- Hey, out there, Akronites, welcome once again to "Around Akron with BlueGreen," and wow, do we have an amazing show ahead of us today.

I'm gonna learn all about the Soapbox Derby Hall of Fame.

I'm gonna meet up with Tuesday Musical and learn all about their amazing history.

Then it's off the Highland Square to meet up with the Highland Square Film Festival.

And to wrap up the show, I'm gonna show you a film of my own that I made about 15 years ago.

Now to kick this show off today, we're gonna meet up with Jeff Iula and learn all about the Soapbox Derby Hall of Fame.

Let's go see what Jeff Iula is all about.

(calm music) - Way back in 1957, I was five years old and my mom took me to the race.

My dad ran the race, he ran it for 20 years, 1954 through '73.

And I went out to the race in '57.

They were going the other way back in those days.

They actually went from the ramp going in the rubber bowl coming back towards the finish line.

And they had to do that for eight years and finally in '59 they were able to go back down the regular track.

And it was because Akron did so well in the '40s and they did pretty good in the early '50s and they thought, no, that's just not fair.

So they made 'em run on this ramp.

And then I went to my first All American in 1959 and a guy named Richard Nixon was there and he flagged the first heat of the day, two of the cars crashed.

I thought, this is a pretty neat sport, I'm only seven here and I'm liking this, you know.

And I've never missed one since, I've been to 64 in a row.

(calm music) By '59 was my first all American, in '62 I was 10 and I started volunteering.

I was finally old enough at 11, but my dad told me I couldn't race because he ran the race.

He didn't feel it was fair, he made a new rule, it was basically the Jeff rule, but anyhow, that if any volunteer or anyone that got paid worked at the Derby, they could not have their own son race in it, and of course it was sons only back in those days, and it broke my heart.

I was very upset, I really wanted to race.

But he let me, you know, he let me volunteer and by '64 I was on TV.

We did a show every year on the local channel here showing how to build a car and I was the little model of it.

And that was exciting, you know, how many kids in seventh grade get to go tell everybody, "Hey, I was on TV."

You know, so that was neat.

And then '66 came along and that was my dream and how it was was the boy from Okinawa, I even have the flag, I've got his plaque and everything, he couldn't make it to Akron, but his car got here.

And Chevrolet, they all knew who I was because I was a little volunteer and Ralph's kid and everything.

And in Okinawa, if everybody knows, they're pretty small over there and I was only about five or four foot one I think, or four foot five something.

And anyhow, so they asked if I could get in the car and I did.

And they said, we're gonna let you be the substitute.

I got to go out to camp, I got the silk jacket, I got the watch, I still have the watch on, you know, and everything and it was my dream come true.

I got to be in the All American.

Yeah, I lost, I lost by a car and a half.

The flagman put the flag down and he had it back up before I ever crossed the finish line, but I didn't care, I was in the All American.

And to this day I still use that day, August the 6th, 1966 as the greatest day of my life.

(calm music) And so I just kept volunteering.

Well, by '70, '74 and '75 Chevy had pulled out of the derby and I always wanted to work there.

When I was 10, somebody would go, "What do you want to do when you grow up?"

I don't wanna be a doctor, I don't wanna be a lawyer, I don't wanna be a cop, I wanna run the Soapbox Derby.

I want Mason Bell's job.

And luckily enough, in '75, Ron Baker hired me and I was Assistant General Manager at that time and I started working for it from '75 till 2010 and I became General Manager in '88 and so the last 21 years I was the GM and before that, the Assistant GM.

But I got to do so many things, I met so many people, and it was just so great.

Well, after 2010 when I retired from there, I didn't want to go away.

So I ended up getting back on the Akron Local and helping them.

And I've been the president of the Akron Local like eight outta the last nine years.

And just being involved with that still, I have grandkids that race, I had two daughters that race, I didn't let them not race because my dad wouldn't let me, but I thought, why can't they do it.

(bright music) I wanted to get it started at the 50th All American, that was in 1987.

But I did finally get it started in the 60th Hall of Fame.

And that year, the first inductee of the Hall of Fame was Myron Scott, the founder of the Derby himself.

Scotty was 90 years old and we brought him back.

He had not been to Akron in 40 years, but he really wanted to come back and I was just so proud to get the old guy to come back.

He and his wife both, Clara, and they just had a great time and we put 'em in the hall and he talked and everything and it was really neat.

And so we put in the five inductees the first and they were always the S boys, I call 'em.

There was Scotty, Schlimmer, Jim Schlimmer, Shorty Fulton, Jimmy Stewart, the famous actor, and Wilbur Shaw, the famous race car driver.

Those five S's, they were the first batch to go in.

And then we'd been doing it ever since.

