ve been living under a rock (perhaps a rock in Virginia), you’ve probably heard just a little something about the controversy surrounding Senator Richard Lugar’s residency. While it started small, the issue has grown in the past year or so, pushed into the wider public consciousness by political opponents who see the Senator’s seat as vulnerable, and some of the loudest complaints have come from an area the Senator’s camp probably didn’t expect — conservatives.
2006-03-21	Giant candidates, blog ballots, and more… Attack of the 40-Foot Woman While you could argue that most people have no idea what a county commissioner does, at least one office-holder should be a familiar face at least. Allen County Commissioner Marla Irving launched her re-election campaign with a bang earlier this year - and we do mean early. In February, three months before the May Primary, Irving for Commissioner billboards started appearing all over the area. On the giant display, Irving, arms crossed, poses in front of a red background as she smiles down upon the masses.
2009-01-16	Gloria goes to the movies I can’t afford to go to many movies, and to be honest, it seems like few of them are worth going to. However, I’ll give you reviews of the movies I did see this year, in chronological order (or close to it):
2015-08-06	Gloria Meets a Childhood Idol I never seem to have much money to spend, but I do have to say the concert series that the Three Rivers Festival brings in is definitely worth the cash.
2008-05-20	Gloria's Trucking Saga: Part Two February 2007: I’ve lost the first battle, so I retreated. It was obvious I couldn’t go on any longer without working, so I went back to the temp agency which originally got me work the year before. I expected it to be the usual temp nonsense, and it was. However, a few of my co-workers were so much fun, there were nights that I actually looked forward to going to work. The place was a sweatshop, but I consoled myself with the fact that it was only temporary. I planned to leave as soon as I passed my commercial driver’s license test.
2016-07-14	Going my way? Remember when you were growing up and your parents told you to not get into cars with strangers? Well, it’s 2016 and people all over the world are doing just that. Thanks to this strange economy and available technology, ride-sharing is allowing people to become cab drivers, with very minimal requirements.
2017-11-18	Going my way? Remember when you were growing up and your parents told you to not get into cars with strangers? Well, it’s 2017 and people all over the world are doing just that.
2008-02-18	Going off the Rails Robert Davis is a troubled man. Despised by his wife and harangued by his boss, Davis is on his daily train commute when he loses his briefcase full of documents concerning the merger of his contracting firm. A stress-induced panic attack leaves him unconscious on the platform, and when he wakes up, he’s all alone, the station deserted and a disembodied voice on the PA speakers announcing the arrival and departure of trains that don’t seem to exist.
2013-08-15	Going up the country Have you ever sat watching the famous Woodstock Festival from 1969 and wondered how incredible that would've been? Or how about Woodstock 1999 and wish that could have been erased from human existence? For me, I'd love the music (of the former) but could do without three days of naked hippies and toddlers and all that nasty brown acid…
2018-03-02	Good enough to eat… On March 10, Sweets So Geek brings us another year of Pi Day festivities. Now in its fourth year, the Annual Pie Pan Art Auction will feature original artwork on actual pie pans created by local artists
2017-05-04	Good government magic Carol Helton pulled a rabbit out of the hat the other day.
2004-08-30	GOP convention set to open NEW YORK - Demonstrators flooded the streets of New York protesting the war in Iraq and assorted other Bush administration policies Sunday as Republicans prepared to nominate George W. Bush for a second term later this week.
2008-02-18	Grassroots Green moves beyond the bad news To hear John Steinbach tell it, he was just one of millions who had their eyes opened and their hearts shaken by An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s award-winning 2006 documentary about global warming.
2009-10-20	Great Fall Destinations I used to go to Florida every spring and stay at a friend's place, and I was surprised to discover how many familiar faces I encountered every time I was there. Most trips to the grocery, to the restaurant, to the beach included an impromptu conversation with someone I recognized from Fort Wayne. It wasn't until a few years later that I saw that this was hardly coincidence…
2017-04-21	Green space So much of life is about choices, the decisions we make in order to fulfill our long-term goals and dreams. Do you turn down the ice-cream cone in order to meet your fitness goals? Do you put away a little bit of your paycheck every few weeks in order to build a financial nest egg?
2004-11-19	Greenspan warns about impact of trade deficit The persistence of bloated U.S. trade deficits over time can pose a risk to the U.S. economy, which thus far has proven resilient, warned Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Friday. Policy-makers must not get lulled into a sense of complacency, he said.
2008-08-18	Greg Locke: Easin’ Down the Road After working in record stores for nearly a decade, Gregory William Locke III began a career as a music writer, first, as a critic of albums in 2003 and then, three short years later, as a weekly columnist with the ever acerbic, “Ease Down the Road.” But, all good things must come to an end and Locke will soon be heading west and planting roots in Seattle. My friend, former roommate, fellow music journalist and Stage Banter co-host was kind enough to share his thoughts on the recent past and our mutual love for the artistic side of life.
2004-10-11	Ground war heats up as election nears DOYLESTOWN, Pa. - As the presidential campaign nears zero hour, the outcome may well hinge on the competing efforts of volunteer armies deployed to get out the vote in key battlegrounds around the country.
2018-02-03	Guess who's coming to dinner Entertainment and the arts are full of unlikely hits, works that probably didn’t seem like they would be successes, but somehow caught on with audiences in a big, big way, surpassing even the most optimistic expectations.
2013-08-01	Guns on school grounds Making it a felony to bring a gun on school property should keep kids safe, right? In Indiana, a person who possesses a firearm in or on school property or on a school bus commits a Class D felony…
2004-04-05	Hamburger and Radio The thing Fort Wayne people like most, besides eating, is their radio stations.
2014-12-04	Hanging out with a bad crowd Meet Dan. He dropped out of high school three years ago. He tells people he’s taking college classes. Dan can’t keep a job, but he’s had a bunch of them over the years.
2007-08-19	Hard times for the Kelty Campaign At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, August 15, Mayoral candidate Tom Henry held a press conference at a residence on South Anthony Boulevard. The prospect of the Democratic nominee for mayor finally doing some active campaigning probably would have gotten the media out anyway. The conference was very well attended, and the occasion was to announce Henry’s call for an initiation of a citywide safe house program. But not surprisingly, no one seemed to want to ask Tom Henry about that…
2008-11-25	Hard times in Fort Wayne It’s no secret — times are tough. As of this writing, gas prices have dropped, but that followed months where the cost of fuel climbed past $4 per gallon. Add to that a credit crisis, rampant foreclosures, bank closings, general Wall Street mayhem…
2008-10-07	Harvey Cocks: A Life in Theater Harvey Cocks is struggling to remember the very first play he ever directed. He knows it was in summer stock theater during his time in New York in the 50s. He remembers Melvyn Douglas was in it, and he remembers the play was about the first girl to play on a football team. “Oh, it was a terrible, terrible play,” he laughs, before adding. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m having a senior moment.” Hardly. With nearly seven decades of show business memories to draw from, Cocks can be forgiven for forgetting the name of a play here or there.
2015-10-17	Haunted Room Service If you happen to be surfing through Public Access channels in Fort Wayne on a given late Friday evening you may happen across a program that opens with a silent, foreboding set. Two skulls perched on pedestals flank the corners, while there’s a coffin propped on the left.
2011-02-06	Headwaters Junction Revisited As Kelly Lynch researched and developed his Headwaters Junction proposal over the years, he frequently used his cousin as a confidant and sounding board. And recently, as the Headwaters Junction tale took another unexpected turn, his cousin once again offered up a little perspective.
2004-05-31	Heartland Security Considering how much time we spend thinking about terrorism, talking about terrorism, and theorizing about when and if terrorists will strike in the US, you’d expect more people would be aware of what we’re doing about terrorism on a local level. But most people in Fort Wayne don’t even know that Fort Wayne has its own Director of Homeland Security…
2018-03-02	Help me, Grandpa! According to AARP and a study by True Link Financial, older Americans are defrauded out of nearly $13 billion each year. Senior citizens can be easy targets.
2007-09-07	Henry speaks Mayoral hopeful Tom Henry says that early in his campaign, his staff considered creating a contest based on the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game. For those of you who are unfamiliar, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”challenges you to hook up any actor or actress with actor Kevin Bacon in six steps — actor X was with actor Y in this movie, who was with that actor in this other movie, who starred with so-and-so in movie Z, who was with Kevin Bacon in whatever. In the Tom Henry version, you would need to “know” the Democratic Party’s candidate through a similar chain of friends and acquaintances. “But we were going to make you do it three steps,” Henry laughs.
2013-06-20	Hey! It's Gloria's Book Club! I confess I was looking forward to having to recover from my surgery. After I got through the terror of waiting, and waiting, and worrying and finally getting it over with (I was doing so well, I was released a day early) it was really nice knowing I had an entire month to get better.
2008-05-20	Hillgrass Bluebilly Entertainment If you've been paying attention to the local music community in the last six months, there's a pretty good chance you've come across the name Hillgrass Bluebilly Entertainment. Perhaps you've seen the logo on show flyers, numerous websites, t-shirts or hats. And more than likely, you've been a tad curious just what exactly HBE is. The answer, much like HBE, is quite simple. They are a promotional company.
2012-01-19	Historic transformation Maybe you haven’t heard about “Pontiac Square,” a neighborhood revitalization project lead by one of the nation’s top companies in the field to transform the old coca-cola bottling plant into loft-style apartments (that’s part of Phase 1, at least).
2012-04-05	Hold the phone Several days ago, I was driving while talking on my cell phone. I steered with my left hand and held the phone in my right.
2014-11-07	Holding the bag Two more states recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Earlier this year, even Indiana relaxed its marijuana laws.
2011-12-01	Holiday playbill Fort Wayne's stages get busy over the holiday season, and here are a few performances happening this month.
2005-06-13	Hollywood Shuffle: the art of the background artist Kelron Mixon. Fort Wayne Native. Actor. Rapper. Best friends with Jamie Foxx. Okay, maybe he’s not best friends with the Oscar winner but he did meet the actor after moving to Hollywood to pursue his dreams for stardom. In town for a short sabbatical from LA, Mixon found time to chat with Fort Wayne Reader.
2013-05-16	Hollywood veteran When he was running his public relations company in Hollywood in the mid 70s, Michael Druxman devised an Oscar campaign for a couple of his clients that for many years served as a textbook example in the business of what imagination and a little hustle can achieve.
2017-04-09	Hustlin' The 80s get a bad rap at times. Sometimes that bad rap is deserved. Things like pegged pants, pet rocks, Monster Truck shows, and a good portion of 80s Saturday morning cartoons should never have existed. So let's put all of those out of our minds, shall we?
2005-07-11	I have a "thing" for Jack Ryan I’ve had a “thing” for Jack Ryan for quite some time now. Jack Ryan is the man who saved America, if not the world from nuclear destruction several times now – not unlike that copy “weenie” Jack Bauer from TV’s 24. Jack Ryan is the same man who traveled to the jungles of South America in order to battle drug dealers while fighting Irish terrorists on our home soil after they attempted to take his life and the lives of his wife, daughter and unborn child. And let’s not forget the time Ryan came close to stopping terrorists detonating a nuclear device in Baltimore in order to try and start World War III.
2017-07-20	I'm Okay, but You're Not I've never smoked pot heavily, but I've noticed that age, like weed, tends to mellow some people out.
2012-08-02	Idle Hands into Able Bodies Tomatoes. Okra. Bell peppers. Jalapenos. Onions. Those are just a few of the things sprouting in a new urban garden on South Calhoun Street. But in addition to vegetables and flowers, hope and opportunity are growing, too.
2016-09-15	In Search of Lost Time Every once in a while I'll watch a movie or hear a song that for some reason triggers such an overwhelming sense of nostalgia in me that for a few days I can't think of anything else
2017-02-03	In the 60s, Indiana garages weren’t just for tractors… In December of 2012, Frank Gray’s column in The Journal Gazette talked about a 60’s band from Fort Wayne called The Olivers, who recorded an album in 1969, only to have their record company deal fall through and the recording seemingly lost to time. It was our kind of story, and we shake our pasty fist at Gray for beating us to it.
2013-06-06	In the mix The history of rock n’ roll is full of stories of happy coincidence, strange meetings of chance or turns of fortune. But there’s something about the stories that pop up around record producer Jack Douglas and his long, distinguished career in the music industry that sound almost apocryphal. They’re the kind of stories that prompt people to ask Douglas “Is that really true?”
2006-08-21	In the Studio: Kay Gregg Within five minutes of my arrival at her Indiana Avenue studio, screen printer Kay Gregg had read me an audacious quotation (by legendary music producer Steve Albini, writing about artist Jay Ryan), introduced me to her aesthetic mantra (“no fetishization of guns, boobs, cars, and guitars”), and offered me a can of beer (Miller High Life). Talk about starting things off on the right foot.
2013-09-22	In the zone Construction zones can be dangerous places, and with men and women working so close to the passing cars it’s important that speeds are slow.
2008-09-22	In Tom we trust? Twice in two weeks, Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry found himself the recipient of a public smackdown.
2007-04-10	Indiana Dance Festival During the weekend of April 13, one of the most exciting places to be for contemporary dance in the Midwest is Fort Wayne, when nationally-recognized dance companies and dance professionals converge on the city for the Indiana Dance Festival.
2011-03-20	Indiana Dance Festival 2011 At some point in the last few weeks, while going through your normal day — running errands in a shopping center, say, or hustling to a meeting — you may have been surprised by three dozen or so of your fellow citizens suddenly breaking out into dance.
2015-11-22	Industrial evolution The days when the General Electric plant in downtown Fort Wayne employed thousands of workers and indirectly supported dozens of small businesses up and down Broadway and Taylor were long gone by the time the company auctioned off its contents last year.
2008-07-21	Inner city blues Late one October night in 2006, a Molotov cocktail exploded on the back porch of Phil Marx’s house. Another burst in the back yard, while a third smoldered in the front.
2007-02-21	Inside the mind of Matt Kelty When Mayor Graham Richard announced last fall that he would not be seeking a third term, there were high hopes that an open field might lead to an exciting campaign year, with perhaps a nail-biting finish akin to the first Richard/Buskirk match-up in 1999.
2012-08-02	Insider’s game Larry Brown seems not to have gotten the memo. The President of Allen County Council has called two secret meetings of the joint city-county task force to deal with the issue on tax abatement reform without informing the public
2011-10-20	Interview with Tom Henry FWR sits down with Mayor Henry for a one-on-one interview.
2013-01-07	Invasion of privacy In Indiana, a person commits the crime of invasion of privacy when he knowingly or intentionally violates a no contact or protective order.
