ded by Columbus Visitors Center, celebrating everywhere art and unexpected architecture in Columbus, Indiana.

Tickets for guided tours and trip planning information at Columbus.in.us.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> ASHLEY: Coming up, meet veteran and Paralympian Tom Davis.

>> BRANDON: Travel to Parke County for a look inside a remarkable historic property.

>> ASHLEY: Meet master woodcarver Bob Taylor.

>> BRANDON: And check out an Indiana farm of a different sort in Morgan County.

That's all on this episode of -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana"!

♪ >> ASHLEY: Welcome to "Journey Indiana."

I'm Ashley Chilla.

>> BRANDON: And I'm Brandon Wentz.

And we're coming to you from Riley Park in Greenfield.

>> ASHLEY: And as season four of "Journey Indiana" comes to a close, we thought we would take a look back at some of our favorite stories from the past year.

>> BRANDON: That's right.

And first, we're headed to Fremont to meet veteran and Paralympian Tom Davis.

Producer Jason Pear has the story.

♪ >> When I got hurt, I really struggled mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

Some of the darkest times of my life.

It was rough on everybody.

I think that's one of the things that most veterans struggle with, especially when they get wounded, not wearing the uniform anymore, losing that sense of identity and purpose.

What am I going to do with the rest of my life now?

♪ I was infantry.

You know, the guys that go in, kick down doors, and, you know, do all the grunt work and, you know, fight the fight.

I loved it.

And even before I got out of basic training, I knew that's what I wanted to do.

The physicality of it, pushing yourself, you know, being a leader, you know, the camaraderie, everything.

It was -- you know, you get to shoot guns and blow stuff up.

I loved everything about it.

We were on a patrol at night in the city of Ramadi, and my Humvee ran over a roadside bomb, and then we were ambushed.

I went to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. That's where my leg was amputated.

I spent most of that time learning how to walk.

You really got to learn how to do everything again, not even just physical, but, you know, mental, emotional, psychological.

You need to learn how to deal with all of that and get ready to go back into the world.

One day my therapist said, hey, I got something I think you would want to try, and he had a handcycle there.

And we took it out on the veranda, just that went around the hospital.

And I was just able to ride that and just -- it was -- it was like being a kid again.

You know, like learning how to ride a bike for the first time kind of thing.

I loved it.

And I got done, and I said I got to get me one of these!

Then I went to Fort Benning for a year, and that's where I got my first handcycle.

Then when we came back here, it sat in our shed back here for probably about two years.

I was at the Y in Angola.

I was praying and everything that day, and I just felt like God was telling me, go get that handcycle out and start riding it and race it and do it for my glory.

And I walked out of the gym, got it out the next day and started riding.

That was 2011.

♪ That first day I went out and rode, I think I rode 13 miles, and I thought I was going to die.

And I didn't ride again for, like, another two weeks.

I was so sore and tired and everything.

And then I went out and did it again, and I told my wife, I said no matter what happens, make sure I go out and ride my bike the next day to start getting used to it.

So it's just a gradual buildup to I can go out and ride 50, 60, 70 miles a day and just do it every day.

In 2012, I started getting competitive.

I went to a couple international races.

I went to the national championships for the first time.

That's also where I realized that I got a lot more work to do.

It was probably about 2013, I think before I won my first race.

And then 2014, I made first national team, world championship team, and slow but steady process, you know, keep moving up.

One of the good things about handcycle is a lot of marathons will allow us to compete.

So, yeah, I have been able to race and win in Boston, I think five times; L.A. marathon; Detroit marathon; Chicago marathon; and then races all over the country, all over the world.

I have been to Rio; Bogota, Colombia; all over Europe and Italy; Belgium; Germany; South Africa.

It's taken me literally all over the world, and it's been -- it's been amazing to be able to go to the nice places of the world.

It's definitely been quite the journey.

My initial goal was the 2012 Paralympics in London.

When I went to that first national championships, I got smoked.

I got smoked pretty bad.

That's where I realized I had a lot of work to do.

Really, the 2016 season is when I put in a ton of work, and it all paid off making that first team.

When I went to Rio, I let the pressure, I let the stress of everything get to me, and I was very upset with my performances.

And ever since then, my whole goal has been to get back and go to Tokyo and make it right.

So this year was great.

I went to the Paralympic trials in June, and I actually won the trials outright.

Honestly, that's what my goal was the whole season, was to go there and win, and not have any doubt of whether I would make the team or not.

And, yeah, I was able to go do that.

We do a Bible study group when we go to races.

