Hi, I'm Ed Leon.

Welcome to the 260, where we cover life and culture in Northeast Indiana.

On this episode, I will introduce you to this beautiful creature and to the mission that saved his life.

The Journal Gazette reports on how local cities are leveraging public art, and Fort Wayne City Councilman Geoff Paddock on the influential women of Indiana politics.

It's all right now on The 260.

Every year, Injured Hawks, owls, Falcons and Eagles arrive at Soarin Hawks Raptor Rehabilitation Center in northeast Indiana through rescue, rehabilitation and education.

The organization provides these magnificent animals with a second chance while helping the public understand the important role that raptors play in our ecosystem.

Here to explain the work and mission of Soarin Hawks, our program coordinator Lynn Ostergren and volunteer coordinator Gigi Stewart, and their majestic creatures.

The little guy over there is Napoleon and this majestic guy is Jefferson.

Welcome to The 260.

Thank you.

Jefferson has his hood on at the moment, right?

Is he calling?

He's calming down.

He's coming down.

Let's see how he does.

I'll take his hood off for now.

There you are.

Big guy.

Wow.

He may have something to say.

He might have something to say.

Lynn, tell me the story of Soarin Hawk.

How did.

How did the organization get started?

Well, Soarin Hawks started about 30 years ago.

And in the beginning, we were in the Leo Cedarville area and very, very primitive buildings.

And... Was there nothing available for birds that were injured?

There really isn't up in this area.

We're the only place and we we used to work with a form... one of our former vets realized the need.

And so she and some other people started Soarin Hawk to.

Well, I want to hear the story of these birds.

Tell me the story of Jefferson.

Well, Jefferson is 15 years old right now, and he came to us when he was about nine months old.

He was actually tagged.

So we know when he was born and where he was born.

And he did tangle in with some power lines.

So he was injured and he was brought to our facility.

We got him back into shape.

But he does have an injury that he cannot be released.

He can't, he cannot.

All right.

So not not all the animals I mean that is your goal.

Is that the goal for all the animals to to release them back into the wild?

Absolutely.

Yes.

We definitely we get in a lot of birds each year for rehab.

And we do try to get them back out into the wild.

What makes a bird a raptor?

Good question.

Raptors have the strong bills for shredding and tearing apart food.

They have the strong talons.

Jefferson has about a 400 pound per square inch pressure with his talent.

Ed: I mean those are those are those are serious.

Those are for business.

Gigi: Yea, they are.

Ed: Those are designed for.

Gigi: So we we have to wear our Kevlar gloves for them.

Otherwise we do get harmed.

Our, our educational birds are used to people a little more than our rehab birds.

Ed: Which is why I can I can sit this close to him.

How long will he live?

In captivity?

Probably about 40 to to 50 years, which is probably doubled the lifespan he would have in the wild.

Okay.

He's like a millennial.

All right.

Now tell me about Napoleon.

Napoleon is a burrowing owl.

They're not native to this area.

He came to us from a falconer.

He was a captive raised bird.

Burrowing owls live under the ground, and they are the only raptor that lives under the ground.

And they live in great big cities under the ground.

So there are very social bird.

So what kinds of injuries do these birds suffer?

Is it is it all from from man?

I mean, is it all kind of our encroachment on their.

Unfortunately yes, we do get car strikes.

Mostly we actually, believe it or not, birds that have been shot or poisoned, we we treat all types of birds well, basically only raptors.

But we do get in a lot of injuries.

Now is our baby season.

So we are getting a lot of babies now.

So we have 2 great horned owl babies for 4 screech owl babies, 5 kestrel babies.

So our ICU is very busy this time of year.

Ed: So so yeah you said ICU talk about the services that you provide these animals.

Okay.

Both Lynn and I do work in our ICU.

I'm a person who has been trained to do triage.

So if an injured bird comes in, I will examine that bird, see what's wrong with it, and then figure out a treatment plan to hopefully save this bird.