2004-09-27	*IPFW’s Talking With…* lets audiences get close to some unusual characters** Lila’s collection of lamps is so enormous is borders on the ridiculous. Homeless Anna Mae confesses that her one wish in life is to be able to live at McDonald’s. Big Eight has been a rodeo performer since she was nine. And Alain, a “plain Jane” cursed with an utterly unremarkable appearance, suddenly becomes interesting to people after her face is cut.
2005-01-10	IPFW’s Community Arts Academy offers a chance to explore your creative side Since its inception a few years ago, the Community Arts Academy at IPFW has provided area students in grades pre-Kindergarten through high school (and a few adults, too) with a fun and affordable way to explore their interest in drama, art, music, and dance, and an excellent opportunity to work with some of the area’s finest teachers in the arts.
2004-11-24	Iran demands to alter nuclear "freeze" deal Iran is demanding that it be allowed to make an exception in its commitment to freeze all uranium enrichment activities so it can operate about two dozen centrifuges, diplomats said Wednesday.
2004-11-18	Iraq working to build nuclear missile, says Powell U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States has intelligence indicating Iran is trying to fit missiles to carry nuclear weapons, partially confirming claims made by Iranian opposition group that Tehran is deceiving the United Nations and is attempting to secretly continue activities meant to give it atomic arms by next year.
2011-03-07	Is Fort Wayne ‘bad for business’? As the field for the Republican nomination for Mayor of Fort Wayne filled up, two of the most prominent candidates made pledges to make the area a friendlier place to do business.
2004-06-14	Is there more than corn in Indiana? At around 10 pm on Thursday, April 8th 2004, several residents of Rochester, IN saw something they couldn’t explain. A large disc-shaped object, approximately 100’ long with two rows of bright, white/yellow lights, hovered about 40’ to 50’ feet off the ground. It made no noise at all, and after a short time, seemed to vanish without a trace.
2018-10-05	It can seem like a circus… A favorite trick of smaller government advocates is to starve government of resources at budget time, then point the finger when a job doesn’t get done, and follow by saying the work needs to be privatized because the private sector always does a better job.
2008-01-21	It was a very good year December 20th I was sitting at Au Bon Pain in the Boston Design Center feeling melancholy. And it was Judy Garland’s fault. The P.A. system was playing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and for some reason, that is the one holiday tune that can bring me to tears. I didn’t bust out crying, but I came awfully close. I don’t know if it was because my job training is about to be over, or thinking about future plans that I’ve had and wondering if a different path might be in store, or what.
2016-02-09	It’s Alive! As an actor, Billy Dawson has done heavy drama. He’s done comedy. He’s done musicals and he’s done classics. But to hear him tell it, nothing in his acting experience has quite prepared him to play a lurching, lumbering green-faced golem who “speaks” in moans and grunts…
2007-11-01	It’s not easy being green “Love will make you do things you’d normally thought you wouldn’t do, and that’s all in this play,” says actor Dwight Wilson, one of the stars of the Civic Theatre’s production of Little Shop of Horrors. “The underlying story of this play is that everything has a cost and a consequence. What are you willing to sacrifice or do to get what you want?”
2012-03-01	John Carter of Mars aka Dotar Sojat of Barsoom The turn of the 20th century must have been a wonderful time for those interested in the sky and astronomy.
2008-10-21	John Shaffer: genre-hopping musician lands on MTV When John Shaffer was growing up in, he heard all kinds of different music playing throughout the house. His brothers listened to Boston, Journey and Yes, while his parents were often playing music by country artists like Kenny Rogers and Johnny Cash.
2018-09-23	Johnny Appleseed’s Grave John Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774 and by the time of his birth, apples had been growing on the east coast of the United States for over 150 years.
2004-05-17	*Julia Meek brings Folktales* to the classroom** Julia Meek, the host and producer of Northeast Indiana Public Radio’s Folktales on WBOI (88.7 FM), has long wanted to add something to her popular program. “One thing that I’ve always found missing (on the radio show) is spoken word folktales that are not in my voice,” she says.
2016-08-23	Junk mail* Of course, after ranting last column about how women know how to dress to get attention, karma has bitten me in the ass.
2017-02-03	Jury Duties In Indiana, the judge reads preliminary instructions to the jury before opening statements are made by the prosecutor and the defense.
2018-11-16	Jury Duties In Indiana, the judge reads preliminary instructions to the jury before opening statements are made by the prosecutor and the defense.
2005-09-05	Just compensation In November of 2004, Diana Kruse was raking leaves in the front yard of her 11-acre farm property on Rothman Road in Northeast Fort Wayne when she was approached by a representative from Fort Wayne’s Water Resources Program. The property next to her had been sold, and a housing development was going in. The city needed 1/3 of an acre off the front of her property to put in a sewer and water line.
2017-10-23	Just like the one you used to know… According to myth and legend, songwriter Irving Berlin was tasked with coming up a song for each of the four major American holidays for the musical Holiday Inn.
2017-09-03	Just too good a bet $500,000 vs. $60,000. $3 million in “free” money. 7 to 2.
0000-00-00	Keeping Fort Wayne's thriving arts community strong If you’ve ever enjoyed a Philharmonic performance or Youtheater production, or checked out a “hot buzz” independent film at the Cinema Center, just to name a few examples, you have Arts United to partially thank for that. The third oldest arts fund in the United States, Arts United is a private, non-profit organization that helps fund various arts organizations in Fort Wayne.
2004-09-24	Kerry calls for world leaders to help Iraq COLUMBUS, Ohio - John Kerry called for a summit of world leaders Thursday to map out a plan for Iraq and said the president's miscalculations about the war "are costing lives, costing America's reputation in the world."
2004-09-04	Kerry targets swing voters while Bush targets core Republicans NEW YORK - President Bush and Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry find themselves in a virtual dead heat as the 2004 presidential campaign roars past Labor Day, the holiday that used to mark the start of the fall contest but in today's non-stop race is just another frantic campaign day.
2004-08-16	Kerry touts his economic plan, promises to slash deficit Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry Thursday denounced President Bush's tax policies as "the creed of greed" and promised to slash the deficit in half and boost middle-class incomes through tax cuts and credits.
2007-10-08	Kevin Hambrick: Full time musician/part time promoter Kevin Hambrick, singer/songwriter for The Orange Opera and a solo artist, has had one busy, yet successful, year so far…
2016-02-19	Kicked to the curb In a small town in Lancashire, England, the factories have packed up and gone, and with them went the jobs — and futures — of the town’s people. Stores are closing, the area is falling apart, and what used to be a robust working class community is quickly succumbing to poverty, alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity.
2004-08-14	King Arthur Jerry Bruckheimer's "King Arthur" is far, far from Tennyson's poem, and even farther from Camelot - this is more like "Killalot." British actor Clive Owen plays Arthur, not yet a king.
2011-02-20	Last of the Independents Not that I want to tell a multi-billion dollar company how to conduct business, but I do wish that Starbucks would back off a little with the chipper customer service.
2017-01-11	Lawton Park, circa 1905 The grounds for what would become Lawton park were purchased in 1864 as a site for the Indiana State Fair, an event that ended up only being held there once, in 1865.
2005-01-24	Lawton Skatepark caught in Catch 22 Whatever your opinion of skateboarders, they’re here to stay. With our nation saddled with obese adults and an ever-increasing number of obese children, one would think Fort Wayne would applaud the skateboard and inline skating facility near Lawton Park.
2006-06-20	Left Lane Cruiser: Fat Possum or Bust What do R.L. Burnside, The Black Keys and Left Lane Cruiser all have in common? They all play North Mississippi Hill Country Blues and if Left Lane Cruiser has their way they will sign with Fat Possum Records, home to Burnside, the Keys and many other masters of the genre.
2007-03-07	Leprechaunapalooza Jonah Sod, lead singer of local band The Sods, describes his group’s sound as “traditional Irish music with a little bit of punk attitude.”
2018-11-05	Let The Campaign Begin Candidate for mayor, city councilman, oncologist, and trophy hunter John Crawford will become city council president next year, so the mainstream Republicans can showcase their man, their candidate, front and center for the election run.
2017-04-21	License plate readers Law enforcement agencies are using license plate readers to catch violators. The devices are mounted to the outside of police cars and can scan hundreds of license plates in a minute.
2011-11-17	License to rock Many years ago, Cyndi Demaree got a call at the Firefly coffee house — the business she co-owns with her husband Paul — from an out-of-town number she didn’t recognize. “It sounded like a young woman, and she was asking things like ‘do you have live music this weekend?’ and ‘do you have open mic nights?’” Demaree recalls.
2014-07-03	Life saver Mark is one of the best trauma surgeons in the area. He loves his job. He helps sick people get better. He saves lives.
2014-09-04	Life Skills for the Modern World One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received about being an adult came from the mystery writer Raymond Chandler, whose fictional detective Philip Marlowe once declared that all men should learn how to become a decent breakfast cook at some point in their lives.
2015-02-19	Little brother, big penalty Many laws aim to punish adults who place minors in danger. For example, adults who batter kids or who sell to or give drugs to minors can receive enhanced penalties.
2015-09-03	Living Well: the Story of Ryan Kerr It's a great feeling when you come across an artist that comes from a truly honest place. That place where there's nowhere to hide and conceal the truth of creativity. There's no put-ons or gimmicky song and dance. The art you see is the art you get.
2011-12-01	Local artists pick their faves of the year… Part 1 Hey little babies. Check it out, our annual year-end bash, featuring some of your favorite local artists and arts-focused business types. For this issue of the Fort Wayne Reader we focus on books, films and television. Part 2 of the feature will run next week and be focused on the best albums, songs and concerts of 2011. Get busy ...
2008-01-21	Local performers' favorites of 2007 A few of the folks we talked to in 2007 list their favorite musical moments from last year
2004-08-14	LOGO, the gay TV channel, an MTV enterprise, will debut in February After more than 25 years of cable TV, the first channel exclusively aimed at “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” viewers is preparing to beam its way into homes.
2009-11-24	Lollipop Factory Returns to The Brass Rail Saturday, November 28th will mark the return to The Brass Rail of glam rock duo The Lollipop Factory, with local openers I, Wombat. I thought I would use this occasion as an opportunity to both get some inside info. on The Lollipop Factory, and do some catching up with I, Wombat.
2013-04-18	Lost Generation The University of Saint Francis’ School of Creative Arts (SOCA) Student exhibition has regularly been a highlight of Fort Wayne's art calendar, highlighting young talent and giving it the opportunity to find a broader audience and success.
2015-05-04	Love & Sin If your thing is hard rock and metal, look no further than Fort Wayne's Forever The Fallen. These guys have been hitting stages all over the city playing their own brand of intense, hard driving metal.
2005-01-10	Loving and Hating the Fort Wayne Reader “When are you guys going to do a letters page?” We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard that over the past year. The answer has always been “soon.” Or, more accurately, “when we can catch up.” Well, we never really did catch up. So, seeing as this issue marks the one year anniversary of the Fort Wayne Reader, we thought now would be a time to sort through some of the responses we’ve had.
2007-03-07	Low rent, high traffic, and downtown charm The scene is a Thursday afternoon in February. The place is an echoing room in the former YWCA complex on Wells street.
2005-09-20	Mad Anthony’s “Octobeer Fest” showcases Indiana breweries There’s more to beer than meets the tastebuds. Like wine, cheese, chocolate, or coffee, some brewers take their product very seriously, and can wax poetic about texture, flavor, body, richness, boldness, etc. Granted, sampling a half-dozen different types of cheese won’t make you want to sing the entire AC/DC catalog a capella (though I’m told doing that will mark you down as an amateur as well as an idiot), but the principal is the same.
2007-01-10	Main Library Gallery Opens with a Renewal When the Allen County Public Library opens the doors to its beautifully renovated main building at noon on January 27, area artists and art lovers will receive a belated Christmas present. And it is one hell of a gift.
2007-03-20	Mainstream politics meets indie music Caleb Jehl is used to putting on shows in his own house. A Fort Wayne-based musician, Jehl often travels out of town to perform, building an audience in other cities by sharing the bill with a hometown band. Every once in a while, he gets to return the favor by hosting a show in Fort Wayne and inviting his out-of-town musician friends here…
2017-05-04	Making the call “Good Samaritan” laws for 911 drug overdose calls exist in almost half of the states. Indiana is not yet one of those states.
2016-06-16	Making Waves The music festival is something the music fan has long loved; from The Newport Jazz Festival to the Monterey Pop Festival to Woodstock to Lollapalooza to Bonnaroo to Coachella, and so many in between over the years.
2012-07-19	Man's informality to Man For the longest time I simply couldn't understand why humorist David Sedaris was such a big deal to the American book-buying public…
2007-04-24	Mass audience Every few years Dale Tucker, the musical director and organist for the First Wayne Street United Methodist Church, leads the church choir on a European tour, performing at various big cathedrals and small town churches in several countries…
2011-03-20	Matchmaker, Matchmaker, STFU! Now that I’m not in a relationship anymore, I’ve had at least one friend ask me if I’ve been on any dating sites.
2015-04-07	Maybe Rick Stevenson has a point Before you harshly judge Township Trustee and mayoral candidate Rick Stevenson you might walk in his shoes. A few years back, I went to neighborhood meeting just south of downtown…
2009-02-10	Mayor Henry and the Tough Year During an ordinary year, governing a sizeable city with its various ongoing projects, plans for the future, and general daily needs is no small responsibility. But 2008 was no ordinary year. It was an extraordinary year, and not in a good way. The problems that plagued the country in 2008 — mortgage crisis, financial collapse, economic downturn, loss of jobs, etc. — came home, and Fort Wayne found itself beset by what Mayor Tom Henry, just ending his first year in office, euphemistically calls “economic challenges.”
2005-01-10	Media 2005 My predictions for local media (based on acute and obtuse information gleaned in the past few months): The NEWS-SENTINEL and JOURNAL GAZETTE will merge, first for weekend Editions, then altogether. (This because of circulation declines, particularly for the afternoon/evening paper. The legal mechanisms for the fusion are already in place. 2003.)
2006-05-18	Mee Kyung Shim It must have been after 8pm. And there was Mee Kyung Shim—two hours into the opening reception for her latest exhibition—swapping the placement of a pair of panels in her mixed media installation, Garden Story, while talking with a gallery guest. I approached Shim: “Still figuring it out?” “Of course,” she replied. “You know, it can always be better.” This scene tells you much of what you need to know about Shim. She is one of this city’s hardest-working professionals (artists, or otherwise), she genuinely engages in open dialogue with her audience, and she embraces the realities of transition and fluidity over the contrivance of precise definition.
2015-08-20	Meet a bloody end with Game of Thrones Last spring the TV series Game of Thrones ended its fifth season on HBO. While I’m usually a huge fan of the series I didn’t much care for last season…
2012-10-18	Meet the Author I suffer through iPhones at work, and the fragile structure of the server at my other job sometimes sends my lesson plans into a death spiral. But technology, at least as it applies to writing, is really amazing right now.
