Five uplifting stories you might have missed this week

It’s tulip time at Smith Memorial Gardens in Oakwood. The garden, located on less than an acre at the corner of Oakwood Avenue and Walnut Lane, is alive with colorful spring blooms. The landscape has an assortment of plants that attract butterflies and birds while a small garden house and pond adds to the picturesque scene. LISA POWELL / STAFF

It’s tulip time at Smith Memorial Gardens in Oakwood. The garden, located on less than an acre at the corner of Oakwood Avenue and Walnut Lane, is alive with colorful spring blooms. The landscape has an assortment of plants that attract butterflies and birds while a small garden house and pond adds to the picturesque scene. LISA POWELL / STAFF

In case you missed it, here are the top five stories of those in the Miami Valley making a difference for their community.


Jim ‘Pee Wee’ Martin’s WWII heroics, his 100th birthday celebrated this weekend

Hundreds gathered at Skydive Greene County to pay tribute to Jim “Pee Wee” Martin, who turns 100 on April 29. Martin was celebrated by a mass jump out of vintage aircraft.

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Parajumpers from antique aircraft peppered the bright sky on Friday to honor a Greene County hero.

The two-day celebration of sky-high proportions kicked off in Xenia Friday to honor Jim “Pee Wee” Martin’s 100th birthday.

Martin, a Sugarcreek Twp. resident, parachuted into Normandy near Saint-Come-du-Mont behind Utah Beach at 12:30 a.m. on D-Day. Martin later fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and he received a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and European African Middle Eastern Service Medal for his service.

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President Biden praises Springfield hairstylist in vaccine tax credit announcement

INITIAL CUTLINE: Deborah Woods talks with Patty Young as she schedules an appointment at the Young Hair salon Thursday. They are helping Clark County Combined Health District reach out and encourage more Black residents register to take the COVID-19 vaccine. BILL LACKEY/STAFF

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President Joe Biden mentioned Patty Young, owner of Young Hair Salon in Springfield and president of Sisters United for Prevention, an organization dedicated to the prevention of cancer in women of color, in his speech announcing tax incentives for businesses who give employees paid leave to get vaccinated.

“Patty Young owns a hair salon in Springfield, Ohio. She’s also so dedicated to getting her customers and employees vaccinated that when they leave the salon, the receptionist helps sign you and your family up to get a COVID vaccine and where to get it,” Biden said. “They have scheduled more than 200 shots. Businesses and supporters like Patty should be supported for doing the right things.”

Young said she was incredibly honored by the recognition and has been flooded with an outpouring of support and calls.

“When Biden says your name it gets a lot of attention. It makes you almost faint honestly,” Young said. “It was such an honor and it’s so nice to hear from everyone.”

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Dayton man’s homecoming leads to new bakery inside South Park Food Hall

Good Hands Bread Co., founded and owned by Daytonian Andrew Fisher, will open inside the new South Park Food Hall at 735 Wayne Ave.

Credit: CONTRIBUTED

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Credit: CONTRIBUTED

One of the first secured tenants in the yet-to-open South Park Food Hall is a Dayton-area-born baker who returned home to share his passion.

Andrew Fisher is the founder and owner of the new Good Hands Bread Co. that will be located inside the South Park Food Hall at 735 Wayne Ave. in Dayton. The food hall will span the entire block between Hickory Street and Buckeye Street and is tentatively planned to open by late summer this year.

Good Hands Bread Co. has already made its first public appearances at a few farmers markets in the area. On May 8, Fisher will make his debut at the 2nd Street Market in downtown Dayton and if all goes well, Good Hands Bread Co. will be there every Saturday through the market’s summer season.

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Idea for grocery co-op in Trotwood under discussion in community

ajc.com

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Trotwood has seen a dearth of grocery stores in recent years and community members are taking the matter into their own hands.

For the last several weeks a survey has been circulating around the Trotwood community to ask residents if they would buy into a grocery cooperative for the city that mimics the model of the Gem City Market in Dayton.

Trotwood resident and planning commission member Khalilah Forte started the survey after she toured the Gem City Market in March.

Trotwood’s last full-service grocer, Foodtown on East Main Street, closed its doors permanently in September 2019 for financial reasons.

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Pet pig ‘Arnold Ziffel’ can stay at Springboro-area home, court rules

Meet Arnold Ziffel, a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig. Arnold is the focus of dueling lawsuits between Arnold's owners Rick and Kathy Price and their homeowners association in Springboro.

Credit: Marshall Gorby

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Credit: Marshall Gorby

A Warren County magistrate has decided that a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig is a family pet and is not livestock.

In a decision filed Wednesday in Warren County Common Pleas Court, Magistrate Paige Crossley-Tate determined “... that Arnold is a domesticated animal that is regularly kept and fed by the members of the household inside the house, and is in every way treated as a companion animal, as opposed to a livestock or utility animal.”

The Country Brook Homeowners’ Association filed a civil suit Feb. 1 against Richard (Rick) Lee Price Jr. for keeping a pig at his home on White Beech Court in Clearcreek Twp. Price and his wife, Katherine Bebe Price, a Vietnamese expatriate, later countered with a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming the pig is a pet, one that is traditional in Vietnam and an important part of that country’s culture and heritage.

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