A new year is upon us! We are up and running with our big opening in February of the “Best of Ross County” high school art exhibit. 105 entries this year, so the balcony is full as well. We had upwards of 180 people attend, with Jim Butt, our sponsor, helping to pass out the ribbons and checks to the winners. Angela Young was a great help getting the food together along with the drinks. Cheri Noel, who usually does the refreshments, is in Florida until April. Snowbird! Millicent Williams is taking her slot on Fridays, as Shirley Vickers is also snowbirding. Angela served up 15 pizzas to the group. Well, we had 2 left over which Dave Rieder is making short work of on the weekends! I also gave one to Kevin Coleman who is always looking for a meal.

Shelby Reeves from the Gazette was good to us with two front page articles. She did a very nice write up on the high school show. Then, she followed up with a front page article on our barn painter, Robert Kroeger. Robert is coming in April to do a demo to promote his November 2024 show. While here, he’s on the scout for more early barns to photograph and learn from.

We accomplished a few things during our month off in January. Stephen Steele got the manger scene moved and stored until next year. We were able to get the new TV moved to where it should be and Bright Solutions discounted the bill $500 for our trouble. Jarrod DePugh created a nice rolling ad for the TV that we run daily. He got it to us for the February opening. Copp Renovations was able to paint the gallery for us and repair the old TV mount, so that $500 came in handy. We used a semi gloss paint this time, hoping it holds up better. Chris Mash, who cleans the Pump House regularly, finally got around to waxing the gallery but couldn’t work in the gift room floor. Alice Reynolds and I met and are going to look for funding sources (again) to replace the gift and gallery floors, with new carpet in the upstairs. We are also going to explore replacing the marquis out front with and electronic one. We have requested a quote from Jarrod Depugh. Our old one is starting to show some age, as I am when I go outside in the rain to change it monthly. Millicent changed it this month. She likes to stay busy!

Angela has had a couple of zoom meetings, ironing out the details for our June events. She has also sent out solicitation letters to help fund it and we will be working with the Majestic, utilizing that space as well. Jade Berry is planning our Art in the Street event for this year, continuing that event for the third year. It is well received and very successful promoting awareness for the Pump House.

Mike Throne put together our strategic planning session in January. It was well attended and Steve Hummel did a nice job leading it. It was held at the Chamber office and lasted through lunch. He will have some outcomes to share as we move forward in the next few years promoting art in the Ross County, Southern Ohio area. Our March show will be sponsored by Mares Cares, April show is sponsored by the Chillicothe Art League, May’s sponsor is the Atomic Employee’s Credit Union, and Betsy Parker is funding the post cards and the money to make the June Show a judged event, with ribbons and prize money. I am meeting this week with Teressa Reep to help plan the 2026 250th Anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and what it means to our community.

We ended the year with a $28,628.00 carry over and have paid our sales tax for the second half of 2023. This went in 2 days late. I thought it was due the end of the month but in reality it was due January 23. We have raised the money necessary to fully fund our Fix the Bricks campaign and are in communication monthly with our major grant holders. Work should commence by September of this year.

The Pump House has been running very smoothly since our last board meeting February12th. While our sales for the Best of Ross County weren’t good, it continues to bring patrons into the gallery. The Chillicothe Art League put in many hours changing our show to The Pioneer Showcase for DD Month. Over 100 entries had to be hung and labeled. Betsy Parker, Bev Reilley, Judy Wallbacher, and Judy Summers all worked many hours. Millicent Williams made herself available to type the data base and get the labels out to be hung. We had good promotion from Litter Media, Hazel Tanner and the Gazette.

For the actual opening, we were packed! Y’vonne Hooks gave us a great deal on 15 Hook’s Pizzas at $10 apiece, cheaper than the previous month’s Poppa John’s. We sold over 90 pieces of artwork that night. Needless to say, Dave Rieder and Bev Reilley were tired by the end of the evening. In addition, Betsy, the two Judys, and Mary Grote spent the evening marking the art sold and writing up sales tickets. Another plus for the Art League. The Pioneer Center was well represented that night as well with Superintendent Amy Beeler providing important remarks. They were also able to utilize the new TV with a presentation of a Pioneer Center slide show. Trish and Alvin Mares of Mares Cares sponsored this event and were so pleased that they want to sponsor next year’s as well.

Steve Robinson and I were able to add a USB port on the column under the big screen TV. Now we can plug in a small drive on the gallery main floor in addition to the HDMI port that was already there. Steve also created a small slide show that we can run to promote our rentals and membership, for example.

We have ordered two styles of t-shirts designed by Jarrod DePugh to be sold at the gift shop, for $22 and $28 respectively. The order came with enough to get a t-shirt to each of our volunteers for the great work that they do as well. We are also awaiting a quote for a new marquis from Jarrod that will have a digital screen operated from our volunteer desk. This will be purchased with grant money we identify once we get a quote. Our Membership Annual Meeting is the Thursday March 14th. It would be nice to have the t-shirts ready for that event. All board members are encouraged to attend. I am finalizing the agenda and hope to be ready to go!

