A recent e-mail asking me for a price on glass patio doors made me start to wonder, was someone really confused or was this some strange spam/scam? Curiosity drove me to my friend, Google, to discover what is out there when you use “Glass City” as a search term.

If you haven’t heard of the Glass City Opry then there is no time like the present to head over. There is not a blog, but there is plenty of information and podcasts so that you can listen to some of the Bluegrass music.

Own a Harley? Then becoming a Glass City Hog might be just the thing for you. All of the information on how you can join is on their website, where members enjoy group riding, lunch rides, overnight trips and other special events.

Perhaps there is no Harley in your garage but a Corvette, which could mean that the Glass City
Corvette Club could be the road you want to travel on. The club was formed in 1966, there’s lots more information including how to join and how to subscribe to their newsletter “The Fiber Fibber” on their website.

Then there is Stained Glass City where if you have ever wanted to learn how to make stained glass windows? This would be a great website to start from, shared there is many tips and quite a few links to get you started.

One of my favorite Glass City events is coming in March, Glass City Beer Fest where the cute little beer mouse icon will follow you all around the website. This year’s entertainment will be 56 Daze, I headed over to their website for a sneak listen.

Another great event coming in the next few months is the Glass City Marathon where the website shares all of the information including something new for this year, the half marathon. For those of you wanting more but not all…

Lastly, this caught my eye, Glass City Synchro, yes synchronized swimming! It’s here and it appears to be growing in interest from looking at the website. They have both a competitive and a non-competitive team.

As you can see whether it’s cars, motorcycles, drinking beer or even synchronized swimming, the Glass City has you covered. Remembering the days when she once wanted to be a synchronized swimmer, Lisa Renee Ward can be found on Glass City Jungle and by e-mail at glasscityjungle@gmail.com.

During the course of helping folks with their estate and financial plan design, it is important that we get all of the proper information before making any recommendations. It is like a doctor making a diagnosis. If we don’t know all the symptoms, we run the risk of prescribing the wrong medicine.
Don’t pay income taxes on money that you are not using. As we gather this information, we ask a lot of questions to determine what steps should be included in the planning process.
One of the questions is, “What are you going to do with your money and when will you need to use it?” Most folks have plans for their savings, short-term and longer-term. Time after time, we see folks with large sums of money in various bank accounts. If these are not retirement accounts, they are typically income taxable each year, whether you are using the money or not. In most cases, people are not using the money, but may have plans to use it in the future. The bottom line is they are paying taxes on money not in use.
Do you want to earn interest on your money or do you want Uncle Sam to?  If your money is for longer-term use, why pay taxes on it? Most of the time, it is a comfort level knowing that money is at your fingertips. In most cases, there are plenty of other liquid assets to deal with any unexpected emergencies. So the choice is to pay taxes on it now or pay taxes on it later.
“Why shouldn’t I just pay the taxes now?  I will have to pay it later anyway, right?  I might as well get it over with.” You may be a lot better off paying it later. Here is an example. If you had a dollar in your hand and could pay it to Uncle Sam now or years from now, what would you do?  Consider this: If you pay the dollar now, you never see it again. You no longer have use of it.  If you pay it later, you keep the dollar in your account and continue to earn interest on it as long as you leave it there. You get to create interest that you never would have had. This is often referred to as “the magic of compounding.” This can be accomplished by deferring taxes until deciding when you want to pay it. You control when you pay the taxes.
Uncle Sam got friendlier. You may not consider Uncle Sam a friend, but in the past few years, he got friendlier.  Some of the rules have changed to the taxpayers’ advantage.  One of the law changes that many do still not know about occurred several years ago. It allows the taxpayer to stretch out paying taxes on an inherited retirement account over a lifetime. This can mean a huge, huge difference in how meaningful this account becomes to your children or grandchildren.
Before leaving office, President Bush signed into law the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008.  This law is designed to help retirees who have been affected negatively by the current recession. Folks over the age of 70 1/2 are required to take a Required Minimum Distribution each year from their retirement account and pay the income taxes on the distribution. The account holder can defer taking a distribution for 2009 and start taking the required distribution again in 2010.  In effect, it is one year off.  You will be deferring the taxes and allow the tax money you would have paid to stay in your account and earn interest for another year.  Same concept as we pointed out earlier in this article. The difference is that for non-retirement accounts, like savings, CDs, money market, if you reposition these monies into a tax-deferred account, you can defer taxes for not just one year, but for many years to come.
Do you want to pay taxes now, or later? The choice is up to you. Seek advice of a qualified financial professional to see what is right for you.

