Gary Smith, old-school photojournalist - admired by many - dies at work

Gary Smith is the kind of guy you could never say enough good things about - among them, his dedication to photojournalism. Gary was at his newspaper job when he died of an apparent heart attack at age 62 after being in the trenches about 37 years.

Anybody who was reading the Advocate during the years of 1972 (when I hired him as an intern) and 1986 (when he took a job with the Maryland Independent) will remember the photographic excellence he brought to the paper. In '72, Gary was working on a master's in photography at Ohio University. We hired him as intern for $95 a week, and later he came on full-time, likely at not much more money.

The years that followed were the glory days for local photojournalism because we had not only Gary, but two other top gunners - John Allee and Joy Ream.

I've kept bits of information about former employees on file, and I found in Gary's folder this morning a note to me from Jim Underwood, who was in 1977 the Advocate news editor. It praised Gary's coverage of late-breaking news on a fire at Newark Convalescent and Nursing Inn.

The fire broke out about 10:35 a.m. and our final deadline was 11. Jim monitored fire runs and police calls on an old annoying CB radio by his desk and beeped Gary who was on the scene within minutes.

"Right after arriving on the scene, Gary phoned in the first report, and the first draft was in the typewriter before the firemen had the situation under control," Jim wrote. "We went to work on the initial story before the 11 a.m. deadline. Three graphs into the rewrite, I received a follow-up report from Joy (Ream), who had somehow managed to shoot the pictures, grab some more details, and even get a statement from Chief Bader.

"As a result of their fast work one of the major breaking stories of the day made it down to the shop around 11:45 - a little over an hour after the Fire Department received the call from the nursing home.

"I bring this to your attention because I believe it demonstrates the kind of people we have working here. Gary and Joy's handling of the situation was exemplary. They have demonstrated once again what real professionalism can mean to a newsroom."

That's just one little story among many that Advocate co-workers and readers could tell about Gary's dedication and hard work.

He was held in similarly high regard by the people he served in Maryland, judging by the Independent's report on his death.

Gary grew up in Zanesville, was Vietnam veteran, a dedicated family man and a devout Christian. He's the kind of guy who made the world a better place, and I'm proud that he remained my friend through all these years.

Across the U.S. in two minutes with Sara Lando

Among the nicer things that happened to my wife and me in 2008 was the visit from Italy of a newly married couple who were honeymooning their way across the U.S.

I had developed an on-line friendship with Sara Lando a couple years earlier when she and I both wrote on-line journals and she was studying photography at a school on the east coast. I tried then to get her to visit me in Ohio but time and finances prevented it. She returned to Italy and became a highly successful studio photographer. She and her work have been featured in several European magazines and already she's in demand as a lecturer on photography.

On her honeymoon trip that began on the West Coast and ended on the East Coast, she and her husband, Alessandro Locatelli, stopped in Newark for a day and half and we entertained them as best we could, though one of those days was Sunday and many of the places I wanted to show them were closed.

If you like to look at photos, take a look at Sara's website, named MooseRental at this link.

Her visit was in May but it was only recently Sara published an on-line video about the trip. Hang on to your hat when you watch because you're going to see 1,612 images in two minutes. Among them will be the Indian dancers that performed during the opening ceremonies of the museum at Newark Earthworks, the Alan Cottrill Gallery in Zanesville, a display at The Works, and me standing in front of the Longeberger basket building with a paper sack over my head.


Honeymoon from bruko on Vimeo

Newspapers, dump the herd mentality and save thyselves

The Advocate yesterday proved itself willing to take a bashing in the name of free speech when it published my blog entry "Newspaper customers deserve better." I doubted Gannett managers would be so First-Amendment oriented, but they proved me wrong. Some really good comments were added by readers too.

Something about contemporary print journalism that I don't think anybody understands is this: Why are publishers attempting to profit from a product they are throwing at my doorstep for $26.86 per three months, while, with the other hand, they are giving me without charge most of the same info on the Internet?

How long will it be before they understand they now have two products to SELL, each with distinct advantages?

I have for several years spent a good chunk of change (currently $25 per year) for a subscription to LiveJournal, which, before I started "blogging," I used as a creative writing outlet and an Internet meeting place with people who interest me. I scarcely write anything there anymore, but I still read about my friends and sometimes comment. So how much more valuable would be such a meeting place among local folks, assuming the web site were as skillfully designed and as convenient to use as LJ?