I was fortunate enough that in 2006 I got in, so I was in about the 10th year of it.

But my dad went in the third and there's only two of us, Bob Troyer and his dad Loris and my dad and I, we're the only Father-son combinations to ever go in the Hall.

The Hall now has about 80 people.

At Derby Downs in the new blue building that they built in 2000, that's where they house a lot of the cars.

It's not real good in the winter because it is not totally heated, it's a very large, it's 240 by 40, but we have a lot of the old cars in there.

But we have the pictures and the plaques of all the Hall of Famers down there, and we also have all the world champs plaques on there also.

So it's a combination of both Derby Hall of Fame and World Champion Hall of Fame.

And it's a very, very big honor.

I mean, when you're only four foot 11, how many hall of fames can you get in?

So I was very lucky that I could be in the Derby one.

(calm music) - Next up is an organization that's been an Akron for well over 130 years.

Let's go see what Tuesday Musical is all about.

(soft music) - These women in Akron wanted to share their musical talents.

The Seiberlings were involved, a number of well-known names in Akron, and there were Tuesday Musical clubs throughout the country.

Ours has lasted longer than most and we have morphed into a presenting organization.

We still have members who meet regularly to perform and also to listen to other musicians and to share their love of music.

But mostly what we do is present world acclaimed musicians on the stage at E.J.

Thomas Hall.

And we take those musicians out into the community to do education and community engagement works.

For example, they will teach master classes for students of all ages.

They will do decompression chamber programs.

Those are something we started about seven years ago.

We take classical musicians into high stress environments to present short concerts for staff and clients.

For example, at The Valor Home in Akron, which is a shelter for homeless veterans, at the juvenile court in Akron.

We've done these programs for a number of years, many times a year, and they are just a wonderful way, like the name suggests, to decompress through music.

(soft music) Over our 136 years, Tuesday Musical has presented really the biggest names in classical and jazz music on the stages of Akron.

We've had Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Emmanuel Ax, Renee Fleming, just really musicians at the pinnacle of their careers and I'm very proud of that, that our Akron Northeast Ohio audiences have been able to experience these musicians up close and personal, on the stage and also through the education and community engagement programs that we present.

(bright music) Tuesday Musicals Akron Concert series presents six concerts every season at E.J.

Thomas Performing Arts Hall in Akron.

And these concerts include the best classical musicians, world musicians, jazz artists.

We've had Soweto Gospel Choir, we've had Yo-Yo Ma.

This season I'm thrilled that we are going to be presenting up next the Kyiv Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra.

They are Ukraine's premier orchestra, they are only traveling in the United States during the month of March.

That will be March 12th at E.J.

Thomas Hall.

Right after they perform for our Akron audience, they will be going to Carnegie Hall.

For Akron they are bringing multiple pianos and the full orchestra.

They're conducted by a man named Dmitri Yablonsky.

He is from Russia, he works extensively in Israel, and he is conducting Ukraine's finest orchestra.

So I think that is a very timely program we're presenting.

Not only will Maestro Yablonsky be conducting, he'll also be a cello soloist during the program and there will be multiple pianists on the program.

So it's really an exciting way to experience this amazing orchestra.

In April, we will have the grand finale of this season with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

That is sure to sell out E.J.

Thomas Hall, so get your tickets early.

We've had Wynton Marsalis on our season in the past.

He is a big favorite of our audiences, and in part because he is so engaging with the audience, how he speaks from the stage, how he brings jazz music to life.

And he'll also be doing some education and community engagement work for us as well.

(upbeat music) There are so many aspects of Tuesday Musical that I'm proud of, but one of the benefits that we give to our community is this, we provide free concert tickets to every student of any age, whether they're in nursery school or they're in graduate school.

We also provide bus funding to schools to bring student groups.

We have hundreds of students come to some of our concerts.

That is something that I believe no other arts organization in northeast Ohio does.

That's something pretty special.

And again, that goes to us wanting to share the positive power of music in every way that we can and to make it possible for young people to experience music.

(soft music) ♪ I see the look in your eyes - In today's world, so much of what people experience in the arts is through listening through earbuds or seeing something on television or in some other way.

I believe that there isn't enough in-person music experience and that's what we provide.

We provide that in-person experience, opportunities to engage with stellar musicians, from the stage, in the audience, in the community, at a library at a free concert.

This is a way for our community to experience the best of classical jazz and world music right next door.

And they're not hearing it through their earbuds.

They are seeing it, they're feeling it, they're getting to know the musicians, just like Emmanuel Manny Ax coming on stage right after the Covid shutdown to do our first in-person concert and admitting that he was so nervous to be performing again in front of people, not because of Covid, but because he hadn't had that experience for a while.