For more information about The Retirement Guys, tune in every Saturday at noon on 1230 WCWA and every Sunday at 11 a.m. on 1370 WSPD or visit www.retirementguysradio.com.  Securities are offered through NEXT Financial Group Inc., Member FINRA / SIPC.  The Retirement Guys are not an affiliated of NEXT Financial Group.  7135 Sylvania Ave, 2B, Sylvania, OH 43560. Neither NEXT Financial Group, Inc. nor its representatives are qualified to give tax advice.  Please consult your tax professional regarding your particular situation before making investment decisions.

Six weeks after he became a household name, Samuel Wurzelbacher was making a sandwich in the kitchen of his Holland, Ohio, home. His son sat on a couch in a nearby room. Suddenly, it hit him: He was “Joe the Plumber.” He had caused a controversy and was sought after by reporters across the nation — and worldwide — all because of one question.
“I realized how sad we had become when just a straight question caused so much controversy,” Wurzelbacher said.
On Oct. 12, Wurzelbacher had the opportunity to ask Barack Obama one question during Obama’s campaign stop in Toledo. He questioned Obama’s tax plan and how it would affect his plumbing business. The Democratic nominee gave an answer that Wurzelbacher said sparked the controversy.
“I hate how politicians double speak and don’t give straight answers — that goes for Democrat or Republican,” Wurzelbacher said in a Feb. 16 telephone interview. “The questions I heard being asked were not very difficult and he was just hitting them hard. My boss and I, about two weeks before this, were talking about putting the wheels in motion for me to buy the company, so those thoughts were on my mind. Otherwise, I would have asked about immigration.”

Sarah Palin and "Joe the Plumber" in Bowling Green (AP)