Then what if you added to that web site a truly well-designed, 24-hours-per-day news report with constant updates that would keep folks returning throughout the day and evening?

Then what if you added a good search engine to that site, one that would pull up local names and previously reported items?

And what if you offered many more useful databases than is being done already?

And a complete an easily searched library of back issues of the print edition?

And links and e-mail addresses to local government offices, agencies, and businesses?

And what if you promoted all of these features and gave the url's throughout the articles and ads in the print edition?

And what if you provided for advertisers in the print edition links to the web site where shoppers could go for detailed information and more pictures of individual retail products? Think of the advantage advertisers would have over those blinking annoying pieces of crap presently being stuck in web readers' faces.

If offered only that much on their web sites it would be worth a good chunk of change for a subscription - at least $50 a year to me.

On the other hand, my wife would pay nothing. She's not a computer person, but gives the printed Advocate a thorough read, while I scarcely give it a good skim, except for the classifieds and photos. So there's the rub for publishers. How do you serve - and profit from - both types of audience? And what can the print edition do that the web will never do, beside serve people like my wife?

A renaissance in classified advertising would greatly add to reader interest. Classifieds should be the common man's marketplace and it would be if they again became affordable. Publishers should use them as loss leaders for print versions only.

Other advertising that can be handled only by print versions is legal advertising and delivery of inserts which is also a readership a draw for shoppers like my wife.

Something else that cannot be handled on the web is photojournalism - words and pictures used in combination to add dimension to the subject matter. There isn't - and never will be - enough room on the computer screen to display good photos and layouts.

Then there are certain types of reading matter that don't have a timeliness and can be deferred to the print version and only there. 1) Well-conceived and well-written and tightly edited and interesting feature items, local and syndicated; 2) Daily TV schedule; 3) The day's community calendar; 4) State and national government coverage to include each vote by local senators and representatives - plus synopses of bills passing though the statehouse and congress and state and federal courts; 5) News analysis; 6) Editorials; 7) Columnists - to include columns by local reporters and editors; and 8) Comics - and likely much more that could be used in schools as teaching tools.

All of these are basic to newspaper reader interest and worth money if professionally conceived and presented.

Newspaper profitability is a matter of getting rid of herd mentality that says newspaper web sites should be a free version of the print edition.

Grandma

Be my guest in viewing what I think is a photo that speaks of universal love - at this link.

Sites for sore eyes

If you like to look at photos, or if you study photo-editing techniques, the very best of the best galleries are, in my opinion, those at the Washington Post site. From this web page you can link to various galleries. The "Day in Photos" gallery is a place I visit daily.

What sets these galleries apart from almost all other photo displays you see on the web or in print is the selection of interesting photos that are well-composed and cropped to perfection. This is a textbook photo site produced with uncommon expertise.

Also, for web-site-building expertise, and for editing copy for web readership, visit the site of The Week Magazine.

This one has broken free of the box in which other news sites seem confined because they can't quit copying one another - and they invariably are difficult to read and navigate. The Week site should be on copy writers' editors' and web designers' must-read list.

You'll find an amazing and visually riveting photo display at Jumping Boy web site. I mentioned this site a couple years ago when this young fellow was being photographed by his dad in a series of 365 jumping poses - one each day.

You'd think that project would have worn him out, but he kept on jumping and his web site has grown even more interesting. Likely if you visit, you'll get hooked too.

It's interesting, but it ain't photography

If you're interested in photography, there's a cyber exhibition on the Rangefinder site not to miss. This is a magazine, by the way, that comes free to professionals and if you qualify, it's a gift to look forward to each month.

This exhibition is particularly interesting to me because of its electronically manipulated images. If you missed my observations on that subject, and if you care a twig about photography, you should read it here.

Also read the additions to those thoughts by a couple other photographers. Gary Smith, who many years ago was among the Advocate's best gunners, wrote about the effect of Photoshop at this link and Rich Bergeman, a long-ago Advocate news editor, bemoaned the watering-down of art photography by "pixelgraphing" here.

There are some truly excellent images in the Rangefinder exhibition. Most offer clear visual messages that speak to a kaleidoscope of emotions. I suspect that many, if not most, of them are heavily manipulated, further opening photography's most important consideration of the day: Are they photos, or something else?

The definition of exactly what these things are, and the truth-in-captioning of such images would give the pixelgraph movement a purity and an honesty that it sorely needs; it would also provide a different - unspoiled - arena for photographic purists.

