Most every concert is the same. Fans come to see musicians do their greatest hits, maybe a few tracks off the new album, the usual.
But Todd Rundgren is far from usual.
While the rock legend is used to doing traditional shows, in 2009 Rundgren first participated in a limited tour where he would perform one of his albums in its entirety, start to finish.
It began when he was approached by Rundgren Radio, a weekly online radio show devoted to all things him.
“They polled their audience and asked, ‘If Todd was to reproduce an album in its entirety, which one would you have him do?’ And it turned out they wanted me to do a record called “A Wizard, a True Star,” which I’d never performed before,” Rundgren said in an interview with Toledo Free Press Star.
Rundgren made a “special event tour” of the “Wizard” performances, which began on Labor Day 2009. Due to the size and cost of the elaborate production, only about 10 shows were performed in the United States, with another two in Europe soon after.

Todd Rundgren

The “Wizard” shows were very well-received by fans, so in 2010 the folks at Rundgren Radio came calling again.
“They approached me and said, ‘Well, we want you to do two records now, “Todd” and “Healing’.” And one of those is a double record. So they’re getting greedy now,” Rundgren joked.
The “Todd” and “Healing” performances once more began on Labor Day and, once more, a very limited tour followed. But fan demand has led to more dates being added, including a stop in Toledo on March 30 at the Stranahan Theater.
“Sometimes it’s one of those things where people hear about it after the fact and say, ‘Ooh, ooh, I wish I had gone to that.’ But now, the word has spread enough, so whoever it is that we didn’t manage to rope in the first time, we’ll try and get them this time.”
Getting a production like the full album performances up and running again can be daunting, especially given how elaborate they are — each show is crammed with special effects, a bigger band, more costumes and, for this tour, a full choir.
“It’s certainly a logistical challenge to a degree, but surprisingly has worked out well for us so far,” Rundgren said.
Rundgren was responsible for the basic design of each performance, and said that this time around he learned from what worked and what didn’t in the “Wizard” performances. While those shows were certainly a spectacle, he said, the result was a space that felt crowded with equipment.
“On these shows, I kinda took the opposite approach. The nature of the music is that there are various combinations of people sometimes, and then I do various bits that are very stripped down and kinda almost extended solo sections. And I thought, instead of having the stage completely crammed with stuff all the time — whether somebody was playing it or not — I wanted to leave the stage completely open and just have people come on only when they were playing.”
The changes were also inspired by the content of the two albums Rundgren will re-create — 1974’s “Todd” and 1981’s “Healing.” While both are evocative of eras of his work, they seem to have little in common musically. Even Rundgren seemed a little stumped as to why fans chose those two albums to be performed in tandem.
“The ‘Todd’ album was from right in the depths of my most psychedelic era. It was the album that followed ‘A Wizard, a True Star,’ and had many of the elements that we were sort of experimenting with on ‘A Wizard, a True Star,’” Rundgren said.
“I find that it is less of a leap to go from ‘A Wizard, a True Star’ to ‘Todd’ than it is to go from ‘Todd’ to ‘Healing,’ I have no idea why they did that. But ‘Healing’ is a record that I never performed, and that may be the distinction.”

Todd Rundgren

Rundgren also noted how the crowd reacts differently to the “Todd” and “Healing” performances than they did on the “Wizard” tour.
“There’s something about the music that puts the audience in a different mood. It’s not as if it’s less intense, but they’re just in a different place. It’s interesting to gauge the reaction the different types of presentation garner in the audience.”
Perhaps it’s also the chance to hear the albums presented as a whole piece, rather than broken into chunks, that pleases Rundgren’s fans most of all. He noted the passing of an era where listening to a record was an event, rather than background noise.
“We used to make time to listen to music. It was our ultimate, alternative entertainment. I remember when I went out to be a musician, we all went to each other’s houses to listen to music, and we never watched television,” Rundgren said. “Now, there’s just so many different forms of entertainment, and all of it deliverable right to your iPhone or whatever. So the kind of special nature of the listening experience has kinda, for most of the audience, has drifted into history.”
But for Rundgren, there are few regrets —and that includes the fact that he has yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a snub that he said bothers him “not at all.”
“I don’t think about it. I’ve always had misgivings about the concept, about music that is essentially supposed to be anti-establishment getting its establishment. Having an official building, official awards — it’s all official now. In that sense, I don’t place any more value on a nod from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame than I would on some other award, like a Grammy.”
Rundgren said he is hesitant to bow to any classification — even those who would refer to him as a “rock artist.”
“What it’s supposed to do is upset your parents. And if it doesn’t upset your parents, it’s not rock ’n’ roll. The problem is, now it’s our parents’ music.”

Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak and officials from Toledo Public Schools, Toledo Federation of Teachers, Toledo Community Foundation and Partners in Education announced plans for the Committed College Coach Program at a press conference at Grove Patterson Academy on March 21.

The program aims to help fifth-grade students from Sherman Elementary and Grove Patterson Academy find a “college coach,” a mentor that will commit to help them along their educational journey until they are sophomores in college. Together with the University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Lourdes College and Owens Community College, students will have the resources and help to continue their path to college.

“We really want more and more young people to attend college,” Wozniak said. “We want all of you to attend college. That’s our goal. That’s our dream.”

Wozniak said only about 14 percent of Lucas County adult residents have a bachelor’s degree. She approached TPS and other partners to help boost that rate starting with the youth. Toledo Community Foundation is contributing about half of the funding needed for the pilot program with the rest of the funding expected from the State of Ohio through Jobs and Family Services. Initial costs are estimated at about $43,500 for a program director and material fees.

Fifth grade teachers from both elementary schools were already trained to help with the program and, eventually, the guidance counselors will be as well. In seventh grade, the guidance counselors will become involved and the students will start visiting colleges.

At the press conference, the first coach and student declaration was signed by Terrina White and her daughter, Nakiya White.

White is an employee and graduate of the University of Toledo and said she hopes that the program not only helps young students attend college, but also motivates their coaches, who might not have gone or might not have finished college, to go back and finish their degree.

“We’re going to change our community for the better,” Wozniak said.

More information on the program can be found on their newly launched website, www.committedcollegecoach.com

Well we’re in it now! We’re launching cruise missiles and flying air strikes (along with England and France) to create a ‘no-fly’ zone in Libya as part of ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’. Now beyond allowing us to use pretty cool name for the plan, all of this has supposedly been done in an attempt to make dictator Muammar Gaddafi stop killing the Libyans who think he should step down as the ruler-for-life in that country.

Many are saying that we waited too long to step into this situation, and that doing so weeks ago would have prevented great loss of life (and they may be right). They take great pains to tell us that we cannot and must not tolerate the abuse of a nation’s population by its dictator. Others are saying that statements by spokesmen for our government (including the President) that Gaddafi’s day is over and that he must step down have caused far greater loss of life by encouraging Libyans to continue their struggle without proposing substantive aid. They say that we shouldn’t be stepping in at all, as our interference with the internal politics of that region has been viewed less than favorably in the past. Those thinking this way go on to say that we do neither the country in question, nor ourselves, any favor by spending blood and treasure on those who in the end will continue to hate Americans because … they’re Americans.

One additional school of thought believes that what we’re doing is simply a rather pathetic attempt to save face and a move to the front of the international parade after our failure to do anything as events unfolded in neighboring Egypt, when its people finally decided to turn out their dictator President Hosni Mubarak.

Quietly and behind the scenes, diplomats continue to make efforts in Yemen and Bahrain as protests continue in these countries. It’s not that the cries for freedom by these people are any less real, but that the governments in question are ones friendly to us in a region where not many are. We also seem little concerned with the plight of people in long-time ally Saudi Arabia, whose people are controlled far too closely to even mount a protest.