2005-01-24	MEET THE FOCKERS Plastic sequel, like a cheerily crass "American Pie" for viewers over 35 (the title is a direct clue).
2008-01-21	Meet the new boss Mike Bynum is the new chair of the Allen County Democratic Party. He replaces Kevin Knuth, who resigned the post shortly after the November election. While Bynum was the only candidate to submit his name for consideration by party members - and even that was at the urging of others - party insiders believe he’s a good fit for the job.
2013-08-01	Meet the New Boss So here's a typical Friday workday for Bo Gonzalez, owner and operator of the popular Fort Wayne "mobile food" business known as Bravas Food:
2007-12-24	Meet the new boss… When Mayor-elect Tom Henry announced his first round of appointments, it looked more like a run-of-the-mill Richard Administration staff meeting than a major news announcement. Of the six appointees to Henry’s cabinet, all six are holdovers from the previous administration…
2010-03-22	Meet the new FWMoA “One does not have to be at the Chicago Institute to be an intelligent curator,” says Charles Shepard III, Executive Director of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. “This is an important point in my mind, because I think across the country, in smaller communities, a lot of times museums feel like they’re lesser or smaller or whatever. You can be a dynamo at any size. If you use your mind, you can really come up with terrific shows and go after them.”
2018-10-05	Men Behaving Badly: Quality Entertainment So, my Facebook feed has been chock-full of Kavanaugh memes, empowering slogans, and comments about how women need to speak out more.
2013-10-07	Meth to the madness You’ve probably heard by now that the manufacture, use and abuse of methamphetamine is at epidemic levels in Indiana. The most potent and addictive type of meth is also one of the easiest to make.
2016-10-09	Middle Waves: A Strange Dream or Alternate Reality? Last night I dreamt I saw the Flaming Lips at Headwaters Park in Fort Wayne, IN. What a bizarre thing to dream, right? But man, I'm telling you it was so realistic…
2004-11-12	Mideast peace tops lengthy agenda in Bush, Blair talks On his current visit to Washington DC, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is trying to turn President Bush's attention from Iraq to the stalled Mideast peace process.
2006-09-04	Midwest Murder Ballad “I wonder about these smart kids growing up in the middle of nowhere, reading on their own, no one to talk ideas with,” says John Commorato Jr, trying to explain the confused “average guy” narrator of his new film Valentine, an hour long film which opens at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art on Saturday, September 16. “I’ve never been scared by the Jasons (of the Friday the 13th franchise) of the world and those things. To me, that’s not really that scary, but the guy sitting next to you… It’s always ‘Mr X came in with a machine gun after 30 years. I had lunch with him yesterday.’ Those interviews with the neighbors: ‘He seemed like such a nice guy…’ That’s scary.”
2017-07-08	Misanthrope's ode to joy I like to think of myself as a pretty introspective, self-aware guy, but there's always one personal question that I receive that renders me almost incapable of coming up with any sort of reasonable answer.
2017-07-08	Momentum The recent public hearing at city council concerning the proposed new tax was nicely civil. A few dozen folk spoke in favor, a few against, and no one insulted anyone or threatened armageddon should the tax pass, which it likely will.
2018-03-02	Money, money, money… Ah, the GE Conundrum…
2014-09-23	Money, money, money… money… A raid on the legacy. For a couple of years now, the mayor and most council members have pledged that Legacy Fund dollars should be reserved for “transformational “ and “catalytic” projects. So much for that promise.
2004-08-14	Monumental Propaganda Aglaya Stepanova Revkin blew her husband to bits. It was in a good cause, of course; he was setting charges in the local power station, and the Germans were approaching fast. "The motherland will not forget you!" she shouted to him on the phone as she touched the ends of the wires together. "He was later given a hero's funeral, and buried ... well, yes, he was blown to bits, but he was buried anyway. Sort of.
2013-07-03	More from "Gloria's Book Club" Yes, it's another round of Gloria's Book Club! I read a bunch of books while I was recovering from surgery, and I'm going to tell you about some of them.
2013-02-16	More Rock n’ roll stories A couple years ago, FWR did a piece on rock n’ roll stories from Fort Wayne’s past (FWR #167). It was a popular story, as these things go, and we heard a few more. Here’s a sampling…
2015-12-04	More Things Change The first time I ever lost a close friend to a major transformative life event happened in college, when I discovered that one of my best high school friends had become a born-again Christian during the second semester of our freshman year.
2016-10-09	Morrison Agen: On the Record Morrison Agen is on a mission. He’s running as a Democrat for an at-large seat on Allen County Council, and of course he wants to be elected. But there’s something else there, too… It’s a mission to get people like him — Democrats and other “progressive-leaning folks” in the area — to realize there is much, much more going on in an election year than whoever is at the top of their respective party’s ticket.
2017-09-03	Mother Earth As you walk into the gallery housing Lissa Brown’s show Human Nature at Wunderkammer your eyes are immediately drawn to a large, consuming, dark blue wall at the other end of the room. The wall is covered in a dark indigo paint with a sparkling gold geometric symbol that at first glance speaks of ritual.
2012-11-01	Motivate With Care A few weeks ago, I had to attend a meeting at work. The hideous hour of 6 a.m. didn't help any, nor did the free breakfast which was provided.
2004-09-27	Movie Reviews Capsule reviews of several recent releases.
2012-04-05	Moving Mad Anthony Wayne Time to move the statue of Mad Anthony Wayne? That is the talk at the highest levels in the community, and it’s about time.
2010-11-08	Much like the one you used to know… How do you approach a stage production of one of the most well-known movie musicals of all time, featuring perhaps one of the best-selling, most often-covered songs ever composed? You go big.
2009-06-04	Murder Junkies Normally, we here at the Reader don’t normally do writeups for shows so close to our publication date, but when I got the chance to interview Merle Allin, leader of the Murder Junkies and brother to the infamous GG Allin, I just couldn’t resist.
2013-11-19	Music on his mind "Push pins are the only thing keeping me awake now. Constellations on my leg, glowing red, bleeding thin. Row the boat to the golden shore and you'll find me bleeding like a sun trapped inside a song for everyone." Words from a guy name Mark Hutchins…
2012-07-19	Music round up A round up of a few things music-related in the next couple weeks…
2018-12-09	My 2018 movie rundown Even though I watch a couple of movies a week, I don’t watch enough of them. Lemme explain that...
2011-06-20	*My Catfish* love affair** I saw the movie Catfish several months ago, but I was thinking about it again, and picked it up at the library
2007-10-22	My encounter with Carl Bernstein October 10th 2007 is a day that I won't soon forget. In fact, I think it's safe to say I won't ever forget that day. Not only did I meet Carl Bernstein that day, but I was put in place by him, as well. And let me tell you, you really haven't lived until you've been put in place by someone who is at the top of his game in your chosen field.
2013-04-04	My neighborhood, my street, my corner A gun shot sounds differently than a car’s back-fire — sharper, more defined at the beginning and end. It was clearly a gun shot, and a large caliber, a baritone, not a tenor.
2008-02-18	My Superbowl Saga The first spectator sport I ever watched growing up was hockey. I liked hockey when hockey wasn’t cool. From the age of three through part of college, dad and I would attend Komet hockey games. I remember the 1980 Olympic hockey team’s victory over the Soviets and the gold medal game. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were observed in our home, until the networks stopped broadcasting the games. Our dog, Ruffles, would chase the players on the screen.
2007-12-11	Mythical Fort Wayne You'll find Michael Martone's books in the "local authors" section in Fort Wayne bookstores, which has always felt wrong to me — he's been writing great stories for years and you'd figure his books should have graduated to the "Fiction and Literature" section by now. Of course, Martone is from Fort Wayne, and he places many of his stories in Fort Wayne and Indiana, yet I've never thought of him as a local writer. And frankly, the whole "local writers" section in bookstores has always depressed me a little; I can't help thinking that the books themselves seem to suffer an inferiority complex, cordoned off by themselves, as if they don't deserve to be on the same shelf as the Big Boys. It's as if their reason for being published had more to do with the authors being "local" than the authors being "writers," and by buying them you'd be performing some sort of benevolent civic gesture.
2008-01-21	Myths of the Smoking Ban Since Fort Wayne’s ordinance prohibiting smoking in virtually all public areas went into effect on June 1, 2007, the fallout on local businesses has been the subject of rampant speculation and rumor-mongering.
2004-09-23	New proposals California may signal national rise in auto prices SACRAMENTO - Riding popular Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement, state air quality regulators are expected to step up a campaign against global warming that could spark sticker-shock in auto showrooms over the next 10 years.
2012-05-21	New Abstractions: Karen Moriarty and Robert Vegeler In certain circumstances, artists and art lovers end up meeting and begin to teach, inspire, and make work together. Karen Moriarty, long time Fort Wayne artist, and Robert Vegeler, local lawyer and avid amateur painter, are an example of these circumstances.
2004-08-24	New DVD round-up You can't tell a book by its cover and you can't tell a movie by its trailer.
2004-09-27	New state-of-the-art facility brings students and public to Indiana Tech “We’ve had an identity crisis in Fort Wayne for the last 25 years,” says Joel Harmeyer, Associate Director of Student Life at Indiana Tech. “Nobody knows us, nobody knows what we do, nobody knows we had this many students… You end up hearing it all. But I’ve got to tell you, every time someone comes to the campus, they’re just amazed.”
2007-12-24	New times for New Haven While Fort Wayne has been studying, debating, and squabbling about downtown development for the last few years, New Haven just to the east of us has been going through its own revitalization process, sprucing up its downtown area, improving its parks, connecting its arm of the River Greenway to ours, and looking at some other exciting projects in the works.
2007-09-24	Newsflash! Drawing famous comic book heroes is hard work! Don Kramer has had a succession of jobs that struggling comic book artists dream about. A well-respected up-and-coming artist in the comic book world, Kramer’s current gig is with comic powerhouse DC, where he’s been the artist on one of their most iconic characters — Batman. He’s worked on DC’s JSA and the mini-series Dr. Fate, and right now he’s working on Detective Comics with writer Paul Dini, whose credits include the animated series Batman Beyond and an episode of Lost. Before DC, Kramer was at Marvel where he did a story on the Thing.
2010-06-22	Next Time, Bring the Nametags I always said I wouldn’t come to any of my high school class reunions unless I had a loaded AK-47 with me, but I wound up going to one a few weeks ago.
2018-09-11	Nights in White Spandex To anyone who came of age in the 80s listening to AOR or Top 40 radio, the idea that the “glam rock” and pop rock of the era would make its way to a Broadway stage seems like… well, a pretty natural progression, to tell the truth.
2006-06-05	Nintendo DS Lite Writer’s Note: I was halfway through my promised review of the new Godfather title when an extraordinary gift from Nintendo arrived in the mail box — the new DS Lite. It became obvious that my review must be about this amazing new piece of hardware I am fortunate to own a week too early…
2014-10-04	No car sales on Sunday Mike is a big guy with a lot of big ideas. He falls often but he’s quick to get back on his feet. Sometimes, maybe, he’s too quick.
2015-02-19	No nostalgia trip Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean takes place in a dusty five-and-dime store in the very small West Texas town of McCarthy, Texas…
2017-12-18	No phones in court Meet Mike. Mike owns a marketing company. He owes a lot of his success to his office manager, Sally.
2014-10-21	Not fade away When The Rolling Stones came to Fort Wayne for a show in November 1964, they had only been around for a little over two years, most members of the band were just in their 20s, and though they had racked up a few hits, “Satisfaction” was still about half-a-year away
2013-07-04	Not her bag I never realized the reach of Vera Bradley until I was in Puerto Rico in 2005. My father's cousin and I were at a restaurant in the mountains. Her handbag was on the table, and the pattern seemed familiar. I continued to stare at it, and there it was, in tiny script near the bottom of the bag: Vera Bradley.
2017-10-19	Not so fast In Indiana, it is illegal for a driver who is under the age of 21 to drive “while using a telecommunications device,” unless the driver is using that device to call 911. The law took effect in July of 2016.
2007-12-11	Not Your Mother’s Art Gallery: An evening at the SOMA Open House In the 1950s my sister and I entered the small theatre for the Saturday afternoon matinee. It was a time when our mother knew she could go shopping, or have lunch with friends, because we would be there for hours. This time we were handed cardboard and cellophane 3D glasses as we entered and took our seats. We played around with them during the newsreel and the cartoons. Then the owner of the theater got up on stage to personally introduce the movie and tell us that if we put on the glasses the characters in the movie would seem to be real, coming off the screen. Last week as I entered the SOMA Gallery on West Main Street, I was not handed a pair of 3D glasses, but I was handed a copy of issue 4 of The Margin, a non-traditional literary magazine created by local artist and writer, David Kopson, one of eight members of the artist cooperative inhabiting the Soma studio and gallery. But I digress. Let’s get to the 3D story.
2007-01-23	Notorious Page a Pioneer Of Sorts There are a lot of arguments on why pornography is bad: it exploits women, and supposedly leads to violent sex crimes, among other things. A stellar example of this is Linda Lovelace, whose autobiography, “Ordeal,” noted in disturbing detail of being forced to do things that horrifed her.
2004-10-01	Now in movie theaters SHARK TALE - The sea critters of "Shark Tale" are constantly talking, joking, kvetching, snapping zingers through the liquid depths…
2016-05-05	Now we know: Robert Harrison talks new album It wasn't long ago we talked to our good friend and singer/songwriter extraordinaire Robert Harrison. At the time he'd been working on songs for a new album. Well that new album is here, and it's called Now I Know.
2015-03-19	Of Council, Works, Helene, and You Usually, when a bill is brought to city council it is blandly read into the record and perfunctorily voted forward for discussion in committee the following week. Not so with John Shoaff’s bill to establish a plan for binding arbitration for city employees.
2016-04-21	Of Dollars and Euros 100 Million Dollars. That’s what the new arena might cost, based upon an article of couple of weeks ago in the News-Sentinel.
2007-06-05	Oh, The Debt That You'll Pay! It’s the time of year where people are graduating. Everyone wishes them well and says all sorts of encouraging things, predicting great things for these new grads.
2013-08-01	Ohio rocks the Fort I've gotta admit, I've been a little bummed lately. Maybe it's because summer is going by way too fast. It could be because my book isn't getting published...again. But I think what's really bugging me is the fact that two of my favorite local bands have said goodbye to Fort Wayne stages for good.
2004-09-09	On shakey ground, NBC is banking on dimwitted 'Joey' to retain Thursday-night dominance "Joey" should be called "Joey?" More than any other new series on TV's fall horizon, the "Friends" spinoff is dogged by questions:
2007-05-08	On the Waterfront The cheers in favor of Harrison Square have barely died down (or the blood hasn’t stopped boiling, for those of you on the other side of the issue), yet the city is already in the preliminary stages of another possible area for downtown development.