Coming up will be Earth Day in April on the 20th. We will need extra help for that day as it is quite busy. Robert Kroeger is stopping by on April 23rd to promote his barn paintings and scout out some more barns in the area. Alice is planning an Art Class with Steven Riggs instructing for May. Angela Young has submitted a sizeable grant for her June activities and Vicki Pritchard has worked on a grant for the Writer’s Conference in the fall. It is so nice to see everyone taking such an interest in building success at Your Pump House Center for the Arts!

Another month in the books and we are that much closer to summer! March turned into a very good month for us. With the pioneer show selling close to 100 pieces (in the range of $5-$20), sales in the gift gallery, and the opening for our Spring Show, we are in the range of $12,000 for the month of March, where typically we only do about $3,500. It helped that a patron came in February with 3 Alan Gough paintings that she wanted to put on consignment. We did that and they sold in March. That was about a $3,500 sale. Since our Spring Open opened in March, those sales went to March as well. We sold 11 paintings during that open!

So, does Facebook really work? A patron from Columbus was at our opening on March 28 and really liked John Victor’s grand prize winner. John wasn’t there as he had a band commitment that night. But, John did come in the next day to view the entries. Another artist, Ross Wheeler, who won First Place, was also there. Ross is younger, the Piketon High School Art teacher, and he has admired John Victor’s and Pat Sims’ work for years. Since I knew them both, I took pictures of them and was a fly on the wall for quite a while. I then went home and did a Facebook post using their pictures and telling the story. The patron from Columbus saw the post, liked it, and on Saturday, called Dave Rieder at the Pump House, and bought the painting! $1,200! So, do Facebook posts work?

One of our grants, the flow through grant that originates in the federal government, $63,000, wants us to hire an historical architect for this bricks project. She wants him to come up with a cost estimate for the project. I reached out to Rex Hagerling from Moody Nolan from Columbus. Stephen Steele and I know Rex from when we were young and procured the Pump House for the Jaycees. Stephen and I both wanted to plow back profits from our Halloween haunted house activity into the Pump House, so we hired Rex to draw the Pump House. Rex was not an architect at the time but had drafting skills. We put a few thousand into the roof of the building using these plans, and then Jim Barrington and Ted Fickison took over and they used his plans as well. The door and window designs are Rex’s for example.

I met with Rex and he still has those plans, which should be saving us some money! He is still working on a proposal, but he has talked with Susan Moore, who oversees the process. She will put the bid package together, put the bids out and select the winner. Once the project starts, she will want a representative from Moody Nolan to attend biweekly meetings with the contractor. So, we await an estimate for this service.

I have talked to Bill Bonner to remind him that the city verbally agreed to take out the landscaping and use it elsewhere. This should save us about $6,000. I informed him it had to be out by September 1st, but he could start now while it is spring and the weather is nice. He’s going to look at it.

Kevin Baxter, the contractor, estimated @6,500 for gutter and downspouts, but we have built in gutters, which we will keep. So that will save a little money. With the extra $5,000 or so that we raised and these savings, we could have as much as $17,500 to pay Moody Noolan, depending on their estimate. Again, we need an historical architect. Rex is one of the few in the state. He has worked on saving about 6 buildings for Columbus City Schools, as well as smaller projects like Dard Hunter’s Mountain House two recent additions. He is also the architect for the Canal Warehouse on Mulberry and Main, although that’s not something to brag about. If you’ve seen the renderings of what it could be, Rex did those.

Alice and I are working with the two major grants to do all of the paper work required. Lots of it! You have no idea. On other fronts, we have Earth Day coming up Saturday April 20th. We will need help with a membership table and t-shirt sales. We are drawing for an original Robert Krueger painting with entries available if you purchase a t-shirt! Dr. Kroeger will be here April 23rd for a barn tour. I have found 3 barns for him. He will be back to the Pump House by 6:00 for a book signing and a barn talk for the public. Whoever shows up also gets a chance in the drawing. Kendra Sims is giving a watercolor class April 27th at the Pump House. She hopes to do more in the future depending on how this goes.

May turned into another fine month of sales and donations. Angela has been working hard to raise money for the June show, and Jade Berry brought in both fees and concessions to support her Art in the Streets project. The Art in the Streets was very well attended and enjoyed by all who came. It was very well organized. Jade had her mother, Millicent, a regular volunteer, there to help and with her kids and husband, it was a family affair! The select poet readings were a special event for us all to remember. Stephen Steel and his son Evan were a big help with clean up.

We have hired the firm Moody Nolan from Columbus as our architects for the Fix the Bricks project. Their cost will be around $15,500 all said and done. I have an open line of communication between Rex Hagerling and Mathew Brown, the architects directly in charge of the project. They have recently spent the day here on site making drawings and developing a project plan to serve as the basis for the bidding process.

Alice Reynolds put together a painting class for our members with artist Steven Riggs as the instructor. This was a nice perk for our membership and was well received. Alice wrote a grant for this event, so our cost was negligible, but the benefits were immense. We had four other art classes in May. Kendra Sims, wife of artist Patrick Sims, is a watercolor artist. She was holding classes at her home for instructing watercolor and approached me to have them at the Pump House. She had limited success, probably averaging 4 students per class, so I elected not to charge her as she did it during our regular business hours and set up and broke down her own workshop. She’s just getting started and by encouraging her it is hoped that she will see some success in the future with her instruction. She is having another class this Friday the 14th from 11:30-1:30.