So we get a phone call that comes in, that injured bird is down someplace, and then our rescue dispatcher will send out a rescuer to to go and try and get the bird.

Well, Jefferson is can be the poster child for our 250th celebration.

here at PBS Fort Wayne.

Gigi: Absolutely, yes yes.

What happened to him?

What injury did he have?

He ran into some power lines.

So he was actually electrocuted.

He has some wing damage that he.

He can fly a little bit, but not enough to to be able to be released in the wild.

So.

Ed: Wow.

Hey, buddy.

What was that?

Gigi: That was.

Ed: Was that a yawn?

Are we boring you?

No, that was a silent squawk.

So the birds do they do they fly away on their own, like when they're ready?

Or do you have to release them in certain habitat?

Yea, so if we get an adult bird in, we will release them back.

Or we would pick them up because they have an established area, orphans we can release in any suitable place that will help them live a long life not harmed by man.

So these are educational ambassadors.

These two.

What makes them?

How do you choose them to be that?

And what what do you get to do with them?

They definitely have the have to have the right temperament for this.

We cannot bring in a, say, a rehab owl at the age of five years old and expect that they will be comfortable in a situation like this.

So Napoleon has been in this life his whole life.

Okay, so he is totally at ease.

He's totally at ease.

We're having people stare at him.

Ed: He stares right back.

Yeah, he's a cutie pie.

Gigi: And Jefferson, he had the right temperament for it.

Not every bird that comes into rehab is suitable.

Do you take them into schools?

I gotta imagine they're big hits.

Gigi: Yes, Schools, libraries we were doing a lot of libraries this summer.

Jefferson's been going out a lot.

He's very popular at the libraries.

And one thing with our birds, if they don't want to go when we go into their mew, and if they say they're like, I'm not having it today and don't want to come out, we don't make them come out.

Ed: You say the mew What?

Explain what that is.

Gigi: A mew is their enclosure.

They all have appropriate sizes.

Napoleon's is about is it nine by nine or something like that?

And Jefferson's getting a new Mew that's going to be larger than the one he has now.

So.

So he's going to have a pool in there.

He has a pool now, but this will be a nicer pool, one that drains easier for our volunteers to clean.

We have volunteers who tend to these birds needs every day.

Right.

Talk about the volunteers.

It's a big part of the organization.

You as well.

Yeah.

Our volunteers.

We would be nothing like that out them.

They.

I have to say that being the volunteer coordinator that I have to say our volunteers are some of the best.

They are cleaning up bird poop.

It's part of the job.

Yeah.

Big part of the job.

Feeding them gross things that we don't normally, you know, see, but that's part of their.

What do you feed Jefferson?

What does he eat?

He loves fish.

Okay.

And we do get fish donated to us from different fishermen.

So they come by and bring the fish.

He likes to eat rats.

Everything that we serve is already deceased.

We don't have live things running around their mew thank goodness, we've been getting donations of rabbit.

He likes that we will pick up deer roadkill, right?

They like venison.

Now Napoleon, since he's smaller He gets things like mice and a day old chicks.

Ed: What?

What do people have misconceptions about these animals?

These these raptors?

I think people don't realize the benefit of them.

Yeah, a family of little owls like Napoleon, like screech owls that we have in our area.

They will eat one mouse a day.

So if they have three babies plus the two adults, that's five mice a day that these guys will take care of.

If we let them do their job, we wouldn't have that much of a rodent population going on.

But if we, you know, with poisons that are meant to kill the rodents, unfortunately these birds are... Poison gets into the birds... Get into the birds and even pets too.

And it travels right up the food chain.

Are they both native to Northeast Indiana?

Jefferson is, and they are making a wonderful comeback Eagles now, so it's wonderful to see Napoleon is not there a little further west of us.

But he's a great ambassador for owls.

So and what's really fun is that people will see Napoleon and they get to feed him a meal worm who has the crowd around them, not Jefferson, Napoleon because people are feeding him.