Of course there are other equally justified protests going in other places close by against evil dictators that receive no outrage at all, because we simply never hear about them. As a recent AP article “African rulers determined to snuff out flames of protest” tells us, such demonstrations are being dealt with in nations across Africa. Michelle Faul and Angus Shaw ably point out that, “State-controlled TV stations in Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Zimbabwe are barred from showing video footage from North Africa favorable to the protesters” for fear of encouraging similar demonstrations. Cameroon’s leader “ordered cell phone companies to suspend mobile services for Twitter” to prevent the social networking tool to be used to organize such demonstrations. And have you heard anything about the mass the mass protest in Swaziland when King Mswati III froze civil service wages but awarded himself a 24% increase in budget allocation or about the arrests and death threats to opposition leaders in Angola?

Perhaps we should be more discriminating when asking whether such intervention is the correct or even obvious choice. Our foreign policy under presidents of both parties in the latter half of the 20th Century has proven little more than a stratagem of fighting evil dictators who don’t like us by supporting equally evil dictators who do. As we speak, we are working with Iraq to create a stable government to replace the one we supported under Saddam Hussein for many years (he hated Iran worse than he hated us, but did like our money and weapons). We are also still fighting in Afghanistan and sending billions in foreign aid to President Hamid Karzai in spite of the fact that most of it appears to be disappearing into his corrupt rat-hole of a government for later use by he and his cronies.

You know, we speak a lot about rights in this country lately, and fortunately we have the right to do so. We can and do argue endlessly over which of these are Rights as defined by the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Few would question however, whether the citizens of any nation have certain inalienable rights of self-determination. Perhaps its time to move beyond the question when it’s our moral obligation to intervene on their behalf and ask a far simpler question instead. When does the US or any other nation have the Right of such intervention?

Tim Higgins blogs at Just Blowing Smoke

Once upon a time there was a sporting event that everyone in the kingdom enjoyed. Teams from the villages around the kingdom competed against each other and successful teams were a source of great pride for the people of that village. Everyone in the kingdom loved the sport so much that it became the greatest most closely watched and followed event in the kingdom. Even if the kingdom experienced famine, floods, disease, or economic discomfort, the population would spend their last dime on tickets to support their village team, buy food and beverage at the games, and the kingdom’s officials even gave special treatment to the teams. The owners received a very special Golden Goose that produced beautiful golden eggs so they could prosper and flourish to ensure that there would always be these wonderful sporting events for the people to watch. This Golden Goose was the greatest possession ever. The owners of the village teams loved that bird so much that they didn’t want to share it with anyone else, especially the ignorant players. Although the players had become wealthy from what the owners paid them and all of the glory heaped upon them by the kingdom, they became jealous of the owners and desired a larger portion of the Golden Eggs. The owners didn’t want to share and the players wouldn’t risk their health and play the game if the owners wouldn’t cough up more dough. Each side became more and more disenchanted until one day they decided to stop playing the games altogether and just stay home. No more picnics before the games, no more rowdy celebrations after their village team won a contest, and no more games to look forward to each week during their boring work week. The people of the kingdom were very, very sad. The owners and players just laughed and thought how stupid the people of the kingdom were. Because they knew that the people would spend even more treasure whenever they decided to play again.

Have the NFL owners and players finally killed the Golden Goose? Professional football in America is the richest, most closely watched, discussed, anticipated, and revered sport in the country. The United States Congress has even granted the league monopoly status. Players earn millions of dollars to play a kid’s game and become celebrities that make millions more hawking various products to an adoring public. Twenty something year old kids win the lottery by getting huge million dollar contracts when they graduate college and sign up to play for one of the NFL teams. It is a $9 Billion industry. That’s right I said $9 Billion with a B. The owners are upset because they agreed at the last contract negotiation to only take $1 billion off the top and then split the rest with the players. That caused a huge hardship for the owners. The owners now want the first $2 billion and then split the remaining with the players. Seems only fair, right?

You know what they say a billion here and billion there pretty soon you’re talking about real money. There are only 30 owners and roughly 1,700 players that are affected by the billion dollars, but they affect thousands more who work in the periphery of the sport and the millions of football fans across America.