2008-08-04	One isn’t necessarily the loneliest number I don’t consider myself a very daring or brave person, but one thing I do on a regular basis that amazes people is travel. Invariably, whenever I say to someone, “yeah, I just got back from (exciting big city) and I had a blast,” they ask, “who’d you go with?” I reply, “nobody. I went by myself.” Those five words inspire horror and disbelief. “You went by YOURSELF!?
2013-10-31	One page at a time… If you've ever had an image of writers as being reclusive, hunching over their keyboards, typing their little hearts out, you'd probably be right. Writing is one of those things people usually do by themselves.
2016-09-15	One song at a time D Ferren has been making dusty, folksy music for a long time now. Starting back in 2002 with saint of life and the morning after cavalier, he made his name as one of the area's premier songwriters.
2015-12-04	Online Dating is as Bad as She Thinks It Is I’ve not had good luck with men. It’s been this way for a long time, and I tried different things: acting flirty, cool, disinterested, disdainful, aloof, friendly, bubbly, positive….and nothing has worked.
2008-02-04	Open or closed? A group of concerned citizens has filed a complaint with the state charging that Republicans on the Fort Wayne City Council broke the law in regard to Indiana’s open-door law.
2007-10-22	Original monster “My catch phrase: it’s not your grandmother’s Frankenstein. It’s your great great great grandmother’s Frankenstein,” laughs director Brad Beauchamp, describing Playing With Fire (After Frankenstein), the play that makes its debut on Saturday, October 27 for the first of five shows at the University of Saint Francis.
2018-10-20	Our election and more A committee of city council voted to move approval of Legacy funding for the Electric Works project to the whole city council for approval.
2013-05-16	Our man in Iraklion For almost a month I have been in Europe, and for most of that time on Crete, a Greek island in the middle of the Mediterranean not even five times the size of Allen County…
2012-01-05	Our man in Montevideo… People are nervous in Montevideo. Driving to work is dangerous, being home is dangerous, filling up is dangerous.
2004-12-06	Outgunned We’ve heard a lot about a “divided nation” recently, about how on certain issues, US citizens differ distinctly along political ideologies, with little common ground. There are a few hot button issues where the contrast is at its most striking, and one of the hottest is gun control.
2016-12-15	Parental discipline It’s against the law in Indiana to touch another person in a rude, angry or insolent way. A parent, for example, who physically disciplines his or her child likely commits the crime of battery.
2007-05-21	Party Crasher? In the early evening of Tuesday, May 8, supporters of Nelson Peters’ campaign for the Republican nomination for mayor of Fort Wayne packed the Park Place Grill. Anticipation was high; practically everyone there, including many G.O.P. area heavyweights, thought that Peters would not only win the Republican nomination, but that they were welcoming the next mayor of Fort Wayne.
2013-10-07	Pat yourself on the back Senator Tom Wyss has decided it’s time to move on. The long-serving and esteemed public servant is not running again.
2011-10-06	Paula Hughes Republican candidate for Mayor Paula Hughes sits down with the Fort Wayne Reader and the Around Fort Wayne blog for an exclusive interview.
2006-12-20	Peer review I was curious to find out what other musicians and those involved in the music scene thought of their peers, so I decided to ask a handful what they thought were the best local albums released this past year and local shows that they attended this past year as well.
2008-10-07	Perception vs reality To paraphrase L.P. Hartley, the past is a foreign country. You can know the basic facts, but what really happens there — or happened — and why and how, is almost impossible to understand. And when it involves family, seeing the truth can be even more difficult.
2010-04-04	Performances in April Two very different performances grace Fort Wayne's stages this April
2005-06-27	Peter and Angie Bobeck use book smarts and new ideas to make Mitchell Books a shopping experience If Mitchell Books was a novel, it would be part mystery, part fantasy, part romance and part edge-of-your-seat thriller. As the anchor tenant of southwest Fort Wayne’s Covington Plaza, how the Mitchell Books’ story plays out could say a lot about our community’s appetite for innovation and risk-taking.
2014-05-06	Peter Bagge Back in the early 90s, a must read title for any denizen of “alternative” culture was Hate, a comic book featuring the cynical, aimless Buddy Bradley and his “friends,” girlfriends, and acquaintances.
2008-07-07	Phyzikal: Motivating the Summit City When Jermaine Williams was growing up on the south side of Fort Wayne, he had big dreams. He hoped to become a successful rapper and overcome his rough childhood. Williams, who is better known in the music world as Phyzikal, took the first big step toward fulfilling that dream when he signed a contract with Def Jam Records in October of last year.
2006-10-23	Poetry in Motion Fledgling Shakespeares and Silversteins, Eliots and Angelous can now take their couplets and stanzas city wide. Thanks to a recent Arts United grant, Citilink is sponsoring a poetry contest called “Poetry in Motion.” Winners get a cash prize and the opportunity to see their work published all over the city — on a bus.
2015-10-02	Police chief, anyone? Candidate Mitch Harper sidestepped the key question at his recent news conference concerning his policing policies, if elected. The question, posed by the dean of local political reporting, Kevin Leininger, was “who will be your police chief?”
2015-11-10	Police in schools Schools are changing. Uniformed police officers, police dogs and squad cars are a normal sight at many high schools and middle schools.
2013-02-28	Police officers: never really off the clock Over the years, I’ve heard and read about many instances where off-duty police officers came to the aid of people in need of assistance. They could look the other way when trouble calls, but most don’t.
2017-11-06	Police officers: never really off the clock Over the years, I’ve heard and read about many instances where off-duty police officers came to the aid of people in need of assistance. They could look the other way when trouble calls, but most don’t.
2004-09-01	Political passions a priority with new online matchmakers The dating world is fraught with heart-deflating moments when that otherwise-promising relationship fizzles faster than the career of a reality-show castoff. He'd be perfect, if he didn't insist you contact him only by pager. She'd be fantastic, except for the 1,000 teddy bears in her bedroom.
2004-08-20	Politicians smarting over informed voters COLUMBUS, Ohio - Trying to pin down politicians to be specific about their positions on issues is tough business. They obfuscate when responding to questions, and it's nearly impossible to get something in writing. Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan research organization based in Montana, discovered that Ohio candidates for the General Assembly are reticent about responding to its National Political Awareness Test, which is sent out every election year. The organization's founders include former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, the late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater and current Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
2018-05-17	Politicizing Electric Works, remembering Kenny, and more Recently, at a news conference ostensibly in support of Electric Works, city councilman, mayoral candidate and doctor John Crawford used the event to attack the mayor for “lack of leadership” on the project.
2013-01-07	Post Americana It's not easy being green. Just ask Kermit. You know what else isn't easy? Being an indie folk family band from the Midwest.
2010-04-22	Pray that he's still out there – somewhere Last time we talked about the film Mad Max (1979). This time the focus is on The Road Warrior (1982).
2016-02-19	Prescription pills Many of you know. Some of you don’t. The number one cause of unintentional deaths in the U.S. is heroin and prescription drug overdose.
2004-10-21	Presidential campaigns in Ohio; Poll shows race even in state XENIA, Ohio - Security, safety and stability. That's the message Vice President Dick Cheney repeated over and over to a raucous crowd of supporters in a livestock barn at the Greene County Fairgrounds Tuesday.
2008-01-21	Princess and the Pea A domineering queen, a shady advisor, a weak king, a repressed prince, a free-spirited damsel and young love thwarted… All elements that could either make for gut-wrenching Shakespearean tragedy or gut-busting farce.
2015-05-04	Prom night Meet Mary. She’s a responsible mother of two well-adjusted teenagers…
2016-04-21	Prom night Meet Mary. She’s a responsible mother of two well-adjusted teenagers.
2015-11-22	Proof of Insurance Letter The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) suspends thousands of driving privileges each year. Impaired driving, failure to pay child support, too many traffic tickets or driving without insurance are just a few of the ways Indiana drivers can lose their licenses.
2013-01-31	Protective order — part 2 A few weeks ago I wrote about protective orders and the crime of invasion of privacy. Due to the enthusiastic response I received (from one person), I decided to write more…
2009-08-25	Protesting the protesters, 1970something In honor of the cranky town hall meetings taking place across the country…
2006-09-04	Public input 2.0 The Allen County Commissioners are taking to the Internet to gather more public input on local government reorganization/consolidation. An online poll will record responses for the next month or so.
2016-12-16	Punters Two of the city’s top enforcement officers pleaded with city council recently to pass an ordinance that would give the police chief and the head of neighborhood code enforcement, among others, another tool to pressure owners of drug houses, party houses, after hours joints, and commercial properties…
2004-04-05	Radio Blandwidth The last time people got really loud about the death of radio was during the early days of MTV. While radio stations across the country were grudgingly admitting British bands with funny haircuts to their set lists, programmers and DJs claimed to see the writing on the wall with the first video aired on the new channel: “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
2013-02-14	Receiving stolen property Under Indiana law, a person who knowingly exerts unauthorized control over property of another person, with the intent to deprive the other person of any part of its value or use, commits theft, a Class D felony.
2015-09-18	Recommended reading: The Indiana Law Blog Interested in the law? Do you like to read about hot topic legal issues? Are you an attorney or are you thinking about going to law school? If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you need to check out The Indiana Law Blog (indianlawblog.com).
2018-04-19	Record Store Day 2018 I grew up with vinyl. Some of my first memories are of my dad changing records on a Zenith console stereo in the basement as my parents and their friends drank longnecks, smoked, and played pool all the while Led Zeppelin, The Doors, ZZ Top, and Three Dog Night spun on the turntable.
2008-04-08	Record Store Day: Celebrating Independent Record Stores on April 19 I love records and record stores. When I was a kid all of the record stores were stocked floor to ceiling with vinyl. I never saw an 8-track until years later when I came across my father's copy of a Rolling Stones greatest hits album on the antiquated format. By the time I was halfway through elementary school I had moved on from vinyl to cassettes. In high school I made the leap to compact discs. Luckily, I was never duped into joining the mini-disc 'revolution.' The newest format would be mp3, but I don't know much about that since I've never downloaded an album. But, millions of people have and the result hasn't exactly been positive for records or record stores.
2015-03-05	Records Collecting Dust Brian Jenkins started a record label as a teenager growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Not because he was wise beyond his years, but because he figured that's what he was supposed to do if he wanted to release his own music.
2008-09-22	Red state blues The presidential primary last May brought a flurry of attention to Indiana as both Democratic party candidates and their spouses came seeking our vote in what was a very tight race. It was the first time Indiana had played a hand in Democratic Party politics since dinosaurs strode the Earth (actually, it was 1968), and we loved the attention. Senators Clinton and Obama toured the state, bought ads, made surprise visits, gave speeches… and they promised us that when they finally, officially, secured their party’s nomination for the presidency, they wouldn’t forget us. To which even the most idealistic Democrat in the great state of Indiana might reply… “yeah, right!”
2013-02-28	Reform is never pretty Reform is never pretty: usually there are two sides and the gulf between the interests of the status quo and the reformers is wide. Frequently, neither side understands the intentions of the other.
2015-03-05	Regressive Indiana Regressive? Indiana? Can’t be… Well, seems our state is ranked as one of the 10 worst in the country for retirees and middle class families.
2006-07-10	Rejected movie-to-video game titles As the new writer of Button Masher, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what game to review. There hasn’t been too many games in the pipeline worth reviewing, much less playing. I’m sure this is because we’re between console generations and all the quality titles are being developed for next-gen equipment. This is fine, I suppose, but it presents a dilemma for me.
2018-08-04	Repower. Rethink. A group of local citizens streamed to the rostrum two weeks ago at city council to beg councilmen to endorse their petition drive to encourage I&M toward renewables and away from coal fired plants. Their simple and logical request fell on deaf ears.
2005-02-21	Restaurant Review: Bann Thai I still remember the night two years or so ago when I stood in forlorn disbelief with my nose pressed against the window of the former Anon’s Thai Cuisine. This restaurant had been at the top of my list of Fort Wayne dining greats but, I learned that night, it closed. Recently, I visited its successor at the same site in The Shoppes at Coldwater. Has Baan Thai taken up Anon’s legacy of exceptional food prepared sensitively with traditional Thai ingredients? Yes and no.
2012-10-04	Revenge of Horror TV! I have to admit that sometimes I'm a “glass half empty” kind'a guy.
2004-08-23	Ring leaders — cell phone ringtones a billion dollar industry If it's someone you're mad at, it could be "(I Hate) Everything About You." For a significant other, NSync's "Girlfriend" or a voice proclaiming "Your boyfriend is calling." The parents? Well, that depends. If they're usually calling in anger, you could use the "Imperial March" from "Star Wars." Or if they're financially helpful, The O'Jays' "For the Love of Money."
2013-03-15	Road to the big apple The four members of the Sweetwater Jazz Project, a.k.a. Post-Modern Prohibition, are all young. Really young. But they boast the musicianship of old pros, performing a style of jazz influenced by the jazz fusion of the late 60s and early 70s.
2008-07-07	Rock Band: 101 Various scientific studies have expounded on the benefits of studying music, pointing out how learning to play an instrument can improve everything from hand-eye coordination to abstract reasoning skills. In fact, one 1998 study by the University of Muenster in Germany discovered that music lessons in early childhood actually enlarged parts of the brain.
2011-06-20	Rock Meets Classical at Fortissimo “An unprecedented spirit of collaboration and wiiiiide open minds,” is how the Fort Wayne Philharmonic describes Fortissimo, an upcoming musical event that looks to be simultaneously canonical and unorthodox.
2006-04-10	Rock music's legal eagle: Tim Manges By day, he’s an attorney for the City of Fort Wayne, representing the Summit City in all legal matters. But by night, he embarks on a markedly different career as a bass player in a popular Fort Wayne rock band. But Tim Manges said he’s not different as day and night. He’s the same person in albeit two very different gigs.
2011-02-06	Rock n’ roll stories from Fort Wayne’s past When it comes to rock n’ roll stories, Fort Wayne has had its share of them. We set out to find some of the more distinctive or unusual stories from over the years. We’re sure there are many more out there, but here are a few we’ve gathered…
2018-09-23	Rock n’ roll stories from Fort Wayne’s past Big names. Big events. Brushes with fame. “We knew them when…” When it comes to rock n’ roll stories, Fort Wayne has had its share of them over the years…
2014-07-31	Rock shows: Local stages offer the goods There's nothing better than a great night of rock n' roll. Hard working guys and gals offering up some original sounds at high volumes as you spill that well-earned beer down the front of your shirt
2008-09-22	Rockin' the suburbs… with a big string section Ben Folds and his band the Ben Folds Five were a breath of fresh air when they came along in the midst of the “alternative” 90s. Their first hit, “Underground,” was a sarcastic take on the whole notion of “alternative music” and an underground scene. Irony and sarcasm were hardly in short supply in the 90s, but Ben Folds’ irony came across a little deeper, a little more earned and a little more biting. In other words, a little more adult. And when they’d leave the jokes behind to get serious, as on their massive hit “Brick,” it gave those songs an extra punch.