There's several of us that get together, and one day we talked about how do you define success, and we used John Wooden's definition of success, doing your absolute very best that you can with the opportunities and the talent that you have been given.

So I really tried to focus on that.

I just want to go over there, and I want to do my very best that I can.

If I come home with some medals, that's awesome.

But if I go there and I do my absolute best and walk away with nothing, I can live with that.

>> ASHLEY: I can't believe that on his first time out on a bike he did 13 miles.

13 miles is what I aspire to do on my bike on a daily ride.

>> BRANDON: A daily ride?

Like a weekly.

In January, Tom announced that he was retiring from competition, but you can always follow the U.S. Paracycling Team at the address on the screen.

>> ASHLEY: Up next, we're headed to the small town of Rockville, where Producer John Timm has the story behind the Indiana State Sanatorium.

♪ >> The restoration of historical buildings really gives you an insight into how people lived 100, 150 years ago.

♪ A lot of the older buildings are so much better built than modern buildings are.

♪ I have undertooken several restorations of historic homes.

I've owned large properties before.

I am a civil engineer by profession, and kind of a restoration, historical restorationist by hobby/passion.

♪ My interest in the Indiana State Sanatorium was primarily its location in Indiana, and its just natural beauty.

It rivals state parks in the beauty of its landscape.

It has massive state-built infrastructure, roads, power plants, houses, buildings.

It was the whole package, but also being able to open a new business in Indiana was a big part of it.

The Indiana State Sanatorium was opened up as the Indiana State Tuberculosis Hospital in the early 1900s.

>> All over this broad land of ours, a bitter war is being fought against tuberculosis.

>> It had about 300 tuberculosis patients.

They built a state-of-the-art facility out here in rural Indiana to care for tuberculosis patients and quarantine them from the general population of the state.

The site was originally 600 acres.

It was a self-contained town.

It had its own schools, stores, dairy, orchards, farm fields.

The staff lived on the site with the patients, and it was quite an endeavor.

♪ The site closed in 1968, and was opened again as Lee Alan Bryant Nursing Home Mental Hospital in 1976, and it stayed open until 2011.

In 2011, the site closed again, and was abandoned until we took over in early 2021.

♪ ♪ This is far and away the largest project that we've taken on.

Currently, we have about 220 acres.

We have dozens of buildings.

We have hundreds of thousands of square feet under roof.

We're working to get the entire site on the National Historic Registry as a district, and we'll be restoring all the buildings.

The reason to get on the National Historic Registry is multiple.

The federal government gives a 20% tax credit on money that was spent towards historical restoration.

Having a property on the National Historic Registry also brings tourism.

It's a -- it's a nice marketing bonus.

There are about 20 buildings on the site.

Seven houses, three main hospital buildings, lots of ancillary structures, small garages.

We are sitting in the Indiana State Sanatorium dairy barn, a 14,000 square foot banked barn that was designed by Purdue University in 1914, and then built by the State of Indiana as a model dairy barn.

This facility provided milk products to the Indiana State Sanatorium and the Indiana School for the Blind.

>> The grand plan for this dairy barn is to be an indoor facility that up to 1,000 people can utilize.

We have already been contacted by several different groups to hold weddings here.

We are hosting the local prom here next spring.

We've already talked to music promoters about hosting live music events in here.

♪ >> Some of the other major buildings on the site are the 1908 administration building, about 35,000 square feet that was built in several stages that originally housed the doctors and nurses, the pharmacy, the kitchens for the facility.

>> First time I walked into it, I thought it was a hotel.

I didn't realize it was just admin.

The plans for that building is to turn it into short-term housing, kind of like a hotel.

It will probably have about 24 rooms.

>> There was the five-story building that was built during the tuberculosis era that was dormitories for tuberculosis hospital staff.

There is a modern-ish 1980s era nursing home, an 80-bed nursing home.

So there are lots of major buildings on the site.

♪ >> After we bought the property, someone came and contacted us about doing paranormal investigations here.

The buildings are all still standing.

Most of the buildings have furniture in them, other personal items.

And so there's been some interest in doing tours of the buildings.

And we do private tours where you can rent the area and be the only people here, and we also do public tours where we'll take groups on a guided tour through all the buildings.

♪ >> We're not renovating this property.

We are restoring this property.

Having the old -- the old feeling, making it warm and modern and safe is obviously important, but keeping the history is also equally important.

♪ We're always taking volunteers out here at the Indiana State Sanatorium, if you are interested in history and getting your hands dirty.

We've had dozens of volunteers -- hundreds of volunteer days of people that have come out and helped.