The group of people that I worry about the most, however, is the local neighborhood bookie. Will gambling on college games increase to offset the loss of professional football this fall? Gambling on professional football games is a very big deal. Professional football players’ off field activities involving nite clubs and drug use often put them directly in contact with some less than savory characters. Which leads me to believe that where there is smoke there is fire. Often final scores during a football season leave me somewhat dubious, a fumble here, an interception or a missed assignment there leaves one wondering.

I became disenchanted with professional football a long time ago and basically quit watching NFL games when Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore. The new Cleveland Browns have been somewhat less than bearable to watch.

Personally I think both sides are nuts, you have Billionaires fighting Millionaires, but what do I know. The end losers in this whole deal are the vendors, stadium workers, restaurant and hotel employees that earn a large portion of their livelihood during game day activities in the cities where the games are held. Tax dollars are lost to local economies that support fire, police, water, and other government services.

Wake Up America!! Tune into the Golf Channel and watch more Golf. Professional golfers get their money the old fashion way, they have to earn it.

Last year, the Rockets’ otherwise sweet season ended on a very sour note when Florida International’s Jack Griffin kicked the game-winning 34-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Golden Panthers to a 34-32 victory over Toledo in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl at Ford Field this past December. Combine that with an embarrassing late-season 65-30 drubbing at Northern Illinois—a defeat which cost the Rockets a chance to play in the Mid-American Conference Championship—and you have a Toledo roster that was fueled with plenty of motivation during winter workouts this offseason. With spring ball now in session, the Rockets couldn’t be happier to get back out on the field and work towards a more successful campaign in 2011.

“Winter workouts have been tremendous,” Toledo head coach Tim Beckman said. “I think being our third year and being involved with this program and being involved with our players, they understand exactly what’s asked of each one of them throughout the winter workouts. From the competitions, from the rigors of being on time, from doing things right on and off the football field, you see some continuity. You see some things that the guys understand exactly what’s going to be happening. There’s nothing new.

“I think also after the loss in the bowl game, there was also some feelings of what we need to get done as a team to be better and to finish.”

In 2010, Toledo finished 8-5 overall with a 7-1 MAC record, its best overall season since 2005 and best conference mark since 2004. Unlike last year when the Rockets finished the season with 12 seniors on their roster, the 2011 squad will feature a plethora of experience. Toledo’s roster currently features 24 seniors with 18-of-22 starting position players returning. Both the offense and defense return nine starters apiece from last year.

One of those seniors and starters is running back Adonis Thomas. Thomas had a breakout season in 2010, rushing for 1,098 yards and leading the MAC with 6.3 yards per carry as he earned Second-Team All-MAC honors. After a year in which he propelled himself into the starting role in the Rockets’ backfield and is now one of the leaders on the team, Thomas is hungry to help usher Toledo not only into the elite company of the conference, but also the country.

“As a team in general, Coach Beck instilled in us that we should be BCS busters,” Thomas said. “Just look at the body of work that Coach Beck is putting in, taking a 3-9 team to 5-7 where we lost two games that we should’ve won. We should’ve been in a bowl game his first year, so then that next year he didn’t turn it down, he turned it up. He challenged us to get better. So we went from 5-7 and won eight games and went 8-5.

“Every year he just turned it up, so now we feel as though this year with as much talent as we have coming back, we’re as good as the Boise State’s, the Ohio State’s. He instilled that swagger in us that we should be BCS busting. To go to a bowl game is good, but we didn’t come here to win bowl games. We came here to win championships.”

The Rockets will get the opportunity to prove that they can hang with Boise State and Ohio State, too, because they’ll be playing them both. Toledo travels to Columbus to face the Buckeyes in week two of its’ 2011 season on Sept. 10, then hosts the Broncos a week later at the Glass Bowl on Sept. 17. It’s true that the Rockets are no strangers to playing big opponents, having defeated a team from a BCS automatic qualifying conference in each of their last five seasons. However, it’s also true that Boise State and Ohio State have combined to outscore Toledo by a 95-14 margin the past two years.