American Dream
The event gave the media, especially FOX News, the chance to make Wurzelbacher famous and cause his name to evolve from “the plumber” to “Joe the Plumber,” a representative of conservative middle America.
In his new book with co-author Tom Tabback, “Joe The Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream,” released Feb. 6, Wurzelbacher encourages Americans to step up to hard work to combat politicians from “spreading the wealth” and driving America to socialism. Americans don’t need a New Deal for the 21st century, he writes, but instead they must take care of each other — by hiring and avoiding laying off workers — and realize the American Dream.
In the book, Wurzelbacher answers the questions the American people ask about him: Is he a deadbeat Dad? Does he have a plumbing license? Tax evader? Racist? He weaves in his political ideas and beliefs that politicians are corrupt.
Throughout the book, Wurzelbacher, a native of Northwest Ohio, shares the life experiences that shaped him into a man inspired by his faith, family and ideals.
“This is an American who has lived the American experience. He is not a kid, he has had his share of life’s challenges, and he believes in the American Dream,” Tabback said.
Wurzelbacher explained many of these challenges, such as his naiveté with the media and the issues surrounding his former boss, Al Newell, and his work as a plumber — which he said he had the credentials to be.
Tabback and Wurzelbacher wrote the book shortly after the election season. However, it was the weeks leading to the election, and the time Wurzelbacher spent on the campaign trail, which made him a household name.
Campaign trail
In October, Wurzelbacher committed to campaigning with McCain.
“When my name hit public airwaves, a lot of people wanted to interview me and talk to me. I had the RNC in Toledo stop by and interview me. But I didn’t want to support anyone. I didn’t like McCain’s politics, but Obama’s scared me more.
“As it got closer and closer it looked like McCain needed more and more help. People kept calling me and I decided I would go, so I said, ‘I’ll come with McCain and do what I can to help.’”
Wurzelbacher joined Sarah Palin Oct. 29 in Bowling Green, where he spoke with her and her husband.
“I think Sarah Palin is just too big for the things that McCain wants to do,” Wurzelbacher said.
Wurzelbacher said he followed and admires Palin’s desire to serve the country. Her work in Alaska interests him, as the state is his favorite place in the world ever since reading Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” at age 8.
The next day, McCain addressed an audience in Defiance. Assuming Wurzelbacher was there, McCain asked for him to stand.
“I was at Schmucker’s on Reynolds eating pancakes and eggs when McCain called from Defiance,” Wurzelbacher said.
He said the McCain campaign hadn’t asked him to be in Defiance. In his book, Wurzelbacher describes communicating with the campaign like “pulling teeth.” His willingness to attend the rally was lost when the McCain campaign failed to confirm with him.
Along with facing the media, and miscommunication with the McCain campaign, Wurzelbacher faced a new challenge when the director of an Ohio human services agency wrongly authorized searches of his personal records.
Ohio’s inspector general issued a report Nov. 20, stating that Helen E. Jones-Kelley, director of Ohio’s Department of Jobs and Family Services, wrongly authorized searches of government databases and records of Wurzelbacher’s child support payments, unemployment benefits and temporary aid to families.
Wurzelbacher is working with James Peterson, an attorney with Judicial Watch in Washington, D.C., to file a lawsuit at the end of the month.
“We are preparing a lawsuit to address the violation of his rights by state officials accessing confidential information merely because Mr. Wurzelbacher exercised his First Amendment rights,” Peterson said.
Miriam Wilson, visiting instructor of political science at the University of Toledo, said she watched the Wurzelbacher saga unfold in the media.
“What I think the McCain campaign was trying to do was really portray him as being an average Joe who would vote for Republicans, which would make the Republican Party seem to be a party not of the elite and the wealthy but of the people. In that regard, I think it was effective for a certain segment of the population,” she said.
Wilson said Wurzelbacher captured the “American Dream in his head but not the American reality” and that he would have been better off voting for Obama instead of pursuing an ideal situation where he could work hard to get ahead.
Yet Wurzelbacher committed to McCain. He said he thought going on the McCain bus was the right thing to do because of what he believes, not what McCain does.
He pursued opportunities as they came, joining McCain at his stop in Cleveland and interviewing on television shows such as “Hanity & Colmes.” Through it all, though, Wurzelbacher said he wanted to use his popularity for “the practical good.”
“When everything happened, the book was the last thing on my mind — until I went to the “Huckabee” show where I had about four different people ask me for the rights to my book and I said, ‘Well, what book?’ ”
Wurzelbacher said he felt like these publishers were treating him as a “shiny piece of metal” and trying to make the most of his 15 minutes of fame.
“I didn’t pay much attention to it. My phone was ringing off the hook and actually broke. I had to get a new phone because I received so many calls,” he said.
Meaningful story
Tabback approached Wurzelbacher and introduced himself as a small publisher who could not offer many benefits — including an advance check — but said he could write a good book.
“We found Joe like the rest of America did: his story on the news,” Tabback said.
“We felt he had a compelling story to tell — it was just a hunch — but something more than the tabloid story. We called Joe up, said, ‘we want to write your story. We will write you a story that is meaningful and has a purpose.’”
Wurzelbacher was impressed and said he and Tabback clicked with each other over their religious beliefs, interest in home schooling and ideals.
“We worked on it for a month. Tom flew up and we were joined at the hip for the ride of the election. Tom was on McCain’s bus and at the Palin rally. We were taking notes and talking the whole time and coming up with ideas for chapter headings. He went back to Texas and we would be on the computer for half the day together.”
For Wurzelbacher, the book touches on a personal note. He said the main idea of the book is “striving to do what is right even if doing right is hard,” a lesson he also tries to instill in his 13-year-old son, Joey.
“Tom Tabback pulled a lot of information out of me,” Wurzelbacher said. “He pulled a lot of stories from my life that I would never share with anybody because I am a very private person.
“The book talks about how hard work is the way of going about things. Getting things easy is never worth it. I learned a lot of my lessons hard, like a lot of people do. It talks about a lot of the different trials I went through growing up.”
Wurzelbacher said his life changed at age 17, when he was trusting science to solve life’s struggles. Monte McCune, his Toledo area youth pastor, pointed out to him, however, that his science book was revised eight times, and the Bible had no new edition coming out.
“Man is always revising: We thought it was this but now it’s this. The Holy Bible is what it is. I believe that it’s factually what our country was based on. And I believe it’s what you need in order to have a good life,” he said.
A good life
Wurzelbacher tries to keep his “good life” private and said his son has already been overexposed to the media while they camped outside of his home hoping for an interview.
“I have a mom and dad and a great son, two beautiful labs and a brother who is a baseball coach in Holland. We’re very involved in the community — that’s where it all starts at.”
Just like Wurzelbacher, the book is about being an American and traditional American values, Tabback said.
“It’s a book about here are the challenges we face today as Americans. We need to get ourselves out of this mess. We need to turn back to our tradition American values.”
Tabback said the book challenges Americans to not give in to government bailouts, but to think independently and remember the traditions America was founded on.
“The book is insightful because Joe, a plumber, always on the lower end of the middle class, is someone who doesn’t believe in government bailouts,” he said.
For the next month, Wurzelbacher will put the “grassroots” ideals of his book into action as he launches a book tour. At the end of the month he will be in Washington, D.C., for a book signing and the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he will sit on panels and attend Q&A sessions. Wurzelbacher will travel to West Chester and Fairfield, Ind. before heading to Wisconsin, Texas and California in March.
Through it all, Wurzelbacher said he remains true to his ideals.
“When people talk to me on an individual basis, they realize I’m just a regular guy.”