Flag for potential LCHS donors has been raised

The hoopla surrounding the sale of the Clarence H. White prints by the Licking County Historical Society earned the LCHS considerable publicity and offered an education to the rest of us.

That those in charge of the Society can sell off items assumed to belong to the public is news to me - not that I think it's illegal or under-handed, but only that I never considered such a possibility.

The fact that members of this group sold White's highly significant, once-in-a-lifetime treasures from Newark's past should raise a flag to all potential donors.

A donation is a transfer of ownership, meaning the new owner can do whatever he wants with it, including sell it. Now we know the LCHS might very well do that no matter what the historical significance, especially if there's a handsome profit involved.

Therefore, chances are good that future donations to LCHS will be considered with a great deal of care. Older folks looking for a haven for family relics might as well give them away as gifts or sell them to whomever will pay most. Better such proceeds stay in the family than under the control of quasi-government machinery on the prowl for profit.

If items could be loaned rather than donated, the owner would maintain his right to protect and preserve them. Such an arrangement would be the only way I'd entrust the LCHS with my stuff, if I had any. If this option exists for donors, the Society would do well to make it known.

Why preserve our heritage, when we can profit from it it?

Let the sale in New York City of the White photographs be a wake-up call to local folks who assumed, like I did, that the local historical society is being run by people who always make good decisions. It is not.

But this catastrophe at least opened new vistas for government and quasi-government fund-raisers. Now that the Historical Society has discovered this novel way in which to make money, namely selling valuable items from the community's heritage, one might expect them next to sell the Webb House. This would be really big bucks for historians to use "to collect and preserve, or encourage the preservation of, all that pertains to the social, political, educational, agricultural, industrial, and archaeological history of the ... County," as is their mission.

If that works out for the Historical Society, its deciders might find even more profits by developing condos along the rim of Sixth Street Park.

Maybe the idea will catch on and the city could find paving money by selling off the Courthouse lawn for permanent shanties as rentals to itinerant merchants.

Then the state might awaken to the potential wealth of Newark Earthworks. Sell the buggers. California might buy them and if not, China would. Ship them out of here because, after all, it's only our local heritage - and what's that, compared to money?

134,250 pieces of silver

NOTE: Please refer to the Advocate report from April 9, 2008 because it reports net proceeds ($110,000) and not gross proceeds ($134,250) that I used here, from which one can conclude that about $25,000 went to sale expenses.

Licking County Historical Society is richer by $134,250, sort of, but the long-term cost may be much greater than that.

David Spencer reported as a comment in this journal on the prices paid to Licking County Historical Society for some photos by Clarence H. White. They were sold by Sotheby's Auction House, New York City April 8, 2008.

According to his report, 11 prints were sold and two unsold for a total gross price of $134,250.

"Telegraph poles" described here earlier as "a rare local gemstone" brought $103,000; "The Arbor," $11,250; "The Readers, $10,000; and "Selected Studies" (eight images), $10,000. Two ("Woodland Scene" and "The Puritan") did not sell, apparently because no bidder met the Society's reserve amount.

Of particular interest to collectors was the lot containing eight photos because two of the platinum prints in that group are "quite important," according to one dealer/expert/curator who insists on anonymity. Six of these photos are platinum prints, two are photogravures, and all are very early works by Mr. White.

Among these - the most important one in the dealer's view - was an image entitled "Lounging." It was shown in the "New School of American Photography" exhibition organized by F. Holland Day, presented in London and Paris. It was also exhibited twice in the Newark Camera Club shows (1899 and 1900) and further exhibited in New York (1899), Dresden (1909) and finally in the influential International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo (1910). Another print of this image is in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This image was published twice in 1901, once in The Photogram and again in the Bulletin du Photo-Club de Paris. "Lounging," shows Letitia Felix in the Penney House in Newark. Letitia was, if I remember previous research correctly, Clarence's sister-in-law.

"Someone got a sweet deal," he said, explaining that the LCHS take on these eight images would be $7,500 or less after sale expenses, or not even $1,000 each.

The exact amount of net proceeds and how they are used is a subject for the Advocate to report.

But no matter about that, it will be interesting to observe, as the years roll on, if this relatively piddling amount of "profit" will not have cost the Society irreparable harm to its reputation as trustworthy keeper of the community's historical treasures.