2018-02-03	Rocky, wanna see me pull a rabbit out of a hat? On January 30th city council regaled with quite a show in favor of the redevelopment of the GE campus downtown, now dubbed Electric Works.
2011-04-04	Rollercoaster of love Innumerable songs have been written about love in all its many forms, and as far as attitude toward the subject goes, the songs in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change probably lie somewhere between “Love Is A Many Splendid Thing” and “Love Stinks.”
2010-06-22	Rollin’ on the rivers (again) While FWR’s cover story this issue talks about efforts to revitalize and repurpose a potential community asset on land, Allen County Commissioners early last month agreed to help fund an initiative to look at developing another potential community asset — the rivers.
2007-01-23	Room for Dreams? “Room for Dreams.” That phrase — just three simple words — is what the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Fort Wayne/Allen County Economic Development Alliance, and a host of interested organizations and business is banking on to sell Fort Wayne to the rest of the world.
2010-03-22	Running down a dream To put it simply, La Sylphide is the timeless story of a groom who starts having second thoughts in the aftermath of his bachelor party…
2015-06-05	Running for Congress, etc. Liz Brown announced to replace Congressman Marlin Stutzman. Additionally, former State Senator Jim Banks is expected to announce to replace Congressman Marlin Stutzman, who thinks he can replace Senator Dan Coats, who is retiring. Musical elephants.
2007-10-22	Sam Talarico: the exit interview This year, Sam Talarico Jr., a two-term At-Large Fort Wayne City Council member, got an e-mail from someone who told him they were looking forward to reading his obituary soon. Talarico didn’t know how seriously to take the e-mail, but just to be safe, he forwarded it to the Chief of Police. “I would not call that a death threat, but it was a little alarming,” he says. “I forwarded it on because I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know if they were wishing me some natural death, or…”
2012-12-06	Sankofa's last campaign You'd think that calling it quits on a lifetime passion would cause a great deal of sadness and miserable self-introspection, but for local rapper Sankofa, saying goodbye to the art form he loves is a cause for celebration. After 14 years of writing, performing, and recording, Sankofa is hanging up the Adidas Tomatinas and the Nike Wildedges and focusing on the new phase of his life.
2007-12-11	Sankofa:The Tortoise Hustle You could call The Tortoise Hustle, the third official album from rapper Sankofa, a well crafted album even before listening to it. Consider that it comes housed in a stamped and numbered tin, and then consider that the record is his “longest-marinating effort” yet. Finally released in September at a launch party that included Definitely Gary, Sub-Surface, Left Lane Cruiser and Rockefeller 4, The Tortoise Hustle boasts songs just as varied and creative as the line-up from that evening.
2008-10-21	Schoolyard Scrape “Do you want to talk about buildings?” asks Evert Mol, Fort Wayne Community School board candidate. “Sure, I guess I can talk about buildings…” Frankly, Evert Mol seems a little tired of talking about buildings. But it’s because of buildings that Mol finds himself as a contender for the 5th district seat on the Fort Wayne Community School Board, running against 27-year FWCS board veteran Steve Corona.
2009-07-21	Schticky singers Harvey Cocks has directed the Fort Wayne Civic Theater’s summer musical for the past 11 years, yet there’s something about The Producers that seems particularly suited to Cocks. The story is set in the hustle and bustle of the old New York theater world that Cocks was a part of for many years and knows very, very well.
2017-03-22	Second chances The Blue Jacket Second Chance Auction is a great fundraising event for one of the best causes in today’s world. Blue Jacket isn’t a program that just gives out jobs and moves on, but rather a program to teach people how to improve their overall quality of life through new careers and life skills.
2016-08-23	Self promoting and self insured We should all want Eric Doden to be a success. He runs Greater Fort Wayne and has pushed very hard for a number of projects that will greatly improve the city.
2004-09-13	Seniors turning to Web in search of companionshipSeniors turning to Web in search of companionship Granny has an online personal ad. Actually, she goes by the screen name “Gram.” She describes herself as a 65-year-old, widowed grandmother looking for an honest man, walks on the beach and an occasional hug.
2013-05-02	Sham and shame What started as a prudent initiative by City Controller Pat Roller has gone badly off track.
2013-02-14	Shane Page: The Life & Times of a Midwest Artist The urge to create is a disease. I don't care if your means to feed the addiction is a guitar, a paintbrush, pencils, or Photoshop. For some, if they're not creating, they're dying inside.
2014-08-16	Shine, Bwana Crawford, and the County Commissioners News that Steve Shine had taken it upon himself to save the union movement in Allen County set a lot of heads to scratching.
2014-02-24	Shoaff’s vision John Shoaff was right, Barcelona may be the loveliest city I have ever visited…
2016-02-09	Shoplifting A study by the National Retail Federation found that retailers last year lost $32 billion due to shoplifting, vendor and employee theft.
2006-11-21	Should I Stay or Should I Go? Each time an artwork by a young, local artist excites me, the same two conflicting thoughts pop into my head: “I'm glad they're in Fort Wayne, but I hope they leave soon.”
2015-05-18	Showtime For a handful of local and regional playwrights, the weekend of Mat 29-30 represents a milestone on a long and (sometimes) pretty solitary literary journey.
2016-11-07	Shred along the Wabash In any other situation what I'm about to tell you would've been nothing more than just some bizarre dream I was sharing with the world, some surrealistic tale that my brain cooked up while I laid in bed and hoped for a few more moments of shut eye.
2017-01-11	Sidewalks, etc. City council discussed sidewalk upkeep at a rare special session and did nothing. Russ Jehl, the former council president, called the meeting to bring clarity to the matter and consider new policy…
0000-00-00	Single on Valentine's Day I will be single on Valentine’s Day, but this doesn’t bother me. Sure, it means I have to buy my candy instead of having it given to me. On the other hand, not having a man on Valentine’s Day means I don’t have to put out for some schlub who forgets to put the toilet seat down. And just because you’re dating someone during Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean you’ll get a Vogue magazine-style night out on the town.
2006-12-20	Six area artists look back on 2006 For those of you who are regular readers (I’ll buy all five of you a pint at Henry’s), you by now have realized that I am passionate about talking with people. I love talking with artists and those who appreciate, celebrate, and promote the arts. I love mining their complex personalities for private and communal beliefs, doubts, and ambitions.
2018-11-05	Slow Dakota returns with Suite For Voice and Ukulele PJ Sauerteig as Slow Dakota makes music that feels aged in an oak barrel for decades, secretly and effortlessly within some nondescript stone-lined cellar.
2017-07-20	Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em The Fort Wayne smoking ban went into effect ten years ago, on June 1, 2007, but somehow it feels like it happened much longer ago than that — like in a different century, or maybe even in a different dimension.
2010-06-07	Smoke-filled room edition Mark your calendars for Saturday, June 12! That’s when the 500+ Republican precinct committee people from Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District will caucus in the Columbia City High School gymnasium to choose a candidate for the GOP ticket from among the 73 contenders who want to replace Mark Souder.
2006-01-23	So, you want to run for public office… Every first-time candidate for public office dreams of conducting a clear and incisive campaign, winning people over to their favorite issues by using their eloquence and reason, and securing a landslide victory by inspiring an unprecedented number of voters to head to the polls.
2006-10-23	Sold Down the River? In the last half-decade or so, communities across the state have been waking up to previously overlooked natural attractions practically right under their collective noses — the rivers.
2015-09-17	Space: Above and Beyond - 20 years gone I was excited about the TV series Space: Above and Beyond (SaAB) from the moment I first heard about it in 1995…
2004-10-25	Special showcase highlights IPFW’S Visual Communication and Design computer arts Over a dozen animated works, created by students and alumni of IPFW’s Visual Communication and Design Department, will be highlighted at a special showcase at Cinema Center on November 7. The free showcase demonstrates a wide range of what the VCD has to offer in the field of animated computer arts, with pieces featuring 3-D modeling, photography, film, video editing, and more.
2010-02-04	Speculation and rumors… What’s the difference between speculation and rumor? Allow us to illustrate with an example…
2018-05-19	Spirits in the material world A short drive down Griffin Street and through the doors of Tekventure will bring the curious onlooker to the temporary workshop of artist Sayaka Ganz…
2012-04-05	Spring Book Fair hosts award-winning authors A chance to talk with award-winning authors tops the list this year of engaging additions to Canterbury School’s Spring Book Fair. Open to the public, the book fair runs Tuesday through Thursday, April 17-19.
2015-03-19	Spring Break In high school, Mike tried to convince his parents to let him drive to Florida with a few friends for spring break. Mike’s parents wouldn’t budge. They told Mike that a trip like that was too dangerous. Mike was upset, but he got over it.
2011-01-24	Squared Away? Greg Leatherman, the City of Fort Wayne’s Executive Director of Redevelopment, has just returned to work after a three-day weekend in which he made a concerted effort not to talk to media, read the editorial pages, or visit any local political blogs. “I think I gave a dozen interviews in one day last week,” he laughs. “I thought, ‘okay, that’s enough for now…’”
2013-09-06	Star Crossed In the grand tradition of most teenage romances, Romeo and Juliet’s great passion begins with the two star-crossed lovers locking eyes at a party. Papa Capulet has invited Count Paris so that Capulet’s daughter Juliet can meet him — the count intends to marry Juliet one day…
2004-06-14	Stay tuned: some reality shows to improve America I’m convinced reality television is contributing to the “white trashification” of America.
2014-04-03	Stories In Motion Thinking of PBS, a lot of programs come to mind; Sesame Street, Brit-coms and a host of dramas not regularly seen on a typical network channel. But probably the programs that most come to mind are the documentaries.
2017-07-20	Strange magic Belle & The Strange. You know 'em? Well, imagine if you will The Dead Weather, The Black Keys, Amy Winehouse, and 1920s German cabaret and you might get an idea of the voodoo they're summoning.
2017-10-19	Stranger Things of the third kind There haven’t been a lot of movies made that take place in Indiana. Off the top of my head I can only think of a few like Breaking Away, Hoosiers and A History of Violence.
2006-11-21	Successful Conclusions The Fall Sports at IPFW have now completed their seasons, with some notable successes. It proves that we have learned how to compete well against our NCAA Division 1 peer institutions.
2007-02-06	Summer Movie Preview As I began to write this column on movies due out next summer, I had no idea that just about every major film I was about to preview would be a sequel to a previous one. I can understand the tendency of movie studios to release sequels – they usually represent a guaranteed payday – but are TEN sequels in one summer too many? In 2007, have the movie studios gone” a sequel too far?”
2010-02-20	Summer Movie Preview Each summer film season seems to have some sort of theme, be it a summer with a few films about asteroids about to smash into the planet or one chock full of films about future civilizations. Unfortunately, the last few years the theme has consistently been "remakes, comic books and TV adaptations" and this summer seems no different in that respect.
2012-02-16	Summer Movie Preview I always find that the best way to beat the mid-winter blues is to think about the upcoming slate of Summer movies.
2014-03-25	Summer movie preview First up this year, as it has been every year since 2007, is a movie based on a character from Marvel Entertainment; this time The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on May 2…
2018-03-15	Summer movie preview For the first time in a decade Marvel won’t be kicking off the summer movie season by opening a movie the first Friday in May.
2004-11-22	Summer movies are all the rage this winter Last week, I looked over my wall calendar featuring all the celestial wonders of the night sky (I bet you do this too) and realized that we’re just FIVE short months away from the next summer movie season. I became so excited that I began to hyperventilate and passed out hitting my head on an old chiffarobe that my friend Tom Robinson was going to come over to break up for firewood. (At least that’s the way I remember it.) There are only around 150 days for Dangerous Universe to prepare for the onslaught of the mindless summer movies. That’s just barely enough time!
2007-04-10	Summit City Noise Dean Robinson has been known to come up with some pretty good ideas over the years. Last summer, he came up with a doozy. On April 8th at 1 a.m. on NBC 33/ Comcast 13, Fort Wayne can get a first hand look at the media savvy Robinson's newest project, Summit City Noise.
2018-04-19	Superhero teams don’t make sense Superhero team movies are all the rage these days. If it’s not the Justice League teaming up then it’s the X-Men or Fantastic Four.
2012-11-01	Surprise! Your license is suspended One ticket and a little absent-mindedness can equal big problems when it comes to your ability to drive.
2007-07-23	Surviving the Summer TV Doldrums Every Summer when the movie cineplexes are kicking into high gear the television networks seem to be shifting into low gear. Over the sweltering Summer months, these networks prefer to burn off the last few episodes of failed drama and comedy series while also releasing a slew of reality and game shows in order to fill their TV schedules. And if you're the type of person that's into these types of shows, then good for you, but if you're like me and can't stand even a minute of reality TV there are some alternatives to the Summer television doldrums.
2017-06-19	Sweetwater’s GearFest 2017 Sweetwater’s GearFest — happening Friday June 23 and Saturday June 24 at Sweetwater’s campus at 5501 US Hwy 30 West — is the largest music trade show open to the general public in the United States, and in the years since its inception it’s become far more than “just” a marketplace bonanza for top music instruments and audio equipmen
2008-06-23	T.I.F. for the P.T.C.? On June 10, Fort Wayne City Council unanimously voted to approve Citilink’s pursuit of $518,000 in tax revenue from Indiana’s Department of Local and Government Finance (DLGF). It was the latest chapter in a story that began last November, when Citilink asked for a tax levy appeal by the DLGF after Citilink realized it hadn’t collected the money from recently annexed areas. But in February, the Department of Local and Government Finance said that by law Citilink couldn’t collect the revenue without city council’s approval. Not getting the revenue, Citilink warned, could lead to increased rates and reduced services.
2012-08-16	Tackling Fort Wayne's fiscal 'problems': A Modest Proposal You may have heard that Fort Wayne is in dire financial shape. You may also have heard that Fort Wayne is in much, much better financial shape that the majority of cities in the country and almost all of our Hoosier brethren and sistern.
2006-08-08	Tail lights, GiaQuintas, and more BMV controversy A broken taillight, of all things, has shed light on a discomforting practice by the Fort Wayne Police Department.
2007-01-10	Take me out to the ballgame Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard is putting on the full court press for a proposed downtown baseball stadium... or using perhaps a better sports metaphor, he’s putting in some pinch hitters.
