Why have you taken on growing fresh produce and eating well as a personal cause?“Because food sovereignty is a community effort. If I am affected, indirectly or directly, then the whole community is affected by the lack of food.Being a food/agriculture activist, I can’t sit by in a food desert — having the skills that I have to grow food and to teach people to grow food — and do nothing. My...
“I love to help people,” Darrel Wright explains of putting his passion to work as owner of Wright Way Fitness, a popular gym tucked away in Midtown. Step inside and discover the philosophies of Wright — Army vet/4-time Gold Glove boxing champ, and certified nutritionist — on motivation, preparation, and inspiration.
“There’s something about driving a bus that’s very empowering, very freeing,” says Candice Crooke, owner of mobile boutique Fountain City Mystic. “It’s really cool to be able to incorporate that feeling , that vine, into your business.”Watch and learn how Candice parlayed her family tradition of vintage-clothing retail, frustration with working in corporate fashion, a quarter-life crisis, and a...
What are the odds that a part of Uptown will be designated by the city as an ‘entertainment’ zone and allows open-containers of alcoholic beverages?“That was something that was being actively investigated prior to COVID.Obviously, discussion got derailed. Once restrictions are lifted, we’ll examine the opportunity to carry beverages from one place to the next. There are communities that have done...
Part 2 with the Producing Artistic Director of the Springer Opera House Read Part 1 here. How would you describe your response, and the response of your staff, to COVID? “It has not been easy. Fortunately, I have a staff of very smart, very innovative people.Just like everyone at the beginning, we didn’t know how long this was going to last. The idea was: Everybody was going to go home for...
Part 1 of 2 with the Producing Artistic Director of the Springer Opera House What qualities make for a great theater?“Of course, there is the excellence of the work itself.But one of the things I’ve learned over my career is authenticity in terms of leadership and direction of the organization, but also of service. It’s relatively easy, once you know how to do it, to do great plays and put great...
Real Estate Developer, Writer, Literary Philanthropist You have stated that, with the endowment that you established at Columbus State, your wish is to do for the literary arts what the university has done for visual arts and performing arts in recent years. How do you see that vision taking shape?“Actually, I was planning to do something like this half my life, once I could afford to do it...
Executive Director, Chattahoochee River Conservancy What is the biggest threat to the health of the Columbus stretch of the Chattahoochee River?“The biggest threat we see on a regular basis is the litter. The amount of litter we pull from our trash traps as well as our watershed clean-ups — it’s just atrocious.Micro-plastics are becoming a problem as well. And smaller plastic pieces—fish, animals...
Chair, Friends of Ma RaineyCommunity Liaison, Muscogee County School District Is the legacy of Ma Rainey adequately preserved and presented here in Columbus, Georgia?“We’re getting there. We’re on a journey but I do think we’re getting there.We have the house here. The movie [Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom released on Netflix in December] helped.Ma Rainey is known probably all over the world better...
Executive Director, Dragonfly Trails Network Why is bicycle infrastructure—from both a commuting and recreational standpoint—important to economic development?“Take the Riverwalk for example, designed to be a really beautiful service road for our Combined Sewer Overflow [CSO] system. Cities started building trails for recreational purposes and then noticed people were using them to get to work...