It doesn't take long for visitors to see the stories the southside of Muncie has when they notice the neighborhood's appearance, said Kory Gipson, co-owner of the Common Market.
With a bottle of water, reading materials and a phone charging on the table beside her, Sharon Kay Brown sits in her favorite rocking chair every Tuesday evening and tunes into NBC’s “Chicago Fire.”
Guitars strumming. Music blaring. Voices raised. People dancing. Before March 2020, the music scene on Ball State’s campus was as lively as ever. Then, everything changed. Once the pandemic hit, shows were immediately canceled, and the noise that once filled Ball State’s campus became a nearly silent hum. Now, slowly but surely, the scene is rebuilding, the sound is returning and music is back once again.
After getting home one day, Lezlie McCrory was greeted by both a neighborhood cat and a man on the street near her house in Muncie on 9th Street. McCrory told the man the cat had been greeting her for years, not necessarily wanting to be touched or let in the house.
The first time Women In Business Unlimited (WIBU) President and Open Door Health Services Director of Community Engagement Dorica Watson attended one of the organization’s luncheons 12 years ago, she was greeted by colorful hair and artificial fish heels. What she learned that day is that anything can mean business.
“Group one — you guys ready? One group at a time. OK, five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three, four.”
It starts with the base, a circular slab of wood surrounded by thinner strands, which travel the perimeter of the slab, around and around. Tall strands the size of popsicle sticks reach toward the sky, away from the circular motion of the other strands, almost making a fence. Where the end of the continuous circle meets the sky-reaching fence, the thinner circular strands begin to weave around the taller strands, enveloping them. This is basket weaving.
Casey Toomey’s grandma, Carolyn, baked cakes — “beautiful cakes with royal icing flowers” — to celebrate family and friends. She never sold them. It was her gift to those she loved.
“Do well by doing good.” Ben Franklin’s historic quote shapes the Muncie Map Company’s mission, seeking projects and jobs that benefit the Muncie community. Andy Shears, owner of the Muncie Map Company, is a Muncie native and a Ball State alumnus, and always wanted to give back to the community after leaving his former career as a professor.
Dark blue clouds cover the sun as the October wind picks up the coconut logs outside of 713 E. Willard St. The light sprinkle is a relief to the grime and sweat but can be bad news for the hog’s pen in place of a front yard.
Drive on South Hoyt Avenue, and you’ll see businesses decorated with colorful murals, adding a pop of color to the otherwise bare street. Several local businesses, such as Rosebud Coffee House and the Common Market, have set up shops in Muncie's southside to bring the community together.
Amanda Hughes remembers strolling down the streets of downtown Muncie when she was little, peeking through cracked windows, counting boarded-up buildings and watching her hometown wear away.
There he stood, overwhelmed by what he saw. The mile-and-a-half-long property that used to be Muncie’s Slick Track Raceway was now piled with problems.
Founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, Ronnie Abergel created the Human Library to help challenge the stigma of difficult topics by simply creating discussion between people.
Stepping onto the rock-speckled dirt path, the first thing that can be seen from the front lawn of Northern Tropics Greenhouse is the rows of red, orange and gold chrysanthemum stones out on display. Further down the path, the plants from the five greenhouses emerge.
Carlie Boggs, Ball State junior computer information systems major, came across an advertisement on Facebook in January for a new doughnut shop opening in Yorktown, Indiana. When Boggs visited the shop to try its doughnuts, she said she was mesmerized by the food she had just bought.
Dressed in a white-and-black striped long sleeve shirt with a solid yellow patch and black overalls, Kylee Larson sets her iPhone on her tripod and turns on her microphone pack to start filming a video for her kids’ art YouTube channel, Kylee Makes It.
Upon entering Gordy Fine Art and Framing on East Main Street, its character shines through with hundreds of holes on its walls left from years of hanging the artwork of local and regional artists.
Tired of dressing in his regular sweatpants and a T-shirt, Jessie Creselious was searching for a new pair of vintage-style boots when he stumbled upon an ad for an event hosted by Circle City Aerodrome, a nonprofit organization for Indianapolis and Hoosier steampunk enthusiasts to “berth their airships.”
![The work of 38 Black visual artists will flood the walls of the former warehouse of Stutz Business Center in downtown Indianapolis. “We're bringing some new life into the space and transforming a room [by] bringing a lot of creativity to it on the walls, the floors and with the visual art itself,” Mali Simone Jeffers said. Ellen Neiers, Photo Provided](https://snworksceo.imgix.net/bsd/810a038d-ff60-476d-81ed-02bf65659621.sized-1000x1000.png?w=1000&ar=4%3A3&fit=crop&crop=faces&facepad=3&auto=format)
After a racially discriminative job listing for a new creative director for gallery exhibition “DRIP: Indy’s #BlackLivesMatter Street Mural” was posted last February, Mali Simone Jeffers and Alan Bacon decided to pull out of being guest curators for the exhibit.