We have had our security service gone over and checked. We were getting misreading’s at the keypad. More of an annoyance really. They will be back this month to update our fire extinguishers and check our batteries and our emergency exit signs. Something we do annually. The elevator doesn’t get much use but is working well. and is up to date. May is also the month to get file our federal income tax. Again, we used Mark Frasure for this. He was quick and prompt. It was a bit more complicated showing the money we have collected for Fix the Bricks, but he figured it out and we have filed and are up to date.

I put out the word for a new potter and we nabbed a new potter, Drew Gray. Very talented. We sold six pieces of his in May and I was happy to send a check to him for almost $200.00. We sold four Jack Pine Pumpkins as well. Julie and I went to the Columbus Art Festival this past weekend and saw Jack Pine as well as Philippa Evangelic, another artist we carry. That was quite an event. We could take some ideas and use them in our Art in the Streets, both of which are very similar events.

The Chillicothe Art League did another fine job hanging our June show. This was probably our best June show in recent memory. With King’s Art Council working with us, we again have quilts in the show and the artists were there opening night to promote their wares. The reception was well attended and Angela, in Cheri’s absence did a great job with the refreshments, along with help serving by Shirley Vickers. Very nicely done.

Looking forward to the summer and anxious to get the Fix the Bricks project moving forward.

The summer is upon us. June continued on smoothly with our Juneteenth celebration at the Majestic on the 22nd. We really appreciate the organizational strengths that Angela Young has brought pulling this together. It was certainly a large endeavor, raising over $10,000 and collaborating with the NAACP and the King’s Art’s Council from Columbus. We had very good attendance at the Majestic, with volunteers manning a volunteer table and Jade Berry doing an excellent job as emcee. Her collaboration with the poets in the area through our local writers group deserves noting as well.

Mathew Brown from Moody Nolan has finished with the construction documents and project manual for our Fix the Bricks project. As of this writing, there is a call set up with Susan Moore, the Community Development Director who holds the strings to $63,000 in funding. After reviewing these plans, I will have more to report to the board. I have asked Stephen Steele to be involved as well. He has been involved in the building and has a history with it. Two heads are better than one as the saying goes.

The June show is beautiful. As always, the Chillicothe Art League did an outstanding job hanging the show, Ancient Origins. Artist Rusty Hardin organized nine other artists with their take on the theme. Bev Reilly really does a good job coordinating these events. Our opening was disappointing but expected being the Friday after the July Fourth celebrations. The high point was the refreshments by Cheri Noel who put together a fantastic table. Most of the artist attended as did Kevin Coleman. Those who were there enjoyed a fine evening. We kept Stuart Beverly’s work upstairs for the month and sold a paining during the event to boot. Allison Henderson of ClearSite Vision sponsored the event. Thank her if you see her. Yvonne Hooks attended and brought two bottles of wine with her to donate to us for events. She also volunteered to sponsor our October show and donate pizza and salad for our refreshments in addition to paying for our postcards. Our next show in August will feature photos by Betsy Parker in the main gallery with Doug Crawford in the upper gallery. I mention this because Doug uses nude models for his photographic efforts. Very tastefully done, but very graphic in detail. We plan to let the public know before they journey upstairs. It will be at the public’s own discretion. We have the show sponsored by a patron of the arts.

Alice Reynolds put together a painting class for the Carver Community Center’s clientele. Cheri Noel is the instructor. She wrote a grant which funds it through the Chillicothe Ross Community Foundation. Scott Graham delivered the check for $1500 in person. Thank Scott if you see him. Working with the Carver Community Center broadens our base with the community and that helps is in other grant proposals. Kendra Sims, wife of artist Patrick Sims, is a watercolor artist, and is continuing with her classes on Fridays from 11:30-1:30 in the main gallery. She is having another class this Friday the 12th from 11:30-1:30 as well as the 19th.

We have had our air conditioners gone over by Accurate. One was leaking. All is well and a minimal charge. This month our sales tax is due for January – June so we will have it filed and paid by the deadline. We had a good first half of the year so it will be a big check. September is getting closer and Dawn Zarbakhsh has been pulling together our wine tasting fund raiser. Alice has moved the membership fundraiser with Hillbilly Chic to October to give us a break from the wine tasting event. You’ll hear from both at our meeting. See you then.

Fair week is over. It’s always slim pickings for a business during fair week. Ours is no different. When I had a downtown business back in the ‘70’s and 80’s, you might as well not open up. But we did and have at the Pump House. Our opening on Friday, August 2nd was a success, despite having our post cards delayed, again, by the post office. We had the post cards at the post office on July 22nd. It used to take between 4 and 6 days for them to be delivered. I got my post card the day of the event, the second of August. This is in addition to the recent change where the consumer (me) must now go online, fill out a form, and pay for it. Now, when we drop off the post cards, all the paperwork is complete. They just scan a bar code. We have to shoot for earlier and earlier completion times for the post card to keep up with their lateness.