Toledo fell by a score of 57-14 to the Broncos in 2010 and 38-0 to the Buckeyes in 2009.

“I’m the type of player that once something happens, I really don’t think back and dwell on it because my grandmother always said, ‘You can’t live off last month’s groceries,’” Thomas said. “Once something happens, it’s the next step because now that we’ve had so much success as an offense, the things that worked last time are not going to work this time, so therefore the task is going to be harder.”

I have been incredibly privileged to have a front-row seat observing what has been referred to as the ongoing ‘Arab Unrest.’ I’m spending a year in Amman, Jordan, serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. As such, I have been able to hear Jordanians’ opinions on successive revolutionary and reformist movements throughout the Arab world. I’ve witnessed several demonstrations, and I’ve followed closely as Jordan navigates its own peaceful path of reform.

Having studied and worked here for six months in 2009, I quickly noticed a shift in Jordan’s political atmosphere when I arrived in September. For one thing, parliamentary elections were impending on November 9th, so talk of the political process was more widespread than I remembered before. In the run-up to the elections, what I heard most often was not why one candidate was better but why the election process itself was flawed. Ultimately, though voting rates were much higher outside the major cities, only one-third of registered voters in Amman participated in November’s elections. This in itself demonstrated a feeling of alienation and disinterest in politics-as-usual here.

Tunisia’s eruption in protests in January captured the Jordanian political imagination captured in a way that the Jordanian elections had utterly failed to do. Tech-savvy Jordanians tweeted in support of the Tunisian people, others organized vigils outside the Tunisian embassy, and all celebrated President Ben Ali’s departure. As Egypt, too, saw widespread protests, the waves of solidarity multiplied. As violence broke out in Cairo, thousands of Egyptians and foreigners fled across the Sinai and then the Red Sea to Jordan’s southern port town of Aqaba. But after the initial influx of refuge-seekers, more and more tourists to Jordan began to cancel their trips, sending negative ripples throughout an already- cash-starved economy. And I found myself stranded in Morocco, scheduled to return to Amman through Cairo after a wonderful vacation (eventually, I returned home safely via a new ticket that avoided Cairo).

Despite the negative economic impact of the Egyptian revolution, Jordanian support for the Egyptian people was unwavering. Colleagues at my school discussed at length Mubarak’s billions siphoned from the impoverished people of Egypt – which they call Um al-Dunya, Mother of the World. And when Omar Suleiman made that 15-second speech announcing Mubarak’s fall, I grabbed my jacket and headed directly to the Egyptian embassy, where thousands of Jordanians, Palestinians, and Egyptian migrant workers gathered. Egyptian and Jordanian flags were waved, sweets were passed, chants from Tahrir were repeated, and the Egypt’s national anthem was sung with gusto. It was an incredible historical moment to share. This attitude of support has continued as Libya appears to be in an all-out civil war, and as folks in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, etc., also demand human rights and political reform.

Of course, these events have also inspired reformists in Jordan. For over two months, Friday afternoons have seen peaceful demonstrators making demands for an increased political voice, and end to corruption, educational reform, etc. The calls are not for the fall of the regime but the reform of the regime. And, led by King Abdullah II and newly-appointed Prime Minister Maarouf Bakhit, the government is moving. In February, the government announced that public assemblies would no longer require a permit to be legal. Instead, organizers ought to simply notify the government of the gathering or demonstration. A judge recently deemed a temporary law illegal, potentially increasing parliament’s role in the legislative process. It seems likely that Jordan will achieve real reforms without the revolutionary martyrs of Tunisia and Egypt.

I’ve posted innumerable messages reassuring my family and friends of my safety, and I reiterate that here. Jordan is safe, and I’m proud of the peaceful approach taken both by demonstrators and security forces. I’m thrilled to be here, watching the revolutions from the heart of the Arab world, all the while assured of my safety. But the ride’s not over – and I’ll be blogging at BetsyInJordan.blogspot.com.