They've helped clean the buildings.

They've helped restore the land.

They're helping with the historical restoration.

So volunteers are always welcome.

♪ >> ASHLEY: Want to learn more?

Just head over to thesanatorium.net.

>> BRANDON: Up next, we're headed to Bartholomew County to meet master woodcarver, Bob Taylor.

Producer Saddam Abbas has the story.

♪ >> When I was growing up, it was during the Second World War.

So there was not a whole lot of toys out there.

Everything was being used for wartime.

So I was always making something with my hands, with cheese boxes, or whatever -- whatever you could find, little pieces of wood to work with.

When I started Boy Scouts then, my grandfather had given me a knife when I was 8, and I have a duplicate of that knife that we found years ago.

Then when I was a senior in high school, they gave us an aptitude test of some sort.

The test results came back and they said, well, with your aptitude in mathematics, with your interest in hands and drawing, it looks like to us that you would make a really good pattern maker.

And I said, well, what's a pattern maker?

I had no idea.

So I went home and I asked my dad.

I said, here's what came back with the test, and I said, I don't have any clue what a pattern maker is.

And he said, well, I know what a pattern maker is.

My dad was a foreman at Cummins.

I finally decided that wood carving was my -- the chosen element because wood is warm.

If you are doing sculpture in stone, stone is very cold.

It's really hard on your hands; whereas, working with wood is more comforting and more -- and it's easier on your hands.

When I first started out, I was doing three-dimensional carvings, which is what you see on the wall and the narrative slides.

And then I did a lot of three-dimensional carvings for other people.

♪ In 1946, after the war, we had a -- what we called the ball diamond, which was next to the foundry here in Columbus.

And that field was open most of the time, except when the circus came to town.

And that was our sandlot ball diamond.

All the kids -- neighbor kids would go over there and play ball.

But when it was circus time, the circus would come to town on the train, and then unload within a block there, which was two blocks from my house.

And we would always go over there then, and we would want to water the elephants or whatever, see if we could get a free ticket.

Of course, they would always run us off because they were afraid if an elephant steps on you, it's probably not too good.

But anyhow, that was part of that.

So that was one of my carvings now that I have -- it said in the paper, I have a clipping that talks about the train coming in and unloading, and it said the train was almost a mile long.

And it was the second largest circus in the United States at that time, which was Cole Brothers Circus.

So all of those memories ended up within my memories also now, and so that's the fun part that you touch other people's memory.

Well, I hadn't thought about that in years, you know, but, yeah, I saw it happen.

♪ Mooney came to Columbus with his carvings in his truck, and that's what I'm carving right now.

I was about 8 years old at that time.

We went to the county fair.

His truck was just inside the grounds of the county fair.

So Mooney would come out on a platform that was connected to his truck, with a little piece of wood, and a knife, and he would make a few cuts in the wood, here and here and here, and make a pair of pliers.

And I said, wow!

I want to learn how to do that.

I told my folks, I want to see him do that again.

They said, well, we're going to go over to the exhibit and look at the 4-H exhibits, and then we'll pick you up on the way back because we were going to go ride a few rides, and then we were going to go to the harness races that they had every year, have some Cracker Jack and go home.

That was our yearly event to go to the fair.

So I'm standing there waiting for Mooney to come.

What he would do then, people would come out and go through his truck, and I think they paid a nickel or a dime, whatever it was, to see his carvings.

And so then he came back out on the platform, and the people that had gone through were gone, and I'm standing there.

And he said, can I help you, son?

And I said, well, I want to see you do that again.

And he said, would you like to see what's in the truck?

And I said, well, I don't have any money.

He said, don't worry about it.

So he came down off the platform, and took me by the hand and led me through the truck.

And what he had in the truck exhibiting was called the History of Steam.

And it was from the little bitty steam engines, up to the bigger engines, up to the train engines, and even had the Lincoln funeral train carved out of ebony and ivory.

Most fabulous stuff that you'd ever seen.

Well, that -- all of those carvings are now in a museum in Dover, Ohio.

♪ I've always accredited God for giving me the gifts of using my hands, and I believe that God does give us gifts, and he expects us to use them.

So that's kind of what I've done.

>> BRANDON: In 2020, Bob received the Indiana Heritage Fellowship Award from Traditional Arts Indiana.

Just head to the address on the screen to learn a bit more about Bob and his fellow recipients.

>> ASHLEY: Finally, we are headed to Morgan County to learn about a unique family business.

Producer Reuben Browning and Editor Stefan Buba have the story of Ozark Fisheries.