The Carver student art class was a success and they had a very nice event with the parents to show off their work that they created. Cheri Noel had refreshments and we had great attendance. Thanks to Alice Reynolds writing the grant and taking care of the logistics for us. She has done this for several years, but as stated before, events like this position us to be in line for future grant monies, as it shows we reach out to different demographics and age groups to spread art throughout our service area.

Fix the Bricks continues to occupy a great deal of time, as it should. Stephen Steele and I have reviewed their drawings and plans as they develop for the construction process. Moody Nolan, our architects, have provided detailed drawings of each view of the Pump House and a list of exactly what needs to be done. This is part of the bid process that needed completed. This project has to be bid. Susan Moore, Community Development Director, has also set guidelines and parameters to those that want to be involved in the bid process. We want only qualified construction firms bidding. They must submit photos of past work, construction techniques and methods utilized. We don’t want to have a low bidder that finishes a mortar joint with his thumb getting the job! Moody Nolan has most recently developed a 20-page list of what exactly has to be done in the order in which should occur. Stephen and I are to meet with them tomorrow, August 13th, at their office to finalize this list. We have made an initial payment to them for over $6,000.00. Their total estimate for their work is over $15,000. Dave partially withdrew a CD from WestBanco to make the payment.

Our latest show from Betsy Balzer and Doug Crabtree has been received well. With Doug, we have the concern about his work, specializing in nude photos. We feel he has taken care to provide us with photos that aren’t too graphic, and to my knowledge we have not received complaints about it. I think the haiku poems he displays with each photograph lends and air of creativity to the whole show. We are receiving entries for our September show, “The Hills”, and it will undoubtably be a success as well. This show is expensive to put on, but our sponsor, The Kingston National Bank, has been good about funding it for the past four years. We have already received our check.

We are selling tickets for our wine tasting, “A Taste of Appalachia” for September 12th. Dawn Zarbakhsh and her committee have been meeting and getting everything needed to make this a success. Likewise, Alice Reynolds has her membership fund raiser for October 17th up and running. A fun night is planned with Hillbilly Chic. An added attraction is comedian Lori Graves doing an intermission performance. Alice and Dawn will brief the board fully at our meeting. As a further note, Alice has accepted a position with Rio Grande College and will be teaching a class for them. She will no longer be able to work her regular time of Wednesday, 11-4. But we put out an email and Don Watts, who is a member has accepted the position. He has been in twice and will be in 2 more times this week. I am hoping this works out.

Finally, we had trouble with the elevator. During a power outage, George Young was using the elevator to come down from the balcony. Normally, in the event of an outage, the elevator is supposed to work, as it is battery driven. It did not. George was stuck. Angie did all she could to free him and called me, as I am only 5 minutes away. I called Stephen Steele, knowing he was a retired EMT and had training. That was a good call. We had him out in 5 minutes, thanks to Stephen. Stephen also is the building manager for the Masonic Temple on Main Street, and they have an elevator as well. The company he uses has been contacted and they will take a look at it this week.

See you at our meeting

Not a lot has happened this past month. Julie and I were exposed to the Covid virus August 29th, so we have been quarantining. According to procedures, we are to quarantine for 14 days, so it will end on September 12th. If we do need to be around people, we are to mask and maintain a distance. Apparently, Covid can lie dormant or be asymptomatic in your system for that amount of time. Consequently, I haven’t been around much.

We were able to get out our second mailing for membership. Our last one was in April, so this one went out around August 27th. Millicent was very helpful labeling the envelopes. Tim Staab and his wife Joyce, along with my wife Julie, stuffed all of the envelopes. We sent out 156 reminders and over 50 prospects. We need 200 pieces to do a bulk mailing.

Earlier in the month, Stephen Steele, Julie, and I all went to Columbus and met with the architects on our Fix the Bricks project. They are working on the necessary documents to get this project bid. Stephen and I reviewed their list of everything that needed done. We added to the list after a careful review. We have not seen the finished project. They are providing that to Susan Moore, who oversees our flow through money of $63,000.00. I have been in contact with Jessica Delong, who is in charge of our $127,000.00 Facilities grant. She now has everything she needs. We estimate this project will be complete by August of 2025.

On August 15th, I was the guest speaker at the Rotary. I gave them the latest information about our Fix the Bricks project and also discussed the problems we have been having with the bulk mail. The last post card only took 4 days to reach the mailbox, a far improvement from the 12 days it took the last time. It is unpredictable. Members of the Rotary suggested that we just email it instead.

It is nice how everyone has stepped up since I have been quarantining. We have a new volunteer that has been trained, keyed, and coded. Donald Watts is his name and he works Wednesdays now. He has also helped out with some rentals we have had. Dave Rieder’s wife has not been doing well and has been at Riverside in ICU for the past 2 weeks or so. He is still managing to get the mail but travel to Columbus everyday has been prohibitive. He did not work this past weekend, and Don and Millicent covered for him.