In today’s changing investment climate, it is well worth many investors’ time to learn about their retirement plans. Whether they contribute to an IRA or have an employer-sponsored plan like a 401(k), investors ought to learn their respective rules and features.
While IRAs, being individually established and self-directed, are much less restrictive, many of these rules apply more for 401(k)s, but are worthwhile for everyone to consider. First and foremost in any retirement plan, investors should learn about their investment options. Many company-sponsored plans have a limited list of investment options from which employees can choose, while others are more open-ended. And while some plans are quite restrictive in their investment options, they also have provisions allowing the employee to roll over their 401(k) into an IRA, which has many more options. All these rules are worth the little time it takes to study them.
Even more importantly in today’s economic environment, investors need to change the way they look at their retirement accounts. With Social Security underfunded and quickly falling out of favor, Americans need to look at their own savings as their primary retirement fund. As such, retirement accounts need attention, more than in the past. We are entering a period where there is good money to be made, but, unlike previous years, only in select investments. Here are a few steps readers can follow to prepare themselves:
1. Adjust your investment horizon to fit your profile. If you’re 30 years old, recognize that you probably aren’t going to retire anytime soon (Mega Millions aside). Invest with this timeline in mind, recognizing that you have decades to recoup recent losses. This brings up an important note: This doesn’t mean that you can simply buy into an investment and forget about it, just adopt the right mindset.
2. Develop an investment strategy and stick to it; don’t be discouraged by the day-to-day fluctuations of the market. Decide what level of contributions you are comfortable with and what investments allow you to sleep at night.
3. Don’t stop contributing to your retirement plan unless cash flow is a serious issue. With deep discounts to be found in stocks and corporate debt, it is extremely expensive to let fear get the better of you. Look at investment opportunities objectively to judge what looks good fundamentally but may have been sold down with the rest of the market.

For those with employer-sponsored retirement plans, here is perhaps the most important piece of advice we can offer: Find out whether your plan provides you with an adviser you can talk to. The adviser should be able to teach the ins and outs of your retirement plan, as well as discuss investment options. If an adviser isn’t made available and you don’t feel comfortable researching these issues yourself, please seek one out. Find an adviser that doesn’t charge for time (ask the secretary if you’re not sure) and get professional opinions on what you can do to be best-prepared for your retirement.

Dock David Treece is a stockbroker licensed with FINRA. He works for Treece Financial Services Corp., www.TreeceInvestments.com. The above information is the express opinion of Dock David Treece and should not be used without outside verification.

