New bakery and cake-decorating shop opens Friday in former Hamilton coffee shop
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Luke’s Custom Cakes hadn’t officially opened Tuesday, but already was stirring up excitement among people walking along High Street, who stepped inside to finally see the new bakery and cake-decorating shop.
“It’s been pretty crazy-busy in here,” said Luke Heizer, who had been designing and selling elaborately decorated confections out of his Trenton home since age 12. Now 22, he and six of his nine employees were baking and embellishing cakes and cupcakes, and preparing for their official Friday opening.
“We weren’t going to do a soft opening, but then I thought it would be a good idea to work through some of the kinks and stuff like that, Heizer said. “It’s definitely been busier than I anticipated, but it’s definitely a good thing to get some customers in here and get them excited for Friday.”
Dozens attend Lakota school board meeting to debate mask mandates: What they said
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
A packed Lakota school board meeting Thursday saw school system residents split – sometimes passionately – on whether students should be required to wear masks during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as 16,800 students prep to return to classes in less than two weeks.
Lakota’s current policy is masks are optional for students.
But minutes before the rare 9 a.m. school board meeting began, officials at Miami University, which is Butler County’s largest employer, changed its previous optional mask policy and announced students starting fall semester later this month will have to wear masks while indoors.
Lack of lifeguards closes one Butler County pool, impacts others as workers return to school
While the number of lifeguards who were certified this year jumped significantly compared to 2020, it fell short of those who were certified by the American Red Cross in 2019.
From January-April 2019, the American Red Cross certified 98,570 lifeguards nationally, according to Marita Salkowski, a spokeswoman. She said the number dropped to 51,811 last year due to the coronavirus pandemic and jumped to 83,685 this year.
The lack of licensed lifeguards, the early start to the school year and the competitive job market are impacting how swimming pools operate this summer.
Hamilton native and funk icon getting new attention in Netflix series
Credit: Contributed photo
Credit: Contributed photo
An episode of a new Netflix series about pop music, “This is Pop,” includes a segment about one of southwest Ohio’s most beloved funk music icons.
Premiering in May, the series episode called “Auto-Tune” focuses on rapper-singer T-Pain and the use of vocal-pitch altering technology. Looking back, a bit of the episode touches upon the influence of the late Roger Troutman, the charismatic mastermind of Zapp, the popular funk band from Dayton.
Born in Hamilton, Troutman recorded at his studio in northwest Dayton.
Shared Harvest still ‘overwhelmed’ as the food supply, needs are hard to predict
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Shared Harvest Food Bank was overwhelmed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as thousands of people sought food assistance.
Now, a “volatile environment” around food supply is keeping things hectic, said Executive Director Terry Perdue.
“We are not able to predict food supply and demand needs that we are constantly having to adjust what we source and how we distribute it,” he said.
AND, for an extra sixth story of the day ...
Lincoln School demolition: How to get bricks from the former Middletown school as keepsakes
Residents are allowed to pick up bricks from the former Lincoln School on Central Avenue in Middletown starting today, according to a city official.
People must pick up the bricks curb-side and, because it’s an active demolition, they are not permitted to walk near the school, the official said.
Once the demolition is complete, single-family homes may be built on the 5.5-acre site, though no formal plans have been finalized.