Worm so.

Well, I must say it is just, you know, it's just an experience just being in the presence of these birds.

Yes, he's a male.

How how would I tell a female?

Females would be a one third size larger.

Right.

Ed: Okay.

Because the the females are the ones who spend more time on the nest.

The males are the ones who will be more agile and could do hunting for their babies.

All right.

Well, it was a pleasure to have you here and these.

Thank you for bringing these to.

That's amazing.

Amazing, amazing creatures.

Well, thank you for having us.

The Soarin Hawks Raptor Rehabilitation Center is located in Huntertown, Indiana.

You can learn more about their programs at SoarinHawks.org Thank you for being on The 260.

Thank you.

Cities across Northeast Indiana are leveraging public art to strengthen their identities, attract visitors, businesses and new residents, according to a series of reports in the Journal Gazette.

It's becoming part of a long term strategy for building vibrant communities.

Here to discuss his reporting is the features and engagement editor at the Journal Gazette, Corey McMaken.

Welcome, Corey.

Thank you.

So you kind of looked across the region and what did you find in this reporting on public art?

So we know a lot about what happens with public art in Fort Wayne and how that has we've seen benefits from public art in Fort Wayne.

Other communities in Northeast Indiana are also seeing those benefits.

Yeah.

So how are cities looking at it, like the connection between investment in public art and kind of vitality of the of the city, right.

They're seeing public art as a way to bring in visitors, but also to bring in new talent.

So bringing in businesses and bringing in employees to their areas, it's a quality of place and quality of life element that really brings people in.

Let's talk about what's going on in some of these places.

Let's start with Decatur.

Okay.

Decatur Sculpture Tour, which has its entering its 15th season this year.

Right.

So they bring in dozens of sculptures every year to their downtown, and they're out for about 12 months, and people can come.

They see people coming in, they see people coming in and spending money in their town, which is great for them.

And they see people coming in not only for the sculptures, but also for music events that are happening in their area and people deciding, hey, you know, I really like what's happening here.

I want to move here.

Yeah, sculpture is just the catalyst.

Kosiasco County is also doing a lot right.

Kosiasco County, similar to Fort Wayne, has used public art really heavily in their branding for visitors to get visitors in, in their visitors guides and on their website, and they're seeing that it brings people in and the people are really talking about it.

They're saying, hey, this is beautiful.

It's colorful.

We want to come back.

And they also have a digital passport.

I thought that was interesting.

How does that work?

So the digital passports for Kosiasco county, you have it on your phone.

You have it on your tablet.

As you go around, you can check in at different locations.

And sometimes there's even a prize if you check in at locations.

So Bluffton is part of a what they're calling a rural placemaking studio at the from the University of Indiana.

What is that?

Explain what that is exactly.

The IU Rural Placemaking Studio works with smaller communities across Indiana to create projects or to brainstorm projects.

Some of them are public art, some of them are not, but they're all sort of cultural and placemaking opportunities.

So for Bluffton, what they're working on is creating a program for public art.

Murals, it looks like is probably where that's going to land that at the end of this summer, when that studio is finished, that they'll actually have a plan that they can take, they can do fundraising, they can do implementation of what that mural might look like to help activate their parlor City Plaza downtown.

Okay, I found that I found really interesting what you found out about Angola.

And they have a couple of initiatives, but talk about the crosswalks.

So last summer, yeah, it was really interesting.

Last summer, a local business in Angola sponsored two crosswalk murals in school zones.

And what they found, the engineering department for Angola put speed readers out.

So before and after those crosswalk murals were installed, they found that motorists were slowing their rate of travel by about five miles an hour where those crosswalk murals were.

So it became this not only public art and beautification effort, but it came a real safety initiative.

Yeah, so they get quality of life and and public safety, right.

They also have the imagine alley.

What is that?

They have Imagine Alley in their downtown area.

And it is an outdoor gallery space.