2010-01-25	Take This Rose ... and Shove It! For some reason, I’m watching The Bachelor and even though this is “reality” television, I know it’s as fake as a porn star’s boobs. This show HAD to have been dreamed up by a man…
2016-06-03	Tarot Cards and Glitter Baptisms When Jason Davis of Streetlamps for Spotlights and Off The Cuff Sound gets a hold of me to tell me about upcoming shows in the Fort, I'm all ears…
2009-08-25	Taste of the Arts In a year of mergers, Arts United is bringing together several former Fort Wayne festivals into one free event. The new Taste of the Arts festival brings together food from the former Taste of Fort Wayne with entertainment and local talent of the Arts Unite event held during Three Rivers Festival. Like the old Franke Park Fine Arts Festival, there will be hands-on activities and the event will be held at different venues similar to Arts Crawl.
2012-08-20	Taste of the Arts 2012 Arts United offers an exciting line-up for their fourth annual Taste of the Arts festival on Saturday, August 25, a major downtown event featuring theatre, dance, many styles of music, street performers and high-quality visual arts.
2015-08-23	Taste of the Arts 2015 Now in its 7th year, Taste of the Arts has rapidly become one of Fort Wayne’s most popular festivals with its unique blend of music, dance, theatre, film and artists, demonstrating a huge variety of styles and talent from Fort Wayne…
2011-11-17	Tea leaves and life lines I'll always watch Ridley Scott's science-fiction classic Blade Runner (1982) when it shows up on movie channels and not just because of the film's many aesthetic achievements:
2014-11-25	Thanks Giving Day “You never really hear a song about Thanksgiving,” Mike Ross says. “There’s no ‘White Christmas’ of Thanksgiving, is there?” Not only is there no “White Christmas” for Thanksgiving, there’s no equivalent of “Jingle Bells” either, or even a “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” In fact, we’re betting you can’t even name a Thanksgiving song…
2011-12-19	The '07 Fort Wayne’s 46807 zip code covers a lot of ground and boasts a lot of history.
2004-09-13	The (still) missing link During an election year, you might think an increasingly unpopular and costly war would be a liability to an incumbent administration. You might think, with the number of U.S. soldiers surpassing 1,000, kidnappings, daily attacks, and still no weapons of mass destruction found, that the last thing the Bush administration would want to do is mention the war in Iraq.
2008-10-21	The 2008 Great tree Canopy Comeback The bad news: Fort Wayne Parks are losing their trees. Several years ago, Friends of the Parks and the Cultural Landscape Committee of the Fort Wayne park board commissioned a Cultural Landscape Report. They found that three of Fort Wayne’s major parks — Lakeside, Memorial, and Swinney — had lost nearly 50% of their tree canopy since 1949.
2011-11-03	The Abatement Game Who really benefits from tax abatement programs? Is it the entrepreneur with a winning idea but a bit short on cash? Is it the area of town where unemployment rates are high and buildings lie vacant? Is it the average citizen whose tax “contribution” is used to spur job growth and a richer community? Or have the abatement system and the myriad economic development programs become little more than vehicles to reward insiders, supplements to already healthy bottom lines?
2009-08-09	The Apathy of Strangers I rarely read The Journal Gazette anymore but when I do I must admit I have an unhealthy attraction to the "Cheers/Jeers" section on the editorial page.
2018-09-11	The Art of the Guitar Developed by The National GUITAR Museum (NGM), “Medieval To Metal” celebrates the artistic development of the guitar...
2011-01-09	The Artlink Visual Awards The inaugural Artlink Visual Art Awards — the AVAs — has two important objectives…
2011-11-03	The Bach to the Baroque Dr. Daniel Reuning, the founder and the Artistic Director of the Bach Collegium in Fort Wayne, probably has to deal with a particular “chicken-or-the-egg” question when it comes to talking about the type of music the Bach Collegium performs…
2018-03-15	The best and the brightest Pohler, Leatherman, Moll, Kennedy, and Becker. It is a changing of the guard in city hall. Longtime pillars of government are moving on.
2011-12-01	The Best Movie and TV Posters of the Year I've been picking what I think are the best movie posters of the year each year since 2006. And while I've always been able to find many interesting movie posters, it wasn't until recently that posters for TV series started catching my attention.
2007-12-11	The Best Movie Posters of 2007 I love movie posters. Though I might not buy as many posters as I used to (mostly because I can download relatively hi-res copies of posters online) I none-the-less enjoy the art form enough to take the time to catalog the best posters of the year.
2016-11-07	The Big Ask, the Big Ugly, and the Big Unease We are making Europe very nervous with our little election. During a recent trip the Europeans voiced concern that Donald Trump might somehow win.
2014-01-23	The business of art The Arts Incubator at Artlink is developing a new creative class in Northeast Indiana. It gives creative entrepreneurs the skills, networking opportunities and action planning to start and maintain self-sustaining small businesses.
2015-04-07	The Canterbury School Spring Book Fair At Canterbury School’s Spring Book Fair, students and visitors can interact with a range of guests from award-winning authors and artists to ballerinas as they talk about books, writing, and art in an informal setting.
2014-07-31	The Canton Laundry “pop-ups” It’s been about 15 years, maybe longer, since the Canton Laundry storefront on Broadway between Washington and Jefferson was occupied by the business that bears its name on the sign. And before it was Canton Laundry, it was… well, another laundry. “It hasn’t been anything but a laundry since the 30s or 40s,” says Michael Galbraith, Executive Director of ARCH. “It’s been starching shirts for a good half-century.”
2016-04-21	The Cash Box Kings Is there an aural equivalent of a double-take? Like you half-hear something and then your ears sort of “jump back” to it to make sure you’re hearing it correctly? That’s probably the reaction a lot of blues fans have to The Cash Box Kings, especially if they’re fans of the blues that came out of Chicago in the 40s and 50s.
2013-08-01	The Changing of the Guard July 2013 will be a month remembered here for headline changes…
2015-10-02	The Comic-Con blues It was 20 years ago last summer that I went to my first real comic book convention. Then known as the Chicago Comic-Con but now the tongue twisting Wizard World Comic Con Chicago, it was everything I hoped it would be.
2009-01-16	The Council Elders The new president of the Fort Wayne City Council is an old hand. And that’s good news.
2010-01-11	The Cultural District Project For the past several months, a collection of Fort Wayne organizations — the Convention and Visitors Bureau; Arts United; and the Downtown Improvement District — have been meeting with a group of concerned stakeholders to create what could be an important tool in the next stage of Fort Wayne’s downtown development.
2015-03-05	The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company One of the largest, oldest and most acclaimed modern dance companies in between Chicago and New York isn’t based in, say, Philadelphia or Cleveland. The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company calls (you guessed it) the big town/small city of Dayton, Ohio its home, and boasts a groundbreaking history that goes back to 1968.
2015-08-06	The fighting south side The controversial and failed Brightpoint effort to force an apartment/retail complex on a collection of south side neighborhoods had winners and losers.
2007-11-01	The Firehouse and Jabin Burnworth: No Amount of Water Can Put Out Their Fire For the better part of a decade, the Firehouse in North Manchester has been hosting indie rock bands and re-writing the book on all-age venues. Since opening in 2000, the people behind the scenes have proven that hard work, respect and a genuine love for good music can make anything possible. One of those people is Manchester High School Biology teacher Jabin Burnworth, a frontrunner for world's friendliest person and one of the biggest supporters of music, local and national, this planet has ever seen.
2010-09-17	The Fort Wayne Ballet starts the 2010/11 season in a joyful mood The Fort Wayne Ballet typically kicks off its seasons with a program featuring a eclectic mix of work, and as you might expect from a performance entitled “Celebrations!” the tone for the 2010-11 season opener is pretty upbeat. But the title is significant in a number of ways…
2006-05-22	The Fort Wayne Blogosphere Last March, the impending sale of newspaper publishing giant Knight-Ridder to the McClatchy Company left 12 of the company’s newspapers out in the cold in search of a new publisher. One of those being resold by the McClatchy Company was Fort Wayne’s The News-Sentinel.
2006-03-20	The Fort Wayne Derby Girls Like glitter balls, platform shoes, and Tab, girls roller derby is typically remembered as a 70s phenomenon. That decade is seen as a Golden Age of the sport, where Amazons on roller skates clashed with each other — shoving, pushing, body-checking — all while careening around a banked track at dangerous speeds.
2005-03-07	The Fort Wayne Reader talks to one of the world’s biggest — and most unlikely — pop stars At a glance, you might mistake Josh Groban for another twentysomething waif of the American Idol variety. That’s until he opens his mouth to sing. His massive voice seems as though it should be coming from someone twice his width, while there’s a discipline to his delivery that should be coming from someone twice his age. He seems a natural for Broadway, maybe even opera (though he doesn’t like being compared to an opera singer), but over the last couple of years, Groban has instead become perhaps the least likely pop star around.
2010-02-20	The Fort Wayne Rock Documentary For such a seemingly unassuming guy, Greg Locke is pretty ambitious. Many people probably know Locke as a perceptive critic and an enthusiastic chronicler of Fort Wayne’s music scene. Now, he is venturing into filmmaking.
2012-03-15	The Future of the 122nd Several months ago, when President Obama issued his budget request to Congress for 2013, the portion detailing defense spending managed to do something which at times seemed impossible during the past year or so of political brinksmanship in Washington: unite Democrats and Republicans. At last, everyone could agree: there was some item in the defense budget that they didn’t like.
2009-11-09	The Ghosts of '07 Remember the heady days of Fort Wayne’s mayoral race of 2007?
2012-04-20	The GOP purity test The Republicans are about to go through another round of ritual purifications, this time in Indiana, including one primary contest in Allen County. And, given the public apathy and antipathy toward politicians, nobody seems to care.
2013-02-28	The great escape When you first meet Man In Chair, the unprepossessing narrator of The Drowsy Chaperone, you get the feeling that he’s not much of what you might call a “sharer.” In fact, he never even tells you his name…
2004-05-31	The Guitar Summit assembles three local musicians for an evening of virtuosic guitar-playing Ask any musician: one of the frustrating things about plying your craft in Fort Wayne is that there’s not much of an opportunity for audiences to just listen to you.
2017-11-06	The Hedge Walk into The Hedge at 1016 Broadway and meet Helga, Ginger, Eva, and Mulvay’s Mangler. Helga is the youngest, born in 1960. The four of them are not a knitting circle of elderly women, but printmaking presses belonging to artist Julie Wall, who lives and works in the location with Daniel Dienelt
2011-11-17	The holiday season of their discontent Raymond Chandler, the Godfather of American detective fiction and creator of private eye Philip Marlowe, claimed to have a cure for anytime he was afflicted with writer’s block — when in doubt, have a guy holding a gun enter the room.
2012-12-20	The HTV Cliff There’s been a lot of discussion about the proximity of our economy to a fiscal cliff. But there’s another type of cliff’s edge on which thousands of unaware Indiana valid drivers sit.
2016-09-02	The Ides of September Polls in this presidential election year have been notably inaccurate. In most part it is due to cellphones and landlines, the demise of the latter and the ascendance of the former
2007-09-07	The Ike Reilly Assassination: Get ready for a Staggering Evening On September 13th, One Lucky Guitar will celebrate seven superb years of graphic design by hosting The Ike Reilly Assassination. I received a copy of Ike's debut album, Salesmen and Racists, from the head of OLG, Matt Kelley, years ago. Press play on the album and you'll be welcomed with, 'Last time I couldn't make you come.' So, you see, to say Reilly is bold would be a perverse understatement. The man calls it as he sees it and he's seen a lot.
2011-04-04	The Independent candidate “I’m not doing this just to ‘stir the pot,’” says Haley Ahrendt. “It’s not about that for me. That’s not who I am. I’ve just always been interested in politics, I’ve always wanted to run for office, I have good ideas, and now is the time.”
2008-08-18	The Kelty faithful Back in February 2007, with the mayoral primary still over two months away, aspiring Republican candidate Matt Kelty had this to say in an interview with the Fort Wayne Reader (issue #72)…
2014-10-04	The Kids Are All Right: Spirits and the Melchizedek Children There's a great, cavernous sound coming from down south. It's based in Atlanta, GA, but bellows to the far reaches of the universe. Simple, acoustic songs that swell into mammoth psychedelic swirls that will consume you if you open your minds and hearts to the concept.
2010-01-25	The Light Lease Trust Fund Back in 1974, during the Ivan Lebamoff administration, city leaders did something pretty remarkable. It was felt that the city’s electric power grid — situated in what’s basically the Science Central site these days and serviced, back then, by City Light — was not adequate anymore, and the City was looking to get out of the utilities business anyway…
2018-03-16	The Main Street Politics of Courtney Tritch Doesn’t 2010 seem like a million years ago? Back then, after four years of a Democratic controlled Congress and two years into President Obama’s first term, there was an upsurge of voter anger from conservatives and independents…
2007-10-08	The Marquee Quest For one night only, citizens of Fort Wayne will have the opportunity to witness Paul Helmke, Melissa Long, Lee Kelso and a gaggle of other area luminaries engage in nefarious backstabbing, professional jealousy, and murder…
2008-07-21	The mayor is in Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry will hold his second “Mayor’s Night In” on July 30th from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in his 9th floor offices in downtown’s City-County Building.
2010-03-22	The Morning After The Y2K Bug Survival Kit. Internet stocks in the late 90s. Jay Leno at 10 PM… The common thread? They all seemed like good ideas at the time.
2013-12-19	The most wonderful time of the year It seems like it was only yesterday that we were arguing about who was going to go outside and take Christmas lights down in sub-zero temps, carry box after box of ornaments and decorative Santas back downstairs to their place of slumber…
2006-04-10	The Motherlode Group opens at Artlink with its first show in two years When a handful of artists got together several years ago and decided to put together an art show focusing on local female artists, they had two things clearly in mind. The first was that a show featuring all female artists from the area was an interesting and highly-promotable concept, not one they had seen here before. The second was the idea that art openings shouldn’t be boring. Oh, and they also had a name for the show: Motherlode, which means the richest, most abundant vein of valuable material in a particular region.
2011-07-04	The New New Harrison Deal During his presentation to Fort Wayne City Council in mid-June on the new deal to complete the retail/residential section of the Harrison Square project, Tim Haffner, the City’s attorney, offered up a nugget of unintentional humor almost worthy of an episode of Parks & Rec.
2016-06-30	The New Normal It wasn't that long ago when it was common place to expect new music from names like Hambrick, Hall, and Hutchins on a semi-regular basis in the Fort. You could hit up Wooden Nickel and find any number of Orange Opera, Thunderhawk, and Vandolah records just waiting to fill your ears with songs as good, if not better, than what you'd read about over at those uppity indie music sites.