There are two brothers in my neighborhood that are great kids. They will speak to grown ups, play with my dog, try to be helpful if you are working in the yard — great kids! The older one is tall, lanky and is probably in the sixth grade, the younger is considerably shorter because he is much younger, about first grade. They love to shoot hoops in their drive way.

The other day I was charmed by these two as they set out to play a little one on one. The older boy went to his garage to get a mental rod to lower the basket so that his younger and shorter brother would have a better change in the game. The younger and shorter brother protested. Like most kids, eager to grow up, he insisted that the net remain at its present height. I watch as the taller, older, and stronger boy made his argument for fairness while the younger, smaller, and weaker boy insisted he could meet the competition at the higher setting for the basket.

You have to love the spirit in that younger spunky kid, wanting to stretch beyond himself. You have to love the spirit of the older kid with an eye toward fairness. The brotherly conflict between the two seemed so familiar.

The unfairness of life is evident in so many things. Some just accept this as the reality and press on. Some fight this and work to make the playing field a little more level. As I watch what is happening in Madison and Columbus and other state capitals in what was once, over a hundred years ago, the birthplace of the progressive movement, I can not help but to feel a sadness.

Teachers, police officers, fire fighters as well as other public servants being told they get paid too much. How much is a trained and disciplined person who runs into a burning building to rescue a person worth? How much should we pay the soul whose job it is to walk into a domestic disturbance not knowing whose packing what? How much are our children worth and who do we want to teach them? To suggest these people are over paid is laughable. To add insult to injury, people like our governor do not believe these people are capable of reasonable or rational negotiation, otherwise, why is he, and his republican colleagues so eager to end collective bargaining rights?

There will always be a tension between the need to push the boundaries of what we can produce and the need to be fair and just. Sometimes the human spirit needs a little more room for innovation and creativity. So we cut our taxes and reduce our regulations and tell the masters of the universe on Wall Street and Madison Avenue and Silicon valley to go out and make wealth. The problem is, not all of us are in the position to be a “master of the universe.” Some of us have more pedestrian desires, like teaching a fourth grader how to do a math problem, or helping a neighborhood find its way to stability and safety, or responding to a frantic call to get a person to the ER. This this why there are times when the human spirit needs to be reminded what the ancients said was required of us … “to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly …” To do this we sometimes need to raise taxes. Sometimes we need to place some boundaries and disciplines around our productivity so as to minimize the possibility that someone gets hurt. At all times we need to respect the dignity of all.

Some believe we are on the threshold of becoming a plutocracy. Some think we are already there. After thirty years of tipping the balance of power in favor of the wealthy and powerful, the time has past for us to re-strike a healthier balance between our desire to create wealth and the need to be fair and just. By the way, after the game of “one on one” was finished, I learned the score was 128 to 32. Even though the younger spunky one had a great three point shot — the older and taller one was just too much for him.

Eric McGlade is a United Methodist Minister in Bowling Green, Ohio.

?

When Gordon Ebright’s life as a packaging engineer and auto industry worker ended, he never dreamed he would be the owner of two Schakolad Chocolate Factory stores. He said the chocolate boutiques are “based around fresh products and smiling customers.”
“Twenty months ago, if someone would have asked me, ‘Where do you see yourself in six months?’ I would have said, ‘Back in the automotive industry’,” 48-year-old Ebright said.
After nine years of work at General Motors, Ebright was laid off on Oct. 4, 2007. He was called into the conference room where his new boss of three days told him he was being let go because he was the highest paid employee, Ebright said. They handed him a box, followed him into his office and gave him five minutes to pack up his things while they watched. Then security checked his box on his way out.
Ebright got into his car and called his wife. It was only about 1:30 p.m. and his life was dramatically changed.
Around two years, 643 resumes, one interview and no offers later, Ebright and his wife were in Ann Arbor celebrating the five-year anniversary of their first date. With some extra time before a comedy show, they walked into a Schakolad store.
They were curious about it after hearing how good its products tasted from a friend who knew the owner.
The date was Aug. 21, 2009. Something about Schakolad resonated with Ebright. Even his wife could tell he was seriously thinking that this could be his next move.