Really.

There's some public art that's, I believe, permanent.

There's some public art that is that rotates through there.

They also use it as a venue for some arts activities.

So you in your reporting, you also talked about the the long term maintenance of these projects.

Right.

Because it's not just enough to just get them, you know, to bring them into reality.

But these things are going to be there for years and years and years.

How is that considered in the initial projects?

Are the artists involved in part of it?

What?

How does that work?

Maintenance is a big component that both artists and officials told me of public art.

It's a big component that they need to think about not only from the beginning of the project, but all throughout a project.

So artists will look at the quality of the wall.

If they're painting a mural, for example, that brick or that surface will need to be cleaned.

It may need some mortar work.

If if there's some bad bricks or something there, they'll look at any wetness, leakage from the wall, that sort of thing.

Because of course paint won't, you know, if water gets behind paint, it'll bubble, it'll peel away.

You don't want that.

Well, also like Angola's crosswalks, you know, the wear and tear from cars going over those things has got to.

Be snowplows and ice.

And so there's you know, we've talked a little bit about Fort Wayne doing so much, but they're doing something special with you, the Journal Gazette.

Right?

Well the Art This Way Fest that's happening this fall, we'll be doing at least two murals along Broadway, I believe that's in October.

And so the Fort Wayne Newspapers building at 600 West Main Street.

We are really excited that our building will be one location for a mural this fall.

Awesome.

You're jumping on the trend, by the way, do you think this trend will continue?

Oh for sure.

I think if you look at larger cities in other states, you see that public art has had an even larger impact on them.

So I think we're going to continue seeing that here in Northeast Indiana.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Very informative.

You can read Coreys series on public art in the Journal Gazette at JournalGazette.net Thanks Corey.

Thank you.

All right.

My next guest has built a distinguished record of public service as the executive director of Headwaters Park.

As the former president of the board of trustees of Fort Wayne Community Schools, and as the current councilman for the fifth district of the City of Fort Wayne.

Geoff Paddock knows a thing or two about outstanding public servants, and he's channeled that into writing a new book, Indiana Political Trailblazers The Women Who Changed Indiana History.

Geoff, welcome to the 260.

Thanks Ed, It's great to be with you.

Thanks for having me.

Sir What happened?

What inspired you to write a book about women?

Public service?

Well, you know, you mentioned several things about that introduction, and I appreciate every word you put in.

I have been around for a while.

I've known a lot of folks, and I work for a few of them, and I didn't see anyone had really recorded, I think the history of some of some of the real trailblazers that are women, that are female, and they may have been married to individuals that had careers, some of them were, but they they struck out in their own and shattered some glass ceilings on their own.

And I think helped pave the way for a lot of women to get involved in politics.

And so I wanted to tell their story, and many of them were first in their field.

Yeah, yeah.

So tell me about some who made the book.

Yeah.

So 15 individuals and I tried to be bipartisan, as I normally am, eight Democrats and seven Republicans.

Sarah Evans Barker.

And we do this in alphabetical order as a Republican, the first woman to be appointed a federal judge by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Other firsts are Virginia Dill McCarty, a Democrat who was the first woman to be appointed U.S.

Attorney in Indiana by President Jimmy Carter.

Way back in 1977, Jill Long Thompson, the first woman a Democrat to be nominated for excuse Me, governor, and then later U.S.

Senator first and then later governor and then later served in Congress.

You worked with her right?

Yeah, I did.

I was district director for her for two years when she served in the what was then the fourth Congressional district in northeast Indiana.

Becky Skillman, a Republican, the first woman to be elected lieutenant governor.

You have others, like Julia Carson, the first African-American woman to be elected to the state House of Representatives and one of two to be elected to the state Senate and then served in Congress.

And there are many, many.

Many more.

Sure, there's others.

You make a big point about being bipartisan.

Is that is that a, you know, kind of a nod to the age we're in?

I think it is.

Editor.