[ Background chatter ] ♪ >> Most people have never actually met a fish farmer.

And so when people meet me for the first time, and they learn that I'm a fish farmer, they -- they always have a fish story or they grew up with a fish or -- everyone has a fish story, but they don't always think about where their fish come from, and they don't realize that their fish can be born and raised here in America.

♪ My name is Margaret Cleveland.

I'm a fourth generation fish farmer here at Ozark Fisheries.

My family has been raising fish for 95 years, and so it's kind of in my blood.

I -- from the time that I could walk, I was out there helping my parents, you know, catch the fish or sort the fish or work on shipping them out.

I used to do a lot of sorting, where I would go through and pick out the good fish versus any fish that have any flaws, or take the tadpoles out of the fish.

So it's important for me to continue that legacy.

This farm was originally called Grassyfork Fisheries.

It was started in 1899 by Eugene Shireman.

It's one of the oldest fish farms that's continually operated in the United States.

♪ >> We raise goldfish and koi.

These are ornamental fish being used for indoor aquariums, outdoor patio ponds.

None of it is used for human consumption.

So we're selling these fish for the visual appeal, and they are going to go into these tanks and aquariums across the United States.

>> So we raise a lot of fish every year.

Typically, our hatcheries are taking out about 125 million or just hundreds of millions of fish each year.

♪ Ozark Fishery raises two different types of koi, one called the butterfly-finned koi and then a standard fin koi, as well as five different types of goldfish.

And then we also raise something called pond scavengers, which are things like bullfrog tadpoles, crayfish and snails.

You want snails or crayfish because it's something different in your pond.

They help build up the ecosystem as well.

The crayfish will eat the decaying matter at the bottom of the pond.

The fish will add the variety you can see.

♪ >> So this is our fish hatchery.

So this is where the fish actually hatch out.

So we spawn our fish outside.

The fish lay their eggs on these mats.

These mats are brought into the hatchery.

They are put in these tanks.

They are in these tanks for two to -- two days.

On the third day, they start hatching.

And then we're going to take them out into the ponds when they are 2 days old, and they spend the rest of their lifetime on our farm in the ponds.

Goldfish are originally from China and koi are originally from Japan, and they actually live typically a lot longer than you would think.

Your average goldfish should live around 25 years, and your average koi should live around 75 years.

The fish will grow based on the environment they are given.

So if they are given more space, more room, more sunlight, more food, they are going to grow larger.

Typically a goldfish can get up to 12 inches, and then koi can get up to 36 inches.

So they can get really big.

So this is our outdoor koi holding facility.

So these koi are brought in from our ponds.

They are ready to sell.

They are here.

We have already acclimated them and graded them by size.

So we're waiting for a customer to buy them, and then they'll be shipped out.

So as a farmer, our product, what we're trying to sell is where we make our money, and that's -- not only do most farmers really care about their fish and care about their products.

We want them to survive and be as healthy as possible so that we have a product at the end of the line to sell.

♪ >> So in Martinsville, we have around 250 ponds.

They are each around an acre in size.

Some of them are a little smaller, some of them are a little bigger, but they all have -- are flow through systems.

They each have an inlet and outlet.

They are dirt ponds.

So all of our fish are raised outdoors in these dirt ponds.

♪ >> The ponds that the fish live in, they all have to be conditioned and dozed out.

We spent a lot of time on tractors, big equipment, digging new drain lines, digging -- not necessarily new ponds, but rehabbing the ponds that we currently have.

♪ >> So Martinsville is known for goldfish.

They even have banners in their downtown that have goldfish on them.

At one time, it was the goldfish capital of the world.

And so we do try to invite school groups out for tours, and we try to give back when we can to support the community.

Fish farm is not something that a lot of people get to experience, and so especially aquaculture in general.

Even farmers know a lot about agriculture, but not a lot of people know a lot about aquaculture.

And so getting to bring a school group out and to get them to see the fish, get to put their hands in the water, get to hold a crayfish, really brings a lot of joy out in them, and hopefully some day maybe want to own a fish themselves or be interested in the industry itself.

>> ASHLEY: And you can learn more at Ozarkfisheries.com.

And as always, we encourage you to stay connected with us.

>> BRANDON: Just head over to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes and suggest stories from your neck of the woods.

>> ASHLEY: We also have a map feature that allows you to see where we've been and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by Columbus Visitors Center, celebrating everywhere art and unexpected architecture in Columbus, Indiana.

Tickets for guided tours and trip planning information at Columbus.in.us.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!