From left, Westfield Franklin Park General Manager Erika Williams, Schakolad’s Gordon Ebright, wife Anne Ebright and Mayor Mike Bell toast the new store.

“She said, ‘Let’s just get through the night. I can see the wheels turning already,”’ he said.
As funny as the comedian was, Ebright said, he can’t remember a single joke. He was already focused on what could be his next career move.
After an introduction with the Ann Arbor Schakolad owner, Scott Huckstein, Ebright asked if there were any management opportunities with his store. Huckstein told him there weren’t, but there was a franchise needing an owner in Perrysburg at Levis Commons.
Candy man
Ebright is no stranger to Toledo. He attended Start High School and the University of Toledo after spending time at Kent State University.
After a four-and-a-half-hour interview, several loan setbacks, sacrifices and a little bit of luck, Ebright owned the Levis Commons Store, found a new life passion and gained a mentor in Huckstein, he said.
Ebright said he loves that when people come in seeming down and having a bad day, he can talk to them, give them suggestions and watch them walk out with a smile. He said it’s like he’s handing happiness across the counter.
“I’m like a bartender without the DUI risk,” he said.
Ebright passed his creative spirit to his 19-year-old daughter, Ami. She noticed a bag of broken pretzels in the store that Ebright wasn’t able to use and decided they should not be wasted.
So she perused the shelves, grabbed some peanut butter, caramel and chocolate and started mixing. The final product was the Tortoise bar.
However, she had made it much bigger than the usual, sellable piece of chocolate. But Ebright took a chance. He chopped one up for samples, and at more than $5 a bar, they quickly sold out.
Customers were hooked, so Ebright had her re-create it. It was still a little too big, but it  sold out again.
After a few trial runs, they got it down to the right size. Now the Tortoise bar has become an international hit, as customers have shipped it to loved ones in places such as France and Hawaii.
Customers know Ebright will take care of their needs and he enjoys seeing the happiness when they walk out of his store.
“It’s fun — the little things you do — you can’t put a price on that,” he said.
I want candy
In July, the leasing agents with Westfield Franklin Park Shopping Mall contacted him about opening  a Schakolad store in the mall after seeing the success he had in Levis Commons.
He doubted it would go through —up to that point, no Schakolad owner had been allowed to run two stores. He became the first.
After several setbacks, including getting shut down on Black Friday morning for not having the health inspection yet, Ebright opened up the store on Feb. 10 — just in time for Valentine’s Day. Two health department inspectors came out on their own time and worked with Ebright to give him their stamp of approval.
“I really felt honored that they would give up their own personal time so that I could open in time for Valentine’s Day,” he said. “People say, ‘you know, City Hall in Toledo — this and that and the other — but I honestly feel if you work with them and you tell them your challenges, they work with you. They bend over backwards.”
Ebright also felt very welcomed by other store owners in the mall who were graciously willing to help out with change or a cup of water, he said.
The ball is rolling in the new location — the grand opening event on March 9 featured an appearance by Mayor Mike Bell, who got to take a hammer to a 10-pound piece of chocolate.
Ebright is giving back with his store’s success. It has raised an additional $1,600 for a Toledo Seagate Food Bank drive, among other charities.
Ebright said he understands what it’s like to be humble and appreciates the opportunity.
“It’s really amazing because I went from being unemployed and looking for a job to hiring three people, and then six people,” Ebright said. “Not only did I create myself a job, but I have the potential to have created, or saved, 12 jobs.”