2004-05-03	The Next Undergorund Arts City — Fort Wayne? As most Fort Wayne trivia lovers know, the city is home to three infamous, fictional pop culture figures: Frank Burns, the square, joy-killing doctor from MASH; Astronaut Taylor, the Charlton Heston character marooned in the future in Planet of the Apes; and Fawn Lebowitz, the unfortunate kiln-explosion victim in Animal House*. Since the three all hail from the Summit City, it would seem that, to screenwriters at least, "Fort Wayne" is a handy euphemism for "boring and provincial Midwestern city."
2011-05-24	The Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival It’s always interesting to hear professionals in a particular field drop their adult roles for a few moments and “get their geek on.” As the Executive and Artistic Director of the Fort Wayne Civic Theater, Phillip Colglazier obviously has plenty of opportunity to exercise his artistic skills. But when he talks about the inspiration behind the Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival, you hear a little of the theater fan who really understands the hopes of all those undiscovered playwrights out there, pounding away at original scripts…
2011-11-17	The Nutcracker 2011 The Fort Wayne Ballet’s Artistic Director Karen Gibbons-Brown was on her way to a meeting at one of the local hospitals when she was recognized by a woman who was watering plants in the lobby…
2013-12-08	The Nutcracker 2013 “People look at The Nutcracker as part of the holiday season,” says Karen Gibbons-Brown, Artistic Director of the Fort Wayne Ballet. “It’s a tradition, and it’s a big production. You’ve got the visual of the costumes and the music with a live orchestra. I like to think that if people don’t like dance — or think they don’t like dance — they’ve at least enjoyed the theater experience.”
2013-07-18	The one that got away We're deep in the midst of the "Summer Beach Reading Season," the time when many Americans use their hard-earned vacation days to finally escape into the solitary pleasure of reading some big, accessible, time-killer of a novel that's been dominating the nation's Best Seller lists.
2006-06-13	The original Original Owning a restaurant, bar, or club is a risky business, and why some succeed where others fail is a mystery. Take the Landing, that red-bricked street in downtown Fort Wayne that stretches between Calhoun and Harrison. Cities all over the country have similar streets with red bricks or cobblestones, old-style lamp-posts and restored buildings. They buff up the old bricks, fix the peeling plaster, and turn them into tourist and entertainment centers. At first glance, the Landing seems ripe for the same treatment. But whatever the original intent for the area might have been, the only entertainment establishment in the area that has consistently remained is Columbia Street West.
2017-03-22	The other March madness March Madness is upon us. College basketball fans all over the country are filling out NCAA tournament brackets. Millions of people will pay entry fees ranging from a few bucks to hundreds of dollars and more.
2016-04-07	The Perils of Riches While many cities and states are struggling to balance their budgets, while some cities are nearly bankrupt or demanding higher taxes of their citizens just to keep police on the streets, we are in the enviable place of having a mostly balanced budget, low debt, and surplus cash in the form of the Legacy…
2006-06-05	The Possum Trot Orchestra: Good Folk The folks who make up the Possum Trot Orchestra are well versed at their instruments and play some of the best Americana music being recorded these days, they also happen to be some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. The Possums have just secured a series of shows at the Starbucks on East State that will take place on the fourth Friday of every month until September. The shows will last from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. and there is no cover. The Legendary Trainhoppers have asked them to share the stage on June 16th as part of the Wayne Calhoun series. The show will get underway around 7 p.m.
2009-11-09	The Price of Patience The Fort Wayne City Council’s meeting on October 27 was the Biggie. That was the session where council was expected to pass — or not — the city budget; it was also the session where city council members offered up their recommendations to trim the budget.
2012-12-06	The privilege of silence Have you ever heard about someone “lawyering up” or “taking the 5th”? Under the Indiana Constitution, and the Constitution of the United States, we have a protection against self-incrimination. Stated differently, we can remain silent.
2015-01-15	The Return of the Son of Fort Wayne Downtown Redevelopment, Episode VIII(ish): The Landing On January 14, Mayor Tom Henry joined community leaders to provide a progress report on efforts to redevelop The Landing along West Columbia Street in downtown Fort Wayne.
2011-07-04	The Sounds of Summer More so than any other season, it seems like summer is the time when people have a specific soundtrack that they come back to, year after year, that is unique to them. Let’s face it, some albums just sound better to you when it’s hot outside.
2005-10-31	The Southeast Community Arts Project On October 20th, community leaders, artists, and other citizens of Fort Wayne came together at what was billed as a Town Hall Meeting for the Arts, sponsored by Arts United of Fort Wayne and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
2009-02-10	The spider & the sty For a classic children’s story full of talking barnyard animals and a kindly spider, Charlotte’s Web sure doesn’t go easy on its porcine protagonist Wilbur…
2007-12-11	The Stars of Access Fort Wayne “Some people think of us as the editorial page of the cable system,” says Norm Compton, manager of Access Fort Wayne at the Allen County Public Library. “People can come in here, produce programs, and say what they want as regards to whatever subject that is.”
2010-06-07	The Stupid Attack Chick Code #15 Guys are hunters and problem solvers. Chicks are gatherers and like to look for problems for the guy to solve. Regardless if the guy knows there is a problem or not, count on the chick to go find one out of nowhere.
2011-03-20	The Sweet and Bitter Comedy It's a distressing moment for the aging hipster when you realize that advertisers don't care that you exist anymore.
2018-08-18	The TBM gets a name No doubt, the hardest worker on Fort Wayne’s Deep Rock Tunnel project, at 24-hours a day, is the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). Now, that worker has a name, and it’s MamaJo.
2010-08-08	The Tyranny of Connectivity For most of my adult life I've dreaded hearing a specific, four-word sentence more than any other, and no, the sentence isn't "You are under arrest" or "We've detected a growth."
2005-09-05	The Ultimate Comic Book As you may have gathered from reading my numerous and brilliant columns here in the Fort Wayne Reader (they’re lucky to have me really), I am a collector of comic books. Though I might not be a person who spends hundreds of dollars a week buying every title released, and believe me those people exist, I do, on occasion, enjoy spending money on “the funny pages.”
2012-12-20	The Update Many issues ago, FWR ran a cover story entitled “Whatever Happened to…” where we looked at 5 past feature stories that seemed to have no second act. This story is not one of those. It’s less “Whatever happened to…” and more “What are you up to now?”
2016-09-15	The World of WELT It's been little less than a year when WELT — a low-power FM station — hit the drawing boards, and only after a number of organizational meetings and word of mouth did the fuller picture of what the station would become begin to materialize.
2010-12-07	The World of Wil Radcliffe Middle-Earth… Hogwart’s… Narnia… Northeast Indiana…One of these things is not like the other? Novelist Wil Radcliffe would beg to differ.
2009-07-06	The writing on the wall To hear Julia Meek tell it, it all started with Sam Hyde’s love of a Mastodon… In 2005, Meek — an area artist who also hosts the radio program Folktales on NIPR — created a Mastodon for the “Mastodons on Parade” event.
2017-01-11	The “624” finds a home The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, Inc. (FWRHS) reached an agreement with the City of Hammond to facilitate the relocation of Nickel Plate Road steam locomotive no. 624 for preservation.
2005-01-10	The “darn good” movies of 2004. Well, it’s the end of the year and what kind of a man would I be if I didn’t list the movies I felt were the best in 2004!? (Answer: A better one.) But still, I must press on like every other critic in the country at the end of the year and release my “list.”
2010-11-22	The “Muttcracker” Dancers trying out for the Fort Wayne Ballet’s annual production of The Nutcracker probably guessed that something a little out of the ordinary was happening this year when they noticed one of the questions on the audition sheet — “are you allergic to dogs?”
2007-04-10	There is no “Off-Season” for our Sports “Now that basketball’s over, what do you do with all your spare time?” I’ve heard that question several times after our Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams finished their season in early March, posting the most successful records in our short Division I history.
2011-09-01	They came from the 80s… Around a quarter of a century ago, rock bands dressed like transvestite hookers were all the rage. They wore fishnet stockings, spandex, pink-leopard print leotards, and high heel boots. Their hair was often sprayed and aqua-netted so that it resembled the frill of some prehistoric Ceratopsid, and they boasted facial make-up that would make Barbara Cartland gasp in horror…
2017-11-06	They came from the 80s… Three decades ago, rock bands dressed like transvestite hookers were all the rage. They wore fishnet stockings, spandex, pink-leopard print leotards, and high heel boots. Their hair was often sprayed and aqua-netted so that it resembled the frill of some prehistoric Ceratopsid, and they boasted facial make-up that would make Barbara Cartland gasp in horror.
2017-06-05	They fought the Longs (and the Longs won) The fight over the West Jefferson rezoning offers a few questions…
2012-01-19	Third time’s a charm Apparently, the third time really is a charm, at least for Ruth Tyndall Baker. The playwright nabbed first place in the Fort Wayne Civic Theater’s 3rd Annual Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival for her play Althea’s Well, the story of a religious woman with an abusive husband in post-Depression era Missouri.
2007-08-06	This elephant never forgets… how to rock If there’s one thing more unusual than a conservative politician addressing a basement full of indie music fans, it’s said politician making good on a campaign promise. That’s what a cynic might say, at least, but in this case, the cynic would have to eat his words.
2012-10-04	This may be YOU, someday I know how old people get on your nerves: they do everything way too slowly, and they are not exactly fast learners when it comes to technology.
2018-01-20	Three Rivers Apartments 1966 While Mayor Harold Zeis (1964-71) gets most of the credit (or blame) for the 1960’s downtown redevelopment, it was Mayor Paul Mike Burns (1960-63) who had commissioned the detailed study of the city’s urban structures and housing…
2013-10-07	Three shows at Artlink The Great Outdoors, Robin Dluzen, and David Buenrostro at Artlink.
2010-02-04	Through the glass wall Imagine yourself in a bubble as the world passes by, seeing a world that you are both a part of and separate from. You want to reach out and touch that world but every time you try your hand meets the cold, clear glass that marks your isolation. This is the world of Travis Breeding but he's found a way to get through that cold, clear glass.
2012-05-21	Tim Rogers returns to Fort Wayne Every era has its seminal album that served as an inspiration for a whole generation of rock fans and fledgling musicians, something that came along and said “hey kids, this is how it’s done.”
2007-04-24	Time For A New Adventure Those of you who follow IPFW Athletics know by now that I submitted my resignation as Director of Athletics, effective at the end of IPFW’s fiscal year, June 30. Please allow me to tell you why I made this decision at this time.
2010-09-17	Tired of waiting That sound you hear on the breeze isn’t the rustle of the autumn leaves or even the honking of geese flying south for the winter…
2016-05-19	To go or not to go Mark graduates from college and takes a sales job. He quickly realizes that is heart is not in it. Mark wants to help people and he wants to make a difference. He decides he should go to law school and become a lawyer.
2015-07-03	To infinity and beyond with Kyle Reese and John Connor Is it just me, or is the computerized Skynet system of the Terminator films and TV franchise just not up to snuff? Sure, it did effectively wipe out most of humanity in “Judgement Day” via nuclear war, but since then it really hasn’t lived up to its potential.
2007-12-24	Todd Hembrook: Hometown Boy Makes Good With Deals Gone Bad On August 11, 1996 a band by the name of Skavossas played their very first show. The ska band's line-up consisted of Justin Maloney (guitar), Travis Roth (tenor sax), Jay Freimuth (trumpet), Ben Meyer (drums) and Richie Kunz (bass). Oh, and there was a singer, too. His name is Todd Hembrook. The band's line-up, the style of music they played and even the name of the band would change before they disbanded in the earlier part of this decade.
2006-01-06	Top 5 of '05 It’s been a long year for the movie studios. According to MSNBC.com, the total box office revenue this year is projected to fall below that of 2003 and fewer tickets were sold this year than in 1998. Somehow, I don’t think movies are getting any cheaper to make.
2015-03-05	Traffic Engineers You're driving west on Main Street in downtown Fort Wayne, it's mid-morning and you're late, the roads are still bad from the snow but you've got to get across town and into Aboite in 12 minutes and so you're reckless, skiing into stops, spinning out, hopping lanes, spilling coffee.
2013-03-15	Trouble on the horizon Somewhere amongst the various fees and charges on your cable bill you’ll find a relatively small line item — about $5 — that, in the grand scheme of things, probably gets overlooked.
2007-06-18	Troubled waters Fort Wayne’s very own Maumee River, which starts here at the confluence of the St. Joseph and St Mary’s rivers, goes on to make quite a name for itself once it gets out of town. It’s not only the largest tributary to the Great Lakes, but also the largest watershed on the Great Lakes, stretching even up into parts of Northern Michigan; over 6,300 miles drains into the Maumee, and it’s estimated nearly two million people live in and rely on the Maumee River watershed. It’s also been the subject of three documentaries: The Fate of a River (1965); The Fate of a River 2 (2000)…
2017-12-02	Truths universally acknowledged… A music journalist I once read had a theory about hugely influential and popular rock bands — the legions of imitators they inspired often took the wrong lessons from their heroes…
2004-08-27	Tumor killer may be key for Genetronics It took 21 years and more than $70 million in investment, but federal regulators finally noticed Genetronics.
2012-09-06	Turn On Your Radio I'm of a certain age that when I grew up the radio was a vital part of my life. Whether listening to classic rock on Rock 104 WXKE "The Real Rocker"; the top 40 pop spewed out by 97.3 WMEE; or Metal Shop on Niles, MI 95.3 WAOR every Friday night, I was never truly alone.
2018-10-05	Turn signals and seat belts Following the traffic laws at all times is almost not possible.
2004-10-27	Turnout smaller than expected for vice president's town hall meeting WILMINGTON, Ohio - Wheelchair-bound Phyllis Hobbs wanted Vice President Dick Cheney to tell her "when the guys would come out of Iraq and bring our children home. I'd like a little relief."
2013-12-19	TV 2013 The start of the 2012-13 TV season was little more than a barren wasteland. Of the few new shows I checked out last season there wasn't any I stuck with for more than a few episodes. To say I was depressed this time last year at the state of TV would not have been an understatement.
2004-09-08	TV networks wary of FCC's forceful policing of sleaze SAN DIEGO - As you check out the offerings of the new fall TV lineup, the Federal Communications Commission will be watching, too.
2009-12-06	Two Hundred Days of Christmas I will always hate film director Robert Zemeckis and not just because he attempted World Dummification by releasing Forrest Gump in 1994. His later sins — particularly the animation money-grabs he's produced this decade (The Polar Express, Beowulf, the current A Christmas Carol) — more than justify my black-hearted rancor.