And even though he rehearsed throughout the pandemic and the shutdown, walking out on stage is a whole different experience.

Sitting in the audience and hearing an artist talk about what they love to do and then do it for you in such a talented, immersive way.

That's such an opportunity that I'm thrilled that Tuesday Musical provides that opportunity for our region.

(soft music) - Next up, it's over the Highland Square where I'm gonna learn all about the Highland Square Film Festival.

Let's go see what they're all about.

(soft music) - I was asked to be part of the Highland Square Neighborhood Association Board, which operates Porch Rocker and they also run film festival.

And the year that I came into the board, they needed someone to take over film festival.

So it was a preexisting Highland Square Film Festival that had been run since 2018.

So this is the third year that I've taken over the film festival, so I took the film festival on because I'm a planner of things and my husband and his really good friend Philip are film guys, so we decided we could take the project on and so we did that, the three of us three years ago, and then brought a bigger team together of a group of our friends who love film and love Highland Square to make the festival more Highland Square like.

(soft music) - We are mainly showcasing short films, under 10 minutes.

Many different genres, from narrative documentary and music videos, experimental and student.

And everything is is funneled through Film Freeways.

If you are a filmmaker who wants to submit, you can go to FilmFreeways.com/HSFF, as in Highland Square Film Festival.

We get quite a bit of entries, the first year that I was doing this was 2021 and we got about, I would say about 60 entries.

At the time we didn't really turn anyone away because they all were of great quality, worthy of viewing, worthy of screening, and the next year, 2023, it grew and grew until we had to kind of limit who was coming in.

So we do have to look at every single one of these films, have to make sure that they are appropriate for the audience, we have to make sure that they are something that captures sort of the spirit of Akron as something that we really want it to do, and specifically even more if it can capture the spirit of Highland Square.

That's really exciting for us.

(cheerful music) - We kind of came together as a team and just really decided that Highland Square is known for music, so we knew right away we wanted to add a music video category and as soon as we did that, it kind of really expanded our entries that we got and so we just knew that we wanted it to be a film festival that seemed more accessible to the people, more festival like, especially since we were only doing it in one day.

I personally am not a big film person, so sometimes coming to a film festival seems a little intimidating.

So the ability to explore the neighborhood as well as film together really seemed right for Highland Square.

And the mission of the Neighborhood Association is just really to bring the community together and to support the businesses and each other, and so what better way than to utilize multiple places throughout the Square to see the films.

(cheerful music) - We also partner with not only the Highland Square Theater to show like usually our showcase stuff, but we also partner with a Nightlight downtown, which is Akron's nonprofit indie 501c3 theater, that if you don't know about you should, because it's kind of the shining gem in the cinema crown of Akron.

And we tend to do a pre festival event there almost every year that we've been doing this, and this year we're partnering with local horror filmmaker, JR Bookwater who has been making movies in the area since the late '80s, and he has a new movie out that is the first one he is made in 23 years.

So it's an exciting event that partners really well with what's going on for the actual festival in Highland.

(calm music) - Well, since Highland Square Film Festival happens only in one day, it's the third Saturday of May, so this year we're May 18th.

We happen throughout venues throughout Highland Square.

So we will show films at Square Nightclub, we'll show show films at the matinee, they've built a whole new stage for us to show there.

We include Barmacy and we show films at Yoga Squared as well as the American Legion, we always utilize the Highland Square Library and we also show films at Mustard Seed Market.

This year we're gonna bring Children's Festival in from Seattle that does like a best of kids' short films and we're gonna bring that, hopefully to the Highland Theater this year 'cause we always wanna include the historic Highland Theater at some part of our festival.

And we also invite the previous year's best music winner or song winner back to perform.

This year we have King Kat coming back to perform.

(upbeat music) - Another unique thing happening this year is Cleveland International Film Festival is coming to Highland Square Film Festival to kinda get a pulse of what's going on in the neighborhood and see what the filmmakers are doing and hopefully over the next, you know, three, four, five years, who knows how long, that partnership with Cleveland can grow and expand and we can start to see maybe films that didn't get into Cleveland, maybe want to come down and like try out Highland Square.

You can think of us almost as like the minor leagues in one way, where people can kind of cut their teeth until they get the experience they want and the exposure they want so they could then move up to the next level of film festivals.

(upbeat music) - Taking on any event is always a little nerve wracking, worrying about ticket sales and who's gonna show up or what the weather is gonna be like, since it's an outdoor thing and we also include vendors and so we want people to show up and enjoy whatever aspect of film and whatever part of that day is best for them.

So just making sure it's what we want it to be for the community that the businesses feel that it was a good day for them is always not as fun.

But I think we have a really strong team behind us, we're a great group of friends so we enjoy our time together and spending the whole day setting up and chasing each other and texting each other and it's really fun to see every year our amount of entries is increasing and our judges excited to watch the films and just see what creativity comes out of everybody, it's really cool.

(soft music) - Now to wrap this show up today, I'm gonna take you in a time machine.

I got my start making films way back in the day for film festivals.

This is a film that I had a part in 15 years ago.

Let's go see what "Blimp" is all about.

- [Narrator] Akron, Ohio, once home to thriving industry and urban development, experience success like no other city.

And now the city's dishonorable past has come back to haunt its present, as the area grapples with the endangerment of what some consider its most prized piece of history, the blimp.

When entrepreneurs realized the value of blimp skin for tire rubber, as well as the beast's rich caviar potential, the blimp was hunted to near extinction.

- [Woman] The blimp caviar was to die for.

We had so much, we fed it to our felines.

- [Man] I tell you what, ain't no tree made rubber as good as them blimp skins.

- Okay you guys, seriously, shh.

- Okay, sorry.

- They're sleeping right now, this is a really controlled environment, they are very delicate at this point.

We need to keep the noise to a minimum, okay?

To be perfectly honest with you, we don't even have time for this.

See, look, there's already one up.

Okay, this is what can't happen - Right now we're currently caring for about a dozen or so, most of them with very demanding schedules.

This one's mama shot outside a Bowl game in Arizona.

Yeah, the fans had a little too much to drink and shot her right outta the sky.

Luckily we were able to save the baby.

Shh, it's okay.

Okay, you know, you know, really honestly, I think that the lights and everything are really starting to bother her.

This one's still missing a few letters on the side.

You should see when they hit puberty and they grow their first bioluminescent sign.

Oh my God, it is absolutely beautiful.

- Some people look around and see rocks, marbles.

I look around and see life.

The sky was filled with these beautiful beasts that flew from horizon to horizon.

And I'm hoping to God that one day we can prevent the destruction of the blimps - Akron's unique geological terrain, a valley surrounded by large flat areas, is perfect for a blimp.

Similar to salmon, the blimps go out to lead a full life of parades and football games.

But they return home to Akron to mate and then eventually retire after hundreds of trips.

They're also expert at filtering out carbon dioxide, making it an ideal source of rubber.

And unfortunately propagating the problem we face today.

- What people think are marbles down here on the ground, they're really fossilized blimp eggs from a time of abundance.

The blimps once laid their eggs through this whole valley that runs from Akron to Cleveland.

Well the main concentration of these was in what's now downtown Akron.

- The eggs, they incubate for three years before they hatch.

And around here, they stay submerged in the fresh waters of the Cuyahoga River.

- The buzzards that used to come here from Hinkley, they used to devour the blimp eggs just like this one here because back then they were both a delicacy for humans and animals alike.

- [Lefty] Hey, you get off my property now!

- Does that person over there bother me?

Hardly.

I've been chained to trees, I've been beat up in protests in Washington DC.

I've been on more FBI lists than I can even imagine.

No, he doesn't bother me.

- My great-grandfather, Melvin P. Sneglet, had a vision for this city.

Lemme tell you, it did not involve blimps.

They're unwieldy, dull, and they block the blue skies from the sun.

Why would anyone like something that defies the sun?

Do I believe my great-grandfather had a personal vendetta against blimps 'cause of his fear of heights?

No.

He was a visionary, he developed a city's first one story multiplex office building.

Has a blimp ever done anything like that?

That's what I thought.

- What do you want me to say, blimps ain't good hunting?

They are.

You think they don't come in your home and eat your youngins?

'Cause they do.

Rubber lovers come in here and steal our jobs.

I'm right to shoot one of them.

You know, I gots to make a living too.

What the hell you want me to do, hunts deer?

****.

Man, them blimps you see out there, they're an abomination to the Lord.

You mean to tell me some people hold 'em like babies in their house?

That's just sick.

Hey, you get off my property now!

(gun bangs) - The fact that they call us the rubber city is completely disgusting.

That is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.

God, here we are honoring all the people who killed them.

We should be honoring the blimps that died.

Actually, most recently we've petitioned the mayor of Akron to change the name from Akron to Akros Orcas De Air.

And that's Latin and it means Akron, Whale Of The Air.

- [Narrator] The struggle of ideologies continues and the city wrestles with this uncertain future.

But the blimp will live to fly another day.

- Thank you once again for watching this episode of Around Akron with BlueGreen.

Now if you have any questions or comments, you can catch me on social media.

Thank you, and have an amazing day.

Akron soap.

(sighs) About the soft, bleh, soap box.

(sighs) (upbeat music)