"Telegraph Poles," a rare LOCAL photographic gemstone, goes to auction

Among world-renowned photos by Newark's Clarence H. White being sold by Licking County Historical Society April 8 is one entitled "Telegraph Poles."

Here's how the auction house catalogue describes the famous photograph, in part:
Clarence H. White's 'Telegraph Poles' offers a spare and modern view of Newark, Ohio, where the photographer lived from 1887 to 1906. It was in Newark that White began to photograph, while working as a clerk at Fleek and Neal, the grocery wholesaler where his father was employed. White's distance from the artistic epicenter of New York City makes his development as a photographer of real talent and sensitivity all the more remarkable. In many respects, 'Telegraph Poles' shows that White, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, was further advanced on the path to modernism than many of his contemporaries.
...
'Telegraph Poles' shows a small section of what had once been an extensive series of canals built throughout Ohio and extending to the Great Lakes. The canals facilitated trade and the transfer of freight throughout the state and, via the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal, to the east coast... In White's day, remnants of the canal were still present in Newark...

Here's what William B. Becker, director of the photographymuseum.com, wrote to me about that photograph:

"Having acquired a previously unrecorded, signed platinum print of this image in January, I can assure you that it is not some interchangeable work that would not be missed from a collection rich with other CHWs. This is not only a masterpiece, it was recognized as such from the time it was made. (Please see the attached quotation, which hit me like a lightning bolt when I discovered it.) And only four platinum prints of 'Telegraph Poles' are known."

Here is that quotation:

The most notable instance of Mr. White's ability to extract beauty from the homeliest material is the print entitled Telegraph Poles. The scene appears to be a canal, on the banks of which are poles and irregular buildings, separated by vacant spaces, like teeth and stumps and gaps in an old crone's jaw—an unsightly, even squalid, spot, at least to the stranger; but to the man who has seen it under all sorts of aspects of light and weather, moreover, with an artist's eye, alive to the abstract fascination of mere lines and masses, of mingled variety of tone, this most unsuggestive subject has revealed possibilities which have yielded an original and strikingly beautiful picture.

If I am addressing any one who has hitherto regarded art as the mere imitating of objects, this picture should open up a new idea. It would seem that it is not so much the objects as the use which the artist makes of them that constitutes art, the little something of himself mixed in with the ingredients, the personal alchemy that transmutes the commonplace into the beautiful. So, if you want your portrait taken, it may be less important what clothes you wear than whom you select to photograph them.

--Charles H. Caffin, Photography as a Fine Art: The Achievements and Possibilities of Photographic Art in America (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1901) pp. 121-122 [reprinted from Everybody's Magazine]

For more information on White, visit the Newark Tea Party Clarence H. White Gallery at this link. For more information on the sale of White's prints by the Licking County Historical Society, go to the box at the top of this page and type in "photography."

Art photography also suffers from Photoshop

Some photographers who specialize in art photography are also bothered by computer manipulation of images, since it can rob photographic prints of authenticity and therefore intrinsic value.

I wrote here about the use of Photoshop as being a barrier to believability in an essay entitled "Photoshop: Sophomoric barrier to truth."

Next day, Gary Smith, a photojournalist in the Washington DC area, wrote about the journalistic problems associated with manipulation of images in a piece headlined "What about Photoshop for the photojournalist?"

One might suppose that art photographers would never find fault with the addition or subtraction or glamorization of elements in, say, landscape pictures.

Not so. Rich Bergeman, an art photographer on the west coast, writes:

I'm personally concerned over what Photoshop is doing to the field of art photography. It seems that every ... landscape "captured" these days has to be the most stupendous, colorful, mind-blowing landscape photo ever taken in the history of mankind. Gaudy is the trend these days, and unbelievably "perfect" landscape images are so common now that we're naturally suspicious of the authenticity of all photos we see. I think truth in labeling is needed in art photography as much as in photojournalism.

Rich, in fact, has submitted to an art quarterly an article that pleads for truth in labeling of "pixelgraphs." I have archived an excerpt here:




Here's an example of a pixelgraph from the London Daily Mail. It's one of a series of stylized weather images published on line at this link.

Historical Society: Here's what a museum expert thinks

I recently received a letter from a person who has far more experience in historical museums than any other person I know. She grew up here but moved away 26 years ago. Since then she has worked with Faberge (jewelled) eggs from the Hermitage (in Russia), DaVinci sketches, Michelangelo’s slippers & drawing tools. She does conservation and restoration work on textiles for collectors; she is helping update museum exhibits in Memphis and has "dressed" Elvis a few times - to mention a few examples from her vast experience.