Toledo Free Press has added three editorial positions.
Longtime contributor and GlassCityJungle.com operator Lisa Renee Ward has been promoted to Web editor. Ward oversees the Toledo Free Press website and maintains the newspaper’s presence on Facebook and Twitter. She has contributed a column to Toledo Free Press since early 2006.
Emily B. Gibb, a graduate of The Ohio State University who majored in journalism, has been named news  editor. While in Columbus, she wrote for City Scene Magazine.
Gibb got her start in journalism while in high school at St. Ursula Academy, writing for The Ursuline and The Little Arrow. She returned to Toledo after working as a general assignment reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Sarah Ottney is special sections editor. She is a 2002 graduate of Oak Harbor High School who graduated in 2006 from Ohio Wesleyan University, where she majored in journalism and English. During college, she spent three years on staff at OWU’s weekly student newspaper, The Transcript, including a semester as editor in chief.
She then worked three years at the Aberdeen American News, a daily newspaper in northeastern South Dakota, where she started as a reporter, copy editor and page designer and ended as a full-time designer.
Before coming to Toledo Free Press, she fulfilled a year of service in Toledo as an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) member with the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.
Ottney replaces Kristen Criswell, who relocated to Oklahoma with her military husband.
“[Criswell] helped us grow our news content, and her contributions will be missed,” said Michael S. Miller, Toledo Free Press editor in chief. “We see an opportunity for an expanded online presence and a higher profile of news reporting with the combined efforts of [Gibb, Ward and Ottney]. Journalism and news dissemination is rapidly changing, and these hires, working with Associate editor Brandi Barhite, will help us continue to break stories and impact our community.”
Toledo Free Press, Lucas County’s largest circulation newspaper, is in its seventh year of publication. Toledo Free Press Star is in its second year of publication.

Toledo Children’s Hospital will host Going Wild for Kids! It is a fundraiser on March 24 to benefit the Autism Collaborative.
Co-chair Meredith Sherman had twins, Kate and Alex, five years ago. On top of the worries most first-time mother’s face, her babies were born six weeks early and spent more than three weeks in Toledo Children’s Hospital neonatal care unit.
“As a new mom, it was a scary time for us and the hospital staff was amazing,” Sherman said. “The doctors, the nurses and the support staff made us feel everything was going to be OK, and it was. They totally put us at ease.”
While her children are not autistic, when their health improved, she wanted to help the hospital in any way she could, she said. She joined the Toledo Children’s Hospital Foundation Board. The foundation receives and directs charitable contributions on behalf of the hospital.
Money from the event will go toward the foundation and the Autism Collaborative, a community effort to coordinate services families need for autistic children.
“There are lots of different resources around Toledo for autistic children and families, but they’re driving around to all these different specialists. This is hoping to be a catch all,” Sherman said
Catina Harding, executive director of the Great Lakes Collaborative for Autism, said that she is looking forward to promoting the collaborative in the community, especially at the fundraising event.
“What we really want to do is create a coordinated effort to make a network of care where all of the different partners are communicating with each other in an organized manner,” Harding said.
The first phase of the collaborative, Sherman said, will help families in the recognition stage — around age 2 — when children are first diagnosed. As it grows and as funds allow, they will add different resources building from the early stages upward.
Other organizations involved with the Autism Collaborative include Harbor, the Autism Model School, the Autism Society of Northwest Ohio, University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities, Help Me Grow, Bittersweet Farms, Perrysburg Schools and Mercy Health Partners, Harding said.
“While everything will not be under one roof — we will continually work with all partners to ensure the families are aware of all services available as well as how to access each,” she said.
The collaborative already accomplished creating a sixth through 12th grade after school program for autistic children and are trying to establish an early intervention program at Toledo Children’s Hospital.
The group has also established the Autism Collaborative Council, a group that will meet on a regular basis to assess and address the needs and strengths of services that serve families affected by autism, Harding said.
“The goal is to create a community network of care that will develop a highly personalized treatment plan for each family and provide support for each phase of each child’s life,” she said.
The butterfly-themed night will have both a silent and live auction and a video that will explain the Autism Collaborative. It will be the first time the video is viewed by anyone outside of those who made it, Sherman said.
Going Wild for Kids! begins at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, Perrysburg. Tickets are $100 each. For more information, call Toledo Children’s Hospital at (419) 291-3493.