2004-11-08	Underfunded. Understaffed. Overlooked. Everyday at the Center for Nonviolence, John Beams runs up against evidence of why our society has its priorities all messed up. The case in point: our leaders have spent 200 billion dollars removing the leader of one country as part of a war on terrorism, when the prevention and treatment of domestic violence in America goes woefully under-funded and even ignored by most politicians. “It’s hard to live with these kind of priorities,” Beams says when I ask about the hardest part of the work at the Center for Nonviolence. “It’s hard to live in a world where rhetoric can redirect resources. You can pump up the fear of people so that they’ll pour billions of dollars into something where you don’t even have to do an outcome study to see if it’s effective. If the Center for Nonviolence gets $20,000 from a funder, we have to keep copious records on whether we’re helping people with that money. If not, we don’t get it.”
2014-09-04	UnZIP 07: Exploring a zip code and its culture Fort Wayne is home to many great neighborhoods. These building blocks of our community have long held the keys to our success and growth, yet have recently been relatively overlooked among the sea of "quick fix" projects and economic development agencies which have captured most of our political representatives' attention.
2014-03-25	Up close and personal At first glance, the set-up to Grace and Glorie seems like a classic clash of cultures…
2011-04-18	Upon the wicked stage For sheer, unadulterated pain-in-the-ass diva behavior, few performing artists have ever matched the awesome achievements of American opera singer Kathleen Battle.
2004-09-15	USAir is likely down for the count this time The phenomenon known as "creative destruction" took its toll on another of America's big airlines Sunday when US Airways, the 1980s high-flyer that took over Pacific Southwest Airlines and North Carolina's Piedmont, declared bankruptcy.
2018-07-05	Vanishing Tribe One thing about getting older, you definitely have to decide exactly how much energy you’re willing to invest in pretending that you’re still relevant in a world that’s passing you by.
2013-11-14	Veterans court Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull and Allen Circuit Court Judge Tom Felts recently announced the creation of a Joint Veterans Treatment Court.
2004-08-14	Victims of sex abuse in military await justice D.J. thought the military was going to be fun. It had to be more fun than the beatings from his father, a Chicago policeman who acted like he was always on duty. He pulled a gun on his oldest son more than once. A tall, skinny kid, D.J. wanted to be tough, to take out his aggression on the nearest target. He and his buddies went out gay-bashing, starting fights and causing trouble - daily diversions from the hell at home.
2011-07-18	Vinyl record sales are up — way up — but why? Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ve probably noticed that vinyl records have been making a comeback. According to the Nielsen SoundScan report, vinyl LP sales are up 41% compared to this time last year.
2018-04-05	Warning Labels In 2015, I did something during the local elections that I had never done before — I put up a political sign on my lawn, featuring the name of a popular incumbent candidate.
2013-09-22	Wedding belle blues Weddings. When it comes to her special day, every bride likes to feel that she is the specialest of them all. So maybe that’s why, when she selects a handful of sisters, relatives, and close friends to stand with her in front of the assembled guests and say her vows, she often chooses to drape them in some of the most hideous, tacky, and completely-useless-for-any-other-occasion dresses ever designed.
2012-01-05	Weeping for the manchildren If you are an older woman with an adult daughter, and wondering why she isn’t married, you might want to keep reading. “What the hell is wrong?” you ask. “She’s attractive, articulate, intelligent, and a little bit ambitious…"
2010-08-23	Weird stories Let us tell you a story… FWR #155 featured an article about Marlin Stutzman, the Republican nominee for the 3rd district US Congressional seat. One item in particular attracted some attention…
2018-09-11	Wells Street Bridge – March 1913 In this wonderful image taken during the 1913 Flood, the St. Mary’s River flows under the Wells Street Bridge as it is completing the last of its 99 miles before joining the St. Joseph River to form the Maumee.
2009-09-08	Wells Street Mural The Fort Wayne cityscape on the side of Hyde Brothers Books on Wells Street is nearing completion, helped along by a recent spate of good weather and nice temperatures.
2005-03-21	What a way to go People always seem to remember the "good deaths" featured in Hollywood movies. Whether it's Darth Vader turning back to “The Force” before dying of his wounds in Return of the Jedi or Valeria succumbing to the venom of a snake in Conan's arms in Conan the Barbarian. But for ever "good death" Hollywood also present us with very "bad deaths"; like Private Mellish being stabbed to death by a German soldier in Saving Private Ryan or the legless Kermit the Frog in All Frogs Must Die begging for his life to Miss Piggy. But this begs the question, what are the absolute worst "ways to go" in a Hollywood movie?
2013-10-31	What a way to make a living Back in 1980, the movie 9 to 5 was not only a box office success but one of those cultural phenomena that seems to take on a life far beyond its relatively modest beginnings.
2016-03-04	What did Doc Brown know? I found myself wondering the other day after watching a marathon of Back to the Future movies; what exactly did Doc Brown know about what’s about to happen to Marty McFly when we first meet Brown at the beginning of Back to the Future?
2004-05-17	What does New Zealand have to be proud about? Way back in the 1990's (post Beavis and Butthead) Peter Jackson began filming his three-movie epic The Lord of the Rings. What was different with The Lord of the Rings series of movies was that they were not being filmed in California, or more likely on the mean Hollywood friendly streets of Canada, but in New Zealand; a country previously known more for sheep export than cinematographers.
2011-04-18	What lies in the vault In a scenario that could have been lifted straight from Geraldo Rivera’s 1986 The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault, the History Center recently opened a long-hidden safe in the basement of the Old City Hall Building.
2013-08-01	What the heck was that? Pop-culture stumbled upon moments I used to love channel surfing.
2006-03-20	What you don’t know… WPTA and NBC33 (WISE33 sometimes) use the same news team for their newscasts, under the rubric Indiana’s NewsCenter, but later this year NBC33 will have its own news team, with Linda Jackson and a co-anchor (yet to be hired), new producers, photogs, etc.
2012-05-21	What's a "vehicle"? We all know that alcohol and vehicles don’t mix.
2015-09-17	What's in a (pen) name? Fort Wayne is in the news again. But what’s refreshing about this situation is that it’s not that we are fat, dumb, fat AND dumb, or trying to name a government building after Harry Baals, a former mayor about whom we know little, if anything, about his grooming.
2010-05-10	Whatever happened to… The Fort Wayne Reader has covered a lot of stories over the years, and occasionally, we’ve devoted a cover story to something that seemed like it had the potential to be a big deal in the community, something people talked about, got people energized and inspired, augered “big things” to come…
2010-11-22	When a body meets a body… It’s a tried-and-true scenario of many a science fiction/disaster tale: the massive comet or asteroid hurtling towards Earth, unstoppable, implacable, and mankind can only brace for the environmental and geological havoc its imminent impact will unleash…
2007-08-19	When artists go bad There’s a great, telling moment in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 documentary The Mystery of Picasso where Picasso is working on a painting and the painting goes terribly wrong. The director has provided a transparent canvas so the audience gets to see the modifications and decisions that Picasso makes, and it’s fascinating to watch the great artist realize, after a few wrong choices, that what he’s creating is a mess.
2011-07-18	When Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield… Captain America has to be one of the most recognizable super-heroes of all time…
2010-11-08	When It Was City Fort Wayne back in the middle decades of the 20th century holds a strong attraction for a lot of people, and not just the people old enough to remember it.
2011-07-18	Where are the Libertarians? Back in 2007, the Libertarian Party of Allen County seemed poised to become a significant player in local politics. That year, they put eight candidates for Fort Wayne City Council, the largest number of city candidates fielded by a third party in as long as anyone could remember. The candidates were a somewhat random bunch, but there were some familiar names among the novices
2017-07-08	Where the heART is Artists from bigger cities have been known to laud Fort Wayne’s rich, tight-knit arts community. And it’s true: the city has a flourishing, friendly community that is small but mighty.
2004-09-13	Whistle Stop Toy Train Company When Gary Ferris retired from Slater Steel last year, like most retirees he was looking forward to being able to spend a little more time on his hobbies. Except for Ferris, his hobby was already well on the road to becoming an established business in his own right.
2007-07-23	Who are these Libertarians anyway? Over four months ago, Mike Sylvester, a local CPA and former chair of the Libertarian Party of Allen County, sent a list of 58 questions about Harrison Square to the Mayor’s office.
2010-08-08	Who is Marlin Stutzman? Congressman Mark Souder’s sudden resignation on May 18, just weeks after he had won the Republican primary, roused over a dozen conservative contenders from their post-primary slump, all eager to nab the GOP’s nomination as the candidate for Indiana’s 3rd district in the US House of Representatives.
2013-12-19	Wholesome Christians Need Freaky Love Too File this under the “WTF? Department”: Christian swingers. Yes, I said Christian swingers. I saw this somewhere on FB, and I had to shake my head, or SMH, as they say on the 'book.
2017-02-21	Why we self-publish One of the few highlights of my grad school career was meeting Garrison Keillor my first year. I didn’t just meet him; I got to spend an hour in a private audience with him. Only a couple of other students were there.
2015-09-03	Wink and a Nod? Mitch Harper, the Republican candidate for mayor, fired the first salvo of the fall election campaign by implying that Mayor Henry is steering public contracts to some of his favorite contributors. It is a charge deserving an honest answer.
2012-12-06	Winter adventureland Anyone visiting the Youtheatre office before this year might have been a little nonplussed. It was located in the basement of the Arts United Center, in an echoing cinderblock-lined room without windows, where the clunk and hum of the building’s machinery provided the background noise.
2012-02-02	Won't Get Fooled Again? Because I have a new schedule which I am very happy with, I'm able to watch more television. So I caught the recent Standing Ovation Address (oh, sorry, I meant State of the Union Address) and it made me wish there wasn't a studio audience, so to speak.
2017-06-19	Wonder Movies The massive success of the superhero movie Wonder Woman has been one of the exceptions to the Summer box-office season.
2010-07-04	Words of Wisdom with The Dead Records I sat down this week with The Dead Records, a local 4-piece rock band who just released their second album, titled Proud, this spring.
2018-01-20	Work zones According to the Indiana Department of Labor’s website, three people die each day in the United States in roadway work zones.
2008-07-21	Working hard at being silly Even by the screwball standards of most musical comedies, Thoroughly Modern Millie stands apart in terms of sheer goofiness. But that’s what makes it such a great show, explains director Harvey Cocks…
2007-06-18	Working third shift not for wimps People can make or break a workplace, and I’m not just talking about the jackasses at Enron, who played fast and loose with their employees’ money. If you have a great job, but your co-workers drive you nuts, that’s a problem.
2018-11-15	World War I Memorial Dedication – November 12, 1928 During WW I over 117,000 Americans lost their lives. Here in Indiana 135,000 Hoosiers served in the military and over 100 from Allen County gave the ultimate sacrifice.
2016-04-07	Worst memory There’s a toilet and sink only a few feet from his bed. Mike remembers how the evening began. But he struggles to recall how it ended.
2007-09-24	www.jammerdirect.com: Fort Wayne-centric social media site for local musicians During the day, Ryan Martin builds websites. He estimates he’s had a hand in developing around 300 websites for different companies, including Hewlett-Packard and Sony. He has a degree in computer science, with experience in a huge range of I.T. projects.
2009-11-09	Yearning to Breathe Free Although it is not always apparent, the Fort Wayne community truly is a plurality of culture, ethnicity, and origin. Often, one can find newspaper articles speaking of the quickly growing Burmese community, which is reported as the largest community outside of the present-day nation of Myanmar. However, Fort Wayne is also home to sizable populations of many other groups that do not get similar amounts of coverage in our media.
2006-11-21	Yer all talk The words on the Stage Banter homepage say it all: “God gave us the music to rock, not to talk about. But here we go…”
2009-04-30	YLNI in ’09 When Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana (YLNI) launched in May 2005 with an “informational open house” at the Dash-In downtown, attendees were encouraged to write down the things they would like to see happen in Fort Wayne.
2010-08-23	You are not you. You are me. The most talked about and critically acclaimed movie this summer is Christopher Nolan’s Inception. While I greatly enjoyed that film,but regardless of what I thought of the movie, Inception is just the latest in a long line of movies to focus on dreams/dreaming…
2005-05-16	Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana aims to foster the area’s next generation of leaders In 2004, “brain drain” was on the minds of the Northeast Indiana Corporate Council. A regional group of CEO’s whose stated mission is to promote the common business interests, growth, opportunity, and general economic welfare for businesses in the region, the NICC were examining ways they could support Indiana’s Graduate Retention Program, an effort funded by the Lily Endowment to combat Indiana’s “brain drain” with internship programs and other ways of getting college students and recent graduates interested in opportunities in the area.
2008-04-08	Youtheatre ends ’07-’08 season with Annie Jr Annie is one of the most popular and beloved musicals of all time. And why not? You’ve got a tough but cute and spirited orphan, a bald no-nonsense capitalist named Daddy Warbucks, and at least two songs that are darn near impossible to forget, one of which — “Tomorrow” — ranks up there with “It’s A Small World” in the “hear-it-once-and-it’s-with-you-forever-like-it-or-not” category.
2009-03-10	Zero Boys: Midwest punk legends "When the Ramones lost it, the Zero Boys found it, adding a slam brigade fist to the Blitzkrieg Beat. This Indianapolis based band managed to come with one of the best early 80's punk records, or one of the best records ever, period." - Federico
2013-01-07	…and now, a few word about the coming year Someone said there is no time, only clocks, that the change from 2012 to 2013 is more about psychology and less about reality, that this pause as winter starts is created simply to sell presents.
2007-03-20	“Grenades,” “scoobies,” and the sport of Disc Golf The past several years have seen what were once considered “slacker” sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, and many others go legit, attracting widespread media coverage and some very lucrative sponsorship deals. Fort Wayne resident Brent Koontz is hoping that disc golf will be the next sport to join their ranks.
2016-11-07	“No plot? No problem!" “No plot? No problem!” so goes the motto of National Novel Writing Month. The event actually began in July 1999, when California-based freelance writer Chris Baty gathered some friends to help him stay motivated to finish a novel.
2010-11-08	“Time to let ‘the kids’ take over” There used to be a saying: “Behind every successful man, there’s a good woman.” Something like that, at least. The saying is probably still around, and though it’s considered sexist these days, the principal still holds true…
2018-05-31	“Who you calling ‘boring’!?” One of the largest public infrastructure projects in the history of Fort Wayne is underway with the construction of the Deep Rock Tunnel, a planned five-mile-long tunnel, more than 200-feet under the earth’s surface…
2015-11-10	“You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!” During the holiday season, Ralphie, Farkus and the Old Man have become almost as iconic as candy canes, Christmas trees, and shopping mall Santas.
2009-10-05	“…a title so awful… with a plot so absurd…” The levels of irony, sarcasm, and irreverence going on in Urinetown are enough to make the brain of even the most avid and astute post-modernist combust. In fact, the musical comes right out and announces its intentions and tone right from the beginning, with the character Little Sally drawing attention to the “awful title” with a plot so absurd…”

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