We have had great participation in this month’s show, “The Hills”. Over 90 entries. It is sponsored by Kingston National Bank. We also brought in additional revenue by charging $10 per entry. Next month’s show, the Seven Women Show, will feature our own Bev Reilley along with six other women from the art league. It is sponsored by Hook’s Pizza. I still need a sponsor for Dr. Kroeger’s show of barn paintings in November as well as the Holiday Show.

We have two big events coming up. “A Taste of Appalachia” is this Thursday September 12th. It is being chaired by Dawn Zarbakhsh. Our Membership Fund Raiser is October 19th. It is being organized by Alice Reynolds. We need to sell tickets!

See you soon!

And just like that, another month rolls around. We had a loss last month when David Rieder’s wife Karen passed away. Karen was active in our community and she and Dave had been married since 1979. We got to meet their two children and say our goodbyes at a family gathering in her honor. After the service, we all gathered at the p[ump House for a celebration of life. Our thoughts are with Dave and his family. The volunteers all chipped in and made a nice donation to the Pump House in her honor.

Rentals have been doing well. We had 4 rentals in September and a couple more so far in October. Rentals give us a nice profit margin. If we do a rental for $350.00, that’s $350.00 profit for us. If we sell a consignment item for $350.00, after we pay our commission, we profit only $105.00 and the artists makes $245.00. The drawback to rentals is that we must have someone on premises during the rental. Sometimes that’s easier said than done. I think if we had some board members cover some of these events it would be a great help. Something to consider at least.

Hat’s off to Dawn Zarbakhsh and her wine tasting event. It was well attended, and all of the participants enjoyed themselves. It was a lot of work to put this together and Dawn did most of the work. The good news is that we did not lose any money on this and we walked away with a small profit. I see a chance to grow this if Dawn wants to continue with the event next year. If all of the tickets were sold, we would have profited about $1,750.00 more than we did. There could be add-ons as well. She did a couple of nice gift baskets which were purchased for example. There is a good chance for growth here.

Our new show this month, Seven Perspectives, had a good opening. Yvonne Hooks of Hooks Pizza sponsored it, so opening night we had plenty of pizza for the crowd. We also had plenty of wine left over and donated by Dawn from her event. The seven artists in the show are our own from Chillicothe Art League and most of the artists help hang each show each month. This is a task they enjoy doing, but it is very labor intensive. We are lucky to have their help. This show really captures their talent.

Our membership drive is this Thursday. Alice Reynolds has this well planned and thought out. We were able to get a sponsor, Bill and Linda Herrnstein, to cover all our costs. The main idea is to grow our membership. We are looking forward to a great turn out and a lot of fun to boot. Make sure you plan to attend and show your support! Just a reminder, but if you are a board member, you need to be a Pump House member according to the Code of Conduct. Check with either Dave, myself, or Alice and we can get you squared away.

Next month’s show is of artist Robert Kroeger with his barn paintings. Since the Herrnstein’s were so generous, we are putting their names on the post card as the sponsor. We will feature artist Lanny Stout up in the mezzanine as well. Our program chair, Bev Reilley, has been trying to keep both galleries full. She has done a commendable job, booking in 2026 now.

This is the busy time of the year. We have some new merchandise coming in and Jack Pine is stocked as well. Hope to see everyone at the openings and our Hillbilly Chic Membership fund raiser!

We are rapidly running out of 2024! Hard to believe it’s November. Lots of activity at the Pump House since the board last met. Our Membership event with Hillbilly Chic went extremely well thanks to the hard work of Alice Reynolds. She really left no stone unturned. She emailed all of the membership announcing the event and then personally called them. That was a nice touch and several in attendance made mention of it. We had a nice crowd and brought in several new members. But our existing membership was very appreciative as well. Hillbilly Chic did a fantastic job, with Lori Graves providing a nice block of comedy during the break. Cheri Noel outdid herself with her brisket recipe, paired with her homemade potato salad made an extreme hit with the crowd. We continued to make use of the wine from Dawn Zarbakhsh’s wine tasting event that she donated. While Alice did spend over $100.00 on beverages, our tip jar brought in over $300! Not bad!

Looking ahead, Mike Throne’s Chamber Business after Business is always successful. Next year, the Pump House is scheduled to host the July 16th event! It would be nice if our brick project was finished but I’m not holding my breath. We will provide food and drinks for the event and Mike is always the MC for door prizes and such. Mark your calendars and we will work out the details. Great exposure for us!

Closer to home and our brick project, we are zooming in on a contractor’s meeting, where the contractors who are interested will meet with Susan Moore, a grant coordinator for us, and the architects to see the project they will be bidding on. With that looming in the future, I felt it was important to remove the landscaping and expose the foundation of the building. We have a grant Alice wrote for $18,000 for the landscaping that we received so we pulled the landscaping out of the original project. The original estimate I believe was $6,000 from Arselli’s Landscaping. I got an estimate from another firm for $3500. Jason Link agreed to do it for $$3000. We wanted all the plants removed, roots and all, level the surface, and partially mulch the area. Rev. Link got the job and completed the project in less than a day. It looks great and he only charged $2700 since he got it done quicker than expected, I suppose. I didn’t ask him. My Dad told me to not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Now that we are in the heating season, we had Accurate come and go over our systems. One thing I noticed was that one day our east heat pump had ice on it one morning. Accurate ran all of their tests on the boilers and pronounced them fine. On checking the heat pump, there was an electronic board that had failed causing the ice buildup. It is now fixed. Very expensive in my book, but necessary. Over $800. I’m still not convinced the boiler works properly possibly due to air in the lines. After conferring with Accurate, we will wait until cold weather hits and see how it performs.

