April 27, 2022 enFocus: New college graduates given the opportunity to make our community better Why don’t things work? Nice question. But a better question is, how can we make them work better? Since 2012, enFocus and their fellowship…
April 26, 2022 My mom never needed a cape to be my superhero This coming Mother’s Day is bittersweet. Last year at this time I sat next to my mom, hand in hand, feeling her butter-soft skin,…
April 26, 2022 More or Less: Remembering seven people who made me smile I used to chuckle when somebody would say to me, “Your (South Bend Tribune) column is the first thing I read right after the…
April 22, 2022 Saving the farm from invading German troops Years ago, I could kill a half-dozen Germans a day and barely bat an eye. I would have killed a lot more, but I…
April 17, 2022 Lifelong lessons from an out-of-date dance teacher I’ve been thinking these days about a dance professor who taught at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in the mid-1970s. When I first met…
April 16, 2022 Even on Easter, come as you are By Aaron Helman It was the week before my first Easter as the youth pastor at my new church in a suburb of Indianapolis,…
April 16, 2022 Moor or Less: Cyclist takes us on ride through local history Aaron Helman is my kind of guy. The 38-year-old South Bender is an avid cyclist, a born-and-raised Chicago Cub fan and Clay Methodist…
April 13, 2022 Brian Kelly shows true colors — and they aren’t pretty Being from Cincinnati, I heard a lot of negative opinions about Brian Kelly. At the time, I attributed it to sour grapes over the…
April 12, 2022 Now I’m catching on to why he never left the park There was no reason for me to write down the guy’s name, but I wish I had. Three of us – Mike, Al and…
April 12, 2022 Moor or Less: Everyone’s from somewhere, even Blytheville We were about 10 miles from the Missouri state line as we approached Blytheville, Arkansas, where there was an affordable Hampton Inn, a Perkins…
April 9, 2022 My college education wasn’t all about the classroom I arrived at Indiana University in late August 1982. My dad drove up from Louisville to South Bend to transport me to Bloomington for…
April 9, 2022 On tattered underwear and being just good enough Note: Mark originally wrote this story six years ago. Last night, I stood on the stage at Indiana University beside I.U. President Michael McRobbie and…
April 6, 2022 Moor or Less: Driving through the land of pumpjacks, pickups and, yes, roughnecks “Man, roughnecks galore,” I said as a constant line of pickups passed us by with various work cargo in their truck beds. “That’s not…