“Wishing You Were Here.” “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day.” “If You Leave Me Now.” “Hard to Say I’m Sorry.” “You’re the Inspiration.” “Glory of Love.” “The Next Time I Fall.”
Peter Cetera has written and co-written some big hits.

Peter Cetera

“I don’t care if it’s fast, slow, in the middle, screaming — whatever it is — if it doesn’t have a good melody, to me, it’s never going to be a memorable song,” he said. “I can’t remember the last song — or any song for that matter — that people can quote it word for word for word and not remember the melody. However, every song ever written, I guarantee you somebody knows the melody to that, but they don’t know the words.”
The 64-year-old added, “I think I’ve managed to combine emotion and true feelings with memorable melodies, and the words just happen to get dragged in there along the way.”
It’s been quite a musical path for Cetera. The bass player was the last original member to join the Chicago Transit Authority in 1967. He stayed with the legendary band that shortened its name and had a long string of hits until 1985, when the singer-songwriter wanted to work on a second solo record.
Cetera’s 1986 disc, “Solitude/Solitaire,” included “Glory of Love,” which was featured in  “The Karate Kid II.” The song went to No. 1 and Cetera received an Academy Award nomination.
The blond tenor will perform songs from his solo career and revisit Chicago favorites with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. March 7 at Stranahan Theater. Tickets are  $45 and $35.
Cetera answered questions for Toledo Free Press from Nashville, Tenn., where he was rehearsing with his band and visiting one of his daughters.
TFP: The first instrument you played was the accordion?
Cetera: My parents would not buy me a guitar. In the year between grammar school and high school, I was working as a stock boy in the supermarket and made enough money and went to Montgomery Wards or Sears or wherever it was and bought a $25 guitar and kind of learned those first position chords and then realized at that time in music, you could play just about every top 10 song there was with three, four, five, six chords.
TFP: Is that a true story about how you came to have that clenched-jaw singing style? You, a Chicago Cubs fan, were at a game in Los Angeles in 1969 and got into a fight?
Cetera: Yeah, let’s just say some Marines didn’t like my long hair and we got into a little beef, and I had a broken jaw and I was wired shut for a few months. And when they cut the wires off, I was always afraid of my jaw sticking open again, so I don’t really open my mouth a lot when I sing.
TFP: You’ve sung so many duets over the years — with Amy Grant, Cher, Chaka Khan, Alison Krauss. What makes them special?
Cetera: I think people just love duets. And when you combine duets with a great song, it’s magic. What’s always been fun with me is it gives you a chance to sing with someone — and in my case, outside of the Cher thing [“After All”], which was they came to me — I pick the duets just by luck, and it’s always a surprise, and when you get into the studio, it’s a unique experience.
TFP: Would you consider reuniting with Chicago for some concerts?
Cetera: I don’t think so. … I tried to put something together with them years back when I had my first album out — the first two songs from my album were No. 1 —about doing a joint billing and then for us getting together for the end of the evening and do a few songs together, but they didn’t want to do it, so that was that and this is now. You know, it’s all about the money anyhow, so it’s not about the love; all these people aren’t doing this for the love, they’re doing this for the money. And I just haven’t gotten to the point and I can’t see myself getting there where I would just do it for the money because I love what I’m doing now.

On the web: visit www.petercetera.com.

In the glory days of local broadcasting, a cadre of cadaverous characters stalked the late-night airwaves of most cities in the U.S. They were TV horror hosts — ghoulishly attired masters of ceremony with a taste for bad movies and even worse puns who introduced horror films during the final hours of the broadcast day.
While most of these hosts went off the air in the 1980s, they have been resurrected in the new documentary “American Scary,” which arrived on DVD Feb. 17. Filmmakers Sandy Clark and John Hudgens corralled and interviewed dozens of hosts from across the country, as well as famous fans like author Neil Gaiman and comedian Tim Conway to present an oral history of this uniquely American form of entertainment.
Clark was inspired to make the film when he noticed fans lining up to get autographs from San Francisco “Creature Features” host Bob Wilkins at a California comic convention, and after seeing a relatively reserved friend become giddy at the mention of Nashville horror host Sir Cecil Creape.