The Mighty Children’s Museum will begin their skating rink this weekend. I met with them and traded schedules. Last year they gifted us $500 for our trouble, unasked for. They are easy to work with but sometimes can be a pain for the volunteers. Last year we purchased lighting effects for our lawn in front and this year I met with Erica Oliver of Bright Solutions, to expand our look. I have an estimate for a little over $800 to add to our display with a 9-foot and two 6-foot tree lights. She installs. I also worked out a deal with the Light the Park committee of volunteers for us to sell their t-shirts and sweatshirts in our gift shop. In return, they will put up more lights for us and complete the look. Our own t-shirts have sold well and we have ordered more small and medium shirts from Jarrod.

Our November opening was not well attended in my estimation. You’ll have that. We did sell several paintings which made up for it. Cheri brought out the brisket, so as far as I was concerned it was a success! Bev Reilley was a great help that night as was Stephen Steele and Dave Rieder. Poor Dave had a head cold he’s been fighting and couldn’t hear a thing! It is always good to have extra hands for these events. Our next opening is December 5th and I hope to see many board members at this event.

2024 is a wrap! We have made it through yet another year for the Pump House. I believe this is 32 and counting. Certainly hard to believe. Our shows are set for 2025 thanks to Bev Reilley, our program director. We have shows for every month, with the mezzanine being fully utilized even when we have a small show downstairs. I have recently recovered from a replaced hip, so that’s my big news. That is going well and it almost as if it did not happen, with the exception of no more hip pain!

We had a very nice dinner for the volunteers on December 13th at Fire and Stone Pizza. Chef Shawn cooked us up a fabulous dinner that we all enjoyed. Almost all attended. This is our 3rd dinner and it was well received. You can’t say enough about our volunteer staff. They are the backbone of this organization. That being said, we do have snowbirds leaving us for a month. So far, Cheri Noel will be in Florida til April and her side kick Shirley Vickers will be out til at least March. We will make do.

Our collaboration with the Mighty Children’s museum went off without a hitch. They had a great turn out and weren’t much of a bother to us at all. I would welcome them back again if they do it next year.

For our Fix the Bricks program, we met with the contractor’s that are interested in the job to bid on it. Susan Moore, a grant coordinator overseeing the bid process, Rex Hagerling, our architect, Stephen Steele and myself were on hand for the 5 or so contractors who met and are interested in bidding on the project. The contractors have to have their bids ready by January 23rd when they are due. We are still having trouble satisfying another grant, from the Ohio Facilities commission. On this grant, we were told that the lease we were using was only between the CIC and the city. They wanted more. So, we had Mike Warren draw up a sub-lease between the CIC everyone agreed to. That was signed and sent to the OFC. At this point, we were then told that they didn’t like the original CIC/City lease. Go figure. Kevin Shoemaker, the Council President and the Mayor are working on this. I’ll keep you posted.

Our next show opens February 6th. Jim Butt is again sponsoring it but with all this snow I’m having my doubts about the teachers being able to get the artwork. We need some clear weather and get those kids back in school! Y’Vonne Hooks is donating the pizza for this event. It is always well attended.

While we are out, I had the carpet cleaned upstairs. K&K Carpet service is their name I believe. They have done it several times in the past, so they knew exactly what to do. They cleaned all the area rugs as well. I have scheduled them to strip and buff the tile floors as well downstairs. This will be done January 20th. We should be cleaned and ready to go for our opening.

Betsy Parker and Bev Reilley are going to help freshen up the gift store before we reopen. It is always good to rearrange pictures and gifts as it creates excitement for the regular customers.

Well, we finished the year! Happy New Year to all! We have indeed had a successful year, but I won’t be recapping that with this report. We are working on an annual report and hope to have that by the end of the month. We are closed for the month of January and will be using that time to get our floors stripped and waxed for the coming season as well as some other small projects that we are working on.

We are going to have our annual report soon, so a lot of the data we acquired with our treasurer’s report will be available. It was pretty much a break-even year, with close to $70,000 in income and expenses. We did spend over $20,000 in maintenance this year. We are committed to preserving the Pump House.

With that in mind, we are working on plans for a capital improvement campaign which will be announced shortly. It goes without saying the outside brick and stonework is in sad repair and will take almost $270,000 to bring it back so that it lasts another 100 years. That’s the value of an old building, built to last. It was built in 1883! We are entering it’s 140th year! The state has committed around $129,000 for this project, so they agree it needs fixed. Such a great building housing local art for all of the area to share and showcase local talent.