This lady knows about the local Clarence White connection and about the Licking County Historical Society's upcoming yard sale for some of his prints. Here's her comment:

As someone who has been involved for years in museum collection departments, I don’t understand the logic behind the (Licking County Historical Society) selling the Clarence White photos. What treasures for the citizens of Licking County! I have two early photos of Newark ... that I had seriously considered donating to the LCHS. ... No reason to “entrust” the LCHS with these now, if they’re so casually disposing of the fabulous White collection!

What about Photoshop for the photojournalist?

Gary Smith, a photographer for the Advocate many years ago who now works as a photojournalist for a newspaper in a Washington DC suburb, sent an interesting response to my rant on Photoshopped images being passed along the Internet. I hadn't even considered the journalistic quagmire presented by the ability to manipulate digital images.

Because some sensationalistic newspapers thrive on scams, visual and otherwise, and while all, or most, magazine cover photos are beautified by image manipulation, serious photojournalists are worried that they might be suspected of scamming though it would the last thing they'd consider doing.

Gary sent me a link to a report by the National Press Photographers Association regarding the doctoring of photos published by the Toledo Blade and the subsequent firing of the photographer. This is the link to that story.

Gary uses a method for preservation of the integrity of unmanipulated vs Photoshopped (manipulated) images. Whenever he uses any Photoshop tool beyond lightening, darkening, cropping, color-correcting or sharpening, his work becomes “Photo illustration by Gary Smith” and not “Photo by Gary Smith." That's how he can righteously call himself a photojournalist and alert local readers about what's going on. Great idea that ought to become standard practice.

Corrections ...

... to the information I wrote with the photo of the girl in the blue sun dress. I had misremembered a couple of the technical details of the system by which color photos were printed on old machines. Anybody who cares about that ought to go back and read the corrected version at this link.

Photoshop: Sophomoric barrier to truth

The divide between old-school stink-finger photographers and new-age digital photographers is wide and deep.

Creation of present-day images and the objectives therein - beauty, communication, human interest, and the rest of it - haven't changed much except for the technical speed, accuracy and convenience offered by the digital era.

Unfortunately, it is an era that allows, through the magic of Photoshop, the ability to alter images that cannot be - except for the logic of them - discerned from real images. Thus has Photoshop become the ruination of believable imagery.

Used to be that when you saw a photograph you were required to make a literal interpretation. A photo couldn't lie. There were certain alterations, however, that could be concocted in the darkroom, but they were clumsy and obvious. You can see examples within my own work - double-negative prints, paste-ups, and filtering for instance. But few if any photographers back then would stoop to passing off a darkroom-faked image as unaltered.

Coming up the ranks as a photographic technician wasn't all that much of an easy skate to begin with, not compared to requirements of today: understanding and memorization of the digital camera's owner manual and likewise for Photoshop. The study of stink-finger darkrooming today is akin to the rewards of mountain-climbing.

If technique to the perfect image is easier now and the education and experience leading thereto is shorter, so much the better. I'm for making life easy as possible and I'm totally digital now. But I can no longer pretend to enjoy the challenge of discerning between the real and the Photoshopped.

There seems to be multitudes of these new-age image scammers who crank out these sophomoric and faked "photos" of carni-like oddities and send them via Internet to gullible folks who feel compelled to religiously spam their entire e-mailing lists with this crap.

Photoshop has become, among "photographers" with juvenile intellect, one more barrier to truth in a world where truth is more precious than ever.

Sale of Clarence White prints: A disservice in more ways than one

Thanks to the Advocate, Licking County recently learned that its historical society is selling 13 photographs created by Clarence White, world-famous photographer whose career started in Newark Ohio. Here's the link to that Advocate report.

Also, I had written about the sale at this link and about the work and reputation and local connection of Clarence White at this Newark Tea Party gallery.

Part of the rationale for that sale, according to the society's curator, Emily Larson, is that few Newark residents are familiar with him. “'I bet if you walked around town and asked people if they had heard of Clarence H. White, they’d say no,' Larson said" in the Advocate report.

Which should have led to the question: "What's the difference?" and "How many historic icons represented in the Society's collections would be so recognized?" and "On what are you basing that statement?"

The other part of the rationale for the sale of these once-in-the-history-of-photography-and-of-Newark photographs was "lack of gallery space and proper equipment ..."