“I wondered, what is this kind of magical power these people have to transport men back to their childhood hearts?” says Clark, a writer who lives in Springfield, Mo. “That really fascinated me.”
The earliest horror hosts, like Vampira (Maila Nurmi) in Los Angeles, emerged in the early to mid-1950s, but the idea took off nationwide in 1957 when Universal Studios released its classic horror titles (“Dracula,” “The Wolf Man,” etc.) to television under the “Shock Theater” banner.
Ohio had more than its share of hosts, and the Buckeye State is well represented in American Scary through interviews with Cleveland’s The Ghoul, Son of Ghoul from Akron, Chuck Schodowski and Jon Rinaldi (of “The Big Chuck and Lil’ John Show” in Cleveland), Dayton’s A. Ghastlee Ghoul and Dr. Creep, Defiance’s Dr. Mor B.S. and Toledo’s Dr. Shock.
The documentary also includes ample footage of the legendary Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson, a Dracula-voiced hipster in a goatee and fright wig who practically ruled Cleveland from his perch hosting Shock Theater from 1963 to 1966.
While other hosts engaged in a sort-of mock anarchy during their shows, Anderson was the real deal. Broadcasting live from WJW, Ghoulardi openly detested the films he showed, nearly burned down the studio while lighting fireworks on his set, and regularly skewered local politicians and TV personalities.
“Ghoulardi utterly obliterated tradition and propriety,” says Michael Monahan, “American Scary’s” associate producer. “The crime rate dropped significantly when his show was on. Ultimately, he was much more than a horror host, he was a cultural phenomenon.”
Ghoulardi appeared in Toledo during a short stint hosting “Maverick” reruns on Channel 13. But the hosts most Toledo fans remember were from Michigan: Sir Graves Ghastly (the late Lawson Deming), who appeared on Detroit’s Channel 2 (WJBK), and Ghoulardi protégé The Ghoul (Ron Sweed), whose show was syndicated on Channel 50 in the 1970s.
“There was a connection with the host,” says Doug Agosti, whose Dr. Shock character on WUPW was inspired by The Ghoul. “They were there for the audience that was watching. They made you part of the show. You could send things in, and sometimes you’d see it on the air. If your name got announced on the show, you were the talk of the school on Monday because other people saw it.”
Increased competition from “Saturday Night Live,” cable and home video put an end to many of these hosted programs in the 1970s, with infomercials pushing the remaining hosts (including Dr. Shock) off the air in the 1990s.
“Someone would send in a tape with $2,000 to put it on overnight,” Clark said. “What station could say no? It was free money.”
A new generation of hosts has soldiered on in the new millennium, though, taking their acts to public access stations and, increasingly, the Internet. Dr. Shock, meanwhile, has remained active making low-budget horror films and through his regular appearances on WGTE.
There have been more than 300 horror hosts in the U.S. since the original “Shock Theater” package premiered.
“I hope the film inspires people to go back and maybe look into their own local history,” Clark said. “Ultimately, the history of these hosts belongs to us, the fans, and we’re the only ones who can protect it.”

On the Web: visit www.americanscary.com.

Shakespeare said it is better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit, but there are plenty of folks in both categories chiming in on the so-called Fairness Doctrine.
It is amazing that a Federal Communications Commission policy from the late 1940s could be invoked as a standard today; the Fairness Doctrine, and its similarly censorial cousin, the Mayflower Doctrine, were enacted when the “rule of scarcity” could be applied to media. In today’s world of hundreds of TV choices, broadcast and satellite radio and programming on demand — not to mention that little engine of information dissemination, the Internet — there can be no intelligent argument made that any single point of view can go unchecked or unanswered.
Of course, Toledoans have been raised to believe that a single media source can dominate the culture, but that vestige of belief now only rattles around in the heads of those who control the larger media sources in town. For either The Blade or WSPD to claim the other has any impenetrable lock on news or influence is laughable in a city where news often breaks through blogs, social networking Web sites, the Web sites of TV stations and, yes, weekly newspapers with a daily Web presence.
When you hear someone — a politician, a pundit, a newspaper publisher — tell you we need a Fairness Doctrine, what they are telling you is that you are not capable of your own reasoning and judgment. It is grossly paternalistic and didactic for an elected official or media blockhead to wag a finger in the name of fairness, when what they are really revealing is a lack of self-confidence in their own point of view and their ability to force it on you.
Foolish wits and witty fools abound; none of them should be allowed to tell you what you can hear, how you can hear it, or what to believe of what you hear.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

The Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery’s ongoing Black History Month celebration will host an exhibition by nationally acclaimed portrait painter Beverly McIver. The gallery, which is located in the Owens Community College Center for Fine and Performing Arts, is set to open Feb. 23.
In addition to the exhibition, Owens is also offering patrons the opportunity to attend a luncheon and lecture with the artist on Feb. 26, at 11:30 a.m. in the College Hall Terrace View Café. Reservations must be made prior to the event. McIver will also be giving a free lecture presentation that evening at 7 p.m. in the College’s Center for Fine and Performing Arts Room 111.
“Owens Community College’s Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery is proud to welcome such a widely accomplished and profound artist as Beverly McIver to Northwest Ohio,” said Wynn Perry, Owens part-time coordinator of the Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery. “McIver is best known for her paintings addressing issues of racial identity. Her current body of work, “Coming Home,” which is being exhibited at Owens, looks at the love, hope, joy and sorrow experienced by all families, crossing racial boundaries to express commonalities universal to humanity.”
According to a description McIver gave author Catherine King in 2003 for the blog The Tears of Things, “I am known as a portrait painter. All of my portraits are self-portraits. That is, I use the faces of others who reflect my most inner being.”
McIver’s work has been exhibited at the Asheville Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. Over the years, she has held teaching positions at Pennsylvania State University, North Carolina Central University and Duke University, as well as artist residences at placesranging from YADDO in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, Calif. Additionally, McIver’s honors include the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a fellowship at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award.
McIver’s work will be on display through March 26. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
For more information, call (567) 661-2721 or visit www.owens.edu.

If the saying is true, and money isn’t everything, then our country’s infatuation with the current economic crisis would be pointless.
The truth of the matter is money isn’t everything, but it is something.
Whether it’s taking advantage of the dollar menu at your favorite fast-food joint or supporting the nearly $790 billon stimulus bill, the impact of a dollar is strong.
If you were to ask me one year ago if a college athlete should turn pro as early as possible, my answer would have been an emphatic and resounding “no.”
Don’t be a fool, stay in school.
If you were to ask me today if a college athlete should turn pro early, my answer would be “yes.”
My reasoning is simple. At this point and time, it’s obvious that for the rare and talented few, the ability to run 40 yards in less than 4.5 seconds or dunk a basketball is more valuable than a college diploma.
It may sound cynical to preach economics over education, but try telling that to the 600,000 people who lost their jobs in January.
I’d be willing to bet most of those people had some form of college education, perhaps a diploma. I’d also be willing to bet if those unemployed college grads had the chance to hit the lottery tomorrow, they’d take it.
Break down a professional athlete’s paycheck and he or she is hitting the jackpot every day. So if you have the talent, why not cash in while the country irons out its financial mess?
Not to sound like Debbie Downer, but a recent report said the unemployment rate is the highest since 1992, and if it keeps up, it could be as high as it was during the Great Depression.
If athletes know they are going to be drafted or earn a free-agent contract, they need to take it. They run the risk of returning to school and blowing out a knee or breaking an arm, and then the dream of reaching the NFL or NBA evaporates.
In the latter scenario, the athlete finishes school, diploma in hand, and heads out into the real world.  Before he knows it, he’s waiting tables at a local restaurant because it’s the only place hiring.
The average salary for an NFL player in 2008 was about $500,000. The average NBA salary is well more than $1 million. Even a mediocre professional athlete can survive one or two years in the league. During that time, he has job security and the chance to build a nest egg. It’s a safe situation foreign to many Americans living off unemployment checks these days.
In April, University of Missouri red-shirt sophomore wide receiver Jeremy Maclin will anxiously wait for his name to be announced at the 2009 NFL draft. He will then place the ball cap of his new team on top of his head and hold up a jersey while wearing a million-dollar smile.
If you read Maclin’s biography on Missouri’s athletic Web site, it says the 21-year-old has an interest in accounting or marketing at Mizzou’s School of Business. I’d say he already passed macro-economics by turning to the NFL for a guaranteed paycheck.
Look all around. Our friends, our parents and our co-workers have all been slapped in the face by an economy in the toilet.
It doesn’t matter if you are white, black, male, female, high school dropout or a college graduate. We are all in this sinking ship together.
Athletes are the ones who can plug the holes, bucking the trend and creating a stable life for themselves and their families in these unstable times.
Class dismissed.