This project goes right along with the Choose Chillicothe Committee that I sit on. The committee finished its work and made a public presentation last week attended by over 100 people. The park is one of the major focuses of the committee, along with Riverside street and the old Tiffin School lot. In the park, it is recommended that just east of the Paint Street entrance an amphitheater be created, the skate park be moved across the street towards Water Street and a Pump Track for mountain bikers added. A new pickle ball court would go in where the skate park is presently, and all new parking added. Go to choosechillicothe.com and see the whole plan. Very impressive.

One of the nice collaborations we had this year (and we had many) was with the Mighty Children’s Museum and their skate park. From about Thanksgiving until New Year’s they stayed warm in our building to sell tickets for skate rentals and skating. Their attendance was about the same overall but saw an exponential growth as the season flowed. It took a while for the word to get out on their new location. They would like to be there with us next year and keep the location. They want to help us with our decorations for the holiday season. We have tried to get the Shine ON committee which does a fantastic job of lighting to park to come over our way, but so far, they have not been able to do so. This year, Stephen Steele and I found some old lights in the basement and lit all the bushes around our building. But they certainly could be better. I feel that with the help from the MCM we can light it up much better next year. The MCM plans to lobby the Shine On committee to that end. My wife is on the committee, so my lobbying is limited. Ha!

So, as MGM confirms, Pump House building location is out of the way of the main traffic in the park. I recently talked with Bill Bonner about getting road signs put up directing visitors to us. I outlined to him the placement of three signs that would significantly help us in that regard. To my surprise, he informed me that signs were a part of the park improvements recommended by the Choose Chillicothe Committee. According to Bill, plans are moving forward for that project. I am anxious to see a formal announcement on this.

Our Holiday show was more successful than anytime since I’ve been here, and this was my third. John Victor especially helped market and sell the event. Patrick Sims was also a big help. It turned out to be the biggest show of the year, with almost $3,000 in sales. We had a great opening with very good attendance. Cheri Noel, volunteer and board member, put out her usual fantastic spread of food for the guests and almost all of the artists were there. It helps when the artists are there for the opening!

Our February Show, The Best of Ross County, is opening February 2, from 6:30-8:30. It is sponsored by The Atomic Employee’s Credit Union. Schools have not had so much off time this year, so we hope to get back to the levels of the past where we have art both upstairs and down. The show will be judged, ribbons and cash prizes will be awarded. It is always a good show. The 2023 calendar is complete and available on our web site.

In March the board plans our Annual Meeting. Through a grant written by board members and volunteers Alice Reynolds and Vicki Pritchard, art classes will be available to members and announced soon. Board President Mike Throne was recently elected to lead the Ohio Chamber Association of Chamber leaders, and plan to use his skills to help lead the board with the help of a facilitator to develop a scope and sequence of the direction of the Pump House into the future!

Other happenings in our downtown include Restaurant Week January 11-30, the annual Chocolate Walk which will be February 11th, and a Bar Crawl March 18th, following St. Patrick’s Day March 11th. There will also be a sign for events listed on Paint Street that will be located in the alley beside the ice cream store posting events for visitors to engage. It is great to see our Chillicothe Downtown flourish and even better to be a part of it!

The Pump House is off to a great start for 2023. We had the biggest crowd for our February opening of “The Best of Ross County” since I’ve been here. At 7:10 on opening night I counted 183 people on the floor. Now some had left, and some kept coming. I took this count because it was getting crowded. Our capacity is listed at 190, so we were close! The Gazette did us well by featuring us on the front page of the paper with a nice article by Shelby Reeves. Mike Smith also did some nice feature work for Litter media, and Kevin Coleman did us right on the radio.

Our sponsor, the Atomic Employee’s Credit Union, was represented by Dustten Alley, the Western Branch manager. He helped pass out ribbons and checks. Judy Summers, the vice president of the Chillicothe Art League, passed out the honorable mentions for her group, since they donated $25 gift certificates. Angela Young, our first vice president, handled passing out Hook’s Pizza for the crowd, as well as making the drinks and doing the set up for all the refreshments. Steve Robinson, one of our volunteers, came in to take pictures and had 3 nice Facebook posts up before the evening was out. We all work as a team and the team works well.

The inside of the building looks good to start the year. We purchased a lot of new merchandise and redid all the displays, including the art walls, to start the new season. The old floor got stripped waxed as well. Mike Throne was elected to continue his role in the 2023 calendar year, with Angela young serving as our 1st vice president and Stephen Steele our 2nd vice president. Jade Berry continues her role as secretary as does Dave Rieder our treasurer. Yearly, we have a representative join us from the Chillicothe Art League. This year, Dawn Zarbakhsh joins us to sit on the board, replacing Lisa Humphrey, who served for 2022.

Our next show has already started. We have a lot of prep work to do for each show, The Pioneer Art Show, to help bring awareness for Disabled Disabilities Month. Our sponsor will be Sutherland’s Radiator and Auto Repair. Tim Sutherland has been a great supporter. He and his dog stop in regularly to see the show and he has purchased many art pieces the last couple of years. He also contributed a large unsolicited donation last year for our cause. No questions asked. When I approached him about being a show sponsor he did not hesitate. It is good to have such a friend for the Pump House.