Larson was quoted by the Advocate as saying: "Profits from the sales will go toward a Clarence White Endowment that will aid in the society’s efforts to preserve permanent collections." I think the "s" on the end of the word "collection" is significant. I think it means that instead of devoting all the profits of this sale to the preservation and display of the White collection, it means, instead, that the money is for all the stuff being held by the Society.

If that's what it means, the White photos are merely one grand and very lucrative yard sale for the enrichment of the Society.

Exactly how much is realized from this sale and what it's used for will, in the end, reveal the significance of that little "s." And calling the loot from this sale a "Clarence White Endowment" is in no way going to compensate for Licking County's loss of this irreplaceable, world-class heritage from Clarence White.

Further, this sale will surely have an effect on folks with historical items that might be donated to the Society. For one thing, I hope - and I urge - the holders of the Walter White photographs, another world-class photographer whose Tea Party gallery you can see here, will never entrust them or any part of them to the Licking County Historical Society. The same with any other item that donors might suppose would be permanently kept in Licking County. The Society has done itself a great disservice in more ways than one.

Local historical society sells Clarence White photographs

...but why it is doing so is a question still to be answered

Though I have lived next to and under the professional shadow of Clarence H. White for many years, only about a year ago did it strike me that he was appreciated in far away places more than in Newark. That's when I published at the Newark Tea Party a gallery that briefly summarizes his work and his importance to the history of world photography. Here's the link to that gallery. Folks from throughout the world have visited it.

Collectors and researchers contact me, though I never pretended to be informed about any of this. The realization that White and his family are buried within walking distance of my home was my original wake-up call. From there, my web site information grew only to the point where it eventually got swallowed up by my other projects and interests, so it doesn't run deep by any means.

I am not an authority on Clarence H. White nor the history of photography, but I do know that he and his philosophy have been the subject of many scholarly books and papers. (One of them is Pictorialism into Modernism: The Clarence H. White School of Photography)

Nor am I a collector. I have so many of my own photographs to sort through it may never get done, and among those are so many I'd like to hang that I wouldn't take a collection of White prints if they were free, except to aid in their preservation.

Still, since there seems to be so few local folks who recognize the importance of CHW, I've been interested in seeing established locally some permanent display of his work, along with that of Walter White, who is no relation but also holds a worldwide reputation for contributions to the history of photography from the work that came out of his Newark studio. (I also have a Walter White Gallery)

To that end I visited the manager/curator of the Licking County Historical Society a few weeks ago and inquired about the CHW collection. She promised to send me a list of holdings, but failed to do so and I had not yet followed up.

Yesterday I learned that the LCHS has placed some or all of its White photographs up for auction. You can view little reproductions of these photos at the Sotheby's Auction site, if you type in the lot numbers 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, and 164 in the Lots Search box at the top of the page. When the hammer comes down April 8, 2008 Licking County will have been robbed of its (or some of its?) claim to international recognition and these works will have been scattered throughout the world.

A faraway collector of valuable photographs, including those of CHW, who knows the rules of such auctions has told me that once placed with this auction house there is no withdrawal, at least it's not at all common to do so. I think, however, a court order could stop the sale.

This sale of Clarence White's photographs is a monumental event in the cultural history of Newark and Licking County. The story of that sale and how it came about should be of interest to local media - as much or more than it is to me.

Who made that decision and why is a story Licking Countians need to be told. It is, after all, another chapter of an international story.

Now for some good news ...

Among the things government workers have done right is the remodeling of Ohio 13 through the north end of Newark. Beautiful new sidewalks, pavement, and clearing away old stuff make a world of difference.
.....
Randy Lamb, bless him, is retiring as Newark Schools band director. Count my kids as among the thousands of students who became better individuals because of his influence. Randy is a genius - as band technician and role model and I will always be grateful for his career-long contributions to this community.
.....
The book Judith Waite Allee co-authored - "Homeschooling on a Shoestring" has been getting more good reviews. If the subject of home schooling interests you, check it here
and here.
.....
Judith is the wife of John Allee who has a Newark Tea Party gallery.
Here's the link.

World-famous photographer featured at The Tea Party

The Newark Tea Party added new information and images connected to the life and photography of Clarence H. White, a world-famous photographer credited with pioneering, in large part, the Pictorialist movement. White and eight family members are buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Newark Ohio. Please feel welcome to tour the gallery at Newark Tea Party