While Julian Grimes was growing up in Akron, Ohio, his great-aunt, Lois Foster, long-time vice president for United Way of Summit County, Ohio, saw his leadership potential.Foster, who died in 2020, was a mentor to Grimes,  now a Kent State University junior, and he is doing his best to live up to her expectations.Grimes is the current president of Black United Students, or BUS, one of Kent State’s oldest student organizations, which is credited for starting the formal observance of February as Black History Month in 1970, six years before it received an official federal designation.It is...

Lakewood artist Gina DeSantis told Medium magazine that she jokes that her business plan would be titled, “Not Going to do that Again.”As owner of Gina DeSantis Ceramics, which she founded in 2013, DeSantis has learned a lot by doing when it comes to being a successful business owner.DeSantis, a 2006 graduate of Kent State University, and her team work out of an old automobile factory in Lakewood, Ohio. As lead designer, all work is designed and thrown by DeSantis herself. No small feat when you consider that her work has been featured in Uncommon Goods, Anthropologie, McGee & Co. and the ...

There are more than 400 missing persons cases in Ohio currently, and more than 100 of them are John or Jane Doe cases. One of those cases, referred to as the Cleveland Harbor John Doe, now has a better chance of being solved, thanks to Kent State University Associate Professor of Anthropology Linda Spurlock, Ph.D. Cleveland Harbor John Doe was found in Lake Erie by boaters in 2014. According to a report from Channel 19 News, the man was still wearing jeans, black work boots and a belt when his body was found caught in a break wall at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland Harbor.Watch Spurl...