Our April show, the Chillicothe Art League Open, is also almost ready to go. The Art League has graciously taken over hanging all their shows, so this one is an easy one for us. They even make their own art labels! The sponsor for this show is Betsy Parker, a longtime supporter of the Pump House and the Art League. She herself has a show of photography at the North Annex library branch this month. Very talented and generous as well.

Going into each show is a post card we continue to mail to our members. Jarrod Depue, board member and owner of Metropolis Designs, has been doing these for over two years. He his clever and talented with his designs. This is a big task and probably doesn’t get enough recognition for his efforts. He also keeps our web page updated. He does this without compensation, just another way to give back to the community. It makes for a nice, professional, card to over 350 patrons every month!

We are headed into the 2023 season with a lot on our plates. We hope to have the plans for our capital campaign to fix our deteriorating brick and stonework completed soon. We need to raise upwards of $175,000 to fully fund this project, which replaces over 300 bricks and every brick mortar joint, as well as 17 stone lintels along with landscaping the entire area. This preservation effort will see us well through the next 75 years. But this is an 1883 building, so there is always work to be done. But it DOES make a lovely art venue and is a wonderful anchor in the park. Chillicothe is so fortunate to have saved it.

Stop in for a visit every month for a visit and enjoy the artwork in YOUR Pump House!

We had another great opening, this time for the Pioneer Art Showcase. The sponsor this year was Tim Sutherland, who owns Sutherlands Radiator and Auto Repair. The Pioneer show was well represented. Amy Beeler, the superintendent was present and gave remarks to the crowd. She also had 2 of her staff members, who were very helpful. We sold a lot of paintings from this group, probably averaging $10 a sale. But still we took in over $1,000 for the night.

Our next show is the Chillicothe Art League’s Spring Open. We have a sponsor for that show who is also sponsoring our May show. The sponsor requests to remain anonymous. Show sponsorship runs $350 for a regular show to cover the printing, mailing, and reception costs. A show like our February, May, and September shows runs $1,200 due to the costs of a judge, prize money, and ribbons being added to the cost.

Our 2023 and 2024 shows are booked. Bev Reilley has already started our 2025 calendar. I met with her and we are going to get a listing printed and laminated to hang in the gift shop to help with promotions. We need more people to visit the Pump House. While we have had two great openings for the year, I believe the attendance has been off. According to our records, we used to get twice as many visitors as early as 2014 and 2015. It’s challenging to say the least. We can complain about the lack of visitors, but we need to focus on ways of improving. We are always open and welcome to new ideas.

We initially planned a membership meeting in March, but this needs to be kicked back to April. I wish more people attended. Only 12 showed last year. Sending out post cards costs over $200 and it just doesn’t seem worth it. But it is in our Code to make this happen, so we need to honor that commitment.

We have met to begin the plans for our capital campaign to fix our deteriorating brick and stonework. We have a plan to at least get the $127,000 from the state fund that has been allocated, but a total of $186,000 is needed to fully fund the project. We will meet again April 3rd and finalize our strategy after our organizational meeting from March 6th. Our President, Mike Throne, is recapping this and it will be available shortly.

Stop in for a visit every month for a visit and enjoy the artwork in YOUR Pump House!

April is shaping up to be a very busy month! We have our Spring show up and running, sponsored by the Chillicothe Art League. Over 100 attended the opening and we had some sales as well. The Gazette came through with yet another front-page article. We have the Earth Day event Saturday, April 15th and then Art in the Streets to keep things moving. Earth Day is a rental for us. Shelley Pocock is the main organizer and she has been putting this on for 23 years. She rents the Pump House, sells space for venders, then arranges for music. I would have to say there are at least 1000 people who show up for this event. It’s a good chance for us to promote membership which we do.

Memberships are coming in from the notices mailed at the end of March. I do these 3 times a year: spring, summer, and fall. This is probably our best source of income. The only costs associated with this are the postage fees. We print and stuff envelopes in house. We are preparing an additional membership drive, focusing on the patrons who sign up on our sign in sheets. We are trying to work this in next month.

After Earth Day, we have planned a membership meeting on Thursday, April 27that 6:30PM. This is the Annual Membership Meeting. At this meeting, the “Fix Our Bricks” campaign will kick off. The project will be explained in detail and funds will begin to be solicited. For tier one donors, $1,000 will ensure a brass plate affixed to an interior wall brick of the PHCA. The plate will have engraved the name of the donor. These plates on the wall bricks will be a permanent fixture. Tier two $500 donors’ names will be engraved on plates affixed to a large wooden plaque to be hung inside the PHCA. Families, Civic and Local Clubs are encouraged to add their names to the tier one and tier two donor plates.

Of course, in addition to these large donations, smaller donations are also welcome. There will be a donation tree inside the building for these. The tree will be in place throughout the campaign. The state has allocated $127,000 for this project and we hope to raise an additional $175,000. This will completely fix all of the exterior brick work for future generations of use.

We have an event, Art in the Streets, the brain child of Jade Berry, coming up for our second go round this year on East 2nd Street April 28th, from 