Ryan Fowler is the weekend sports anchor for NBC 24 Sports. He can be reached at bgsualum03@hotmail.com.

Let’s suppose for a moment that, like some friends of ours, you’ve just signed up for an all-inclusive package tour to “Someplace Special.”
Maybe it’s a whistle stop romp through fertile tourist territory with one of the popular package tour operators — 10 cities in 10 days — through Britain or Germany or Spain.
Maybe it’s a smaller, more intimate tour — a more upmarket meander featuring a river cruise or a train ride and better hotels, but still covering a lot of territory in a short period of time.
Whatever the package, whatever the destination, chances are you chose this particular kind of holiday because:

• A similar tour you took before worked out well enough. You liked the pace, the people you traveled with and the  price was right.
• This is your first trip to a foreign country. You don’t know where to start. And it seems like a good idea to begin with an overview, to “hit the high spots.”
• The idea of the security and full-time services of an experienced tour guide has a lot of appeal. It makes for a stress-free, fun-filled holiday with little or no effort or expertise required on your part.
• Your regular travel agent stepped up to the plate with several options in a range of price categories.

All-inclusive, escorted tours date back a very long way. To 1841, in fact, when a British cabinetmaker from Derbyshire, named Thomas Cook, arranged the very first such trip for factory workers in England’s midlands. It was a steamtrain ride from Leicester to a temperance rally in Loughborough and back, a distance of 11 miles. The whole trip cost one shilling and attracted some 500 participants. It seems Mr. Cook was on to something.
By 1846, Cook had multiplied his tour destinations and his number of clients. He added steamboats, funiculars and gondolas to the steam trains and created a business that would eventually take travelers all over the globe.
Thomas Cook and Sons became “the world’s greatest travel business” using a formula that has pretty well survived the test of time. Except for the temperance bit, of course!
From our experience, it works pretty much like this: A group of tourists, numbering anywhere from 15 to 50, meet at a central location, usually an airport or hotel, have an introductory dinner or cocktail party, meet the tour leader and fellow travelers and learn about the specifics of their upcoming trip. They learn about the range and cost of optional tours, the policies about seating on the bus, luggage, smoking and never being late.

With an ambitious itinerary and many miles to cover, the daily routine has by necessity to be fairly rigid: wake-up call at 6 a.m., bags out at 6:30, breakfast at 7, on the bus at 8 o’clock sharp. The bus pulls into a parking lot every one to one and a half hours or so for sightseeing, a meal, a shop-op or if nothing else, a toilet break. Around 6 p.m., the group unloads at the new hotel — after 10 hours in transit.
The first few days go well, everyone is still excited and energetic, but as time moves along it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish one stop from another. And there’s a lot of sleeping on the bus.
The problem with a trip so highly orchestrated is that it’s a completely passive experience. And the whole concept encourages it. Hotels located far from city centers, communal meals, long periods of inactivity — and the overriding  fear of missing the bus.
But forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.
Get involved in the action from the beginning. Bring a detailed road map so you can follow the route and always know where you are. Pack at least one guidebook and use the tour director’s spiel as a supplement to what you’ve already read.
Pick up maps at small town tourist offices and track your own walking tours. Break from the group and eat in restaurants that feature local specialties.
And above all, have a great time, pay attention and get ready for your next, more independent trip. It might still be an all-inclusive, multicity package tour, but at least you’ll be prepared.

E-mail travel columnists Roger Holliday and Claudia Fischer at RogerHolliday@wcnet.org.