And, you know, I think a lot of folks are getting very discouraged by what's happening in Washington and to some extent, even what's happening in Indianapolis, in our state capitol that we saw in this last session.

And they're aching to see bipartisanship come back to public service.

And so I think on the local level, we try to do that here in the city of Fort Wayne.

But I wanted to write about people who are in very influential positions, some in Washington, some in Indianapolis, some were mayors.

Yeah.

Prosecutors, like I say, U.S.

attorneys, judges and so on to balance that As you did the research for the book, which story surprised you most?

Like which really stood out to you?

You know, I think the one that I would have to say, of course, Pam Carter, first African American and first woman to be elected a state attorney general.

I mean, what an enormous accomplishment that was in 1992 when she was elected.

Virginia McCarty is kind of the trailblazer I look back at.

She was born a hundred years ago now and came very close within two percentage points, I think, of being elected to the state attorney general's position.

She ran for several offices and came very, very close.

But she opened up, I think, doors for a lot of others and helped lead the efforts to make it more acceptable to vote for women in public office.

That leads me to my question of all of them, which do you think had the most impact?

I know that's a very tough thing to to gauge, but could that have been the most impactful?

Would she have been the most impactful?

You know, I think there are several of them probably in that category.

You know, Sara Evans Barker, as I mentioned, a federal judge, Virginia McCarty, followed by Susan Brooks, who were state attorneys, who had VI Simpson, who was the Senate minority leader in the first individual to become a minority leader of one of those two bodies in the state legislature.

And they all had I think one thing in common to Ed is that while they were Partizan Republicans or Democrats in their own right and very active in politics, when they got elected, they worked across the party line.

You know, this was the day when you didn't have super majorities in either House or the Senate, right?

And you had to work across the line to get things done.

And there was much more, not only bipartisanship, but I think moderation in the Democratic and the Republican Party that I think a lot of folks are calling out for again.

So I wanted to single these out.

You mentioned why those individuals.

There were some others that I had in mind that we had kind of draw the line on to get this out.

Part of the reason was I wanted to publish this in the election year of 2026.

This just came out in May after the primary, and hoped to be able to promote it in the next few months before the November election.

Do you think that the women trailblazers of today, the present, are facing similar, the same different issues than the women that you researched for the book?

I think that we need to see individuals from both parties advance that are more moderate.

And sometimes I don't see this happening, particularly with the Republican Party.

But I think if we could find a way to see more moderation in our parties, I think we would see more individuals that want to come forward and serve.

And, you know, it takes a lot to run for political office.

Now, we're told that in the state of Texas, they may spend up to $300 million in the Senate race.

So finances are a very difficult situation to I think that's helped draw folks away from politics, which is unfortunate.

But again, I hope that those individuals that would see a path forward for more moderation and working together on both sides to get things done.

And that can happen again in Indiana.

And I think that can happen again.

Ed: Do you think thats the lesson that we can learn from from these trailblazers that can be applied to maybe even local politics in Fort Wayne?

I think so, because, you know, I think we do things a little bit differently here in Fort Wayne.

We are pretty much a mix.

You know, the mayor.

Mayor Sharon Tucker is a Democrat.

We have six Republicans and three Democrats on the city council.

But we all work together pretty well.

That doesn't mean we don't have disagreements, but we work together.

I think that's a model we could share.

And again, I think if we can see some more moderates come forward, the American people, the people in Indiana, people in Fort Wayne, I think are aching to vote for individuals that want to roll up their sleeves and work hard, but do things on a consensus basis and try to bring bipartisanship back to government.

All right.

We'll end it on that great note.

The book is titled Indiana Political Trailblazers The Women Who Changed Indiana History by Geoff Paddock Check it out.

Thank you.

Geoff.

Look through this again.

Thank you.

Editor.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

That's all the time we have for this episode.

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Now, please take a moment to appreciate the people that make this show possible.

And I'll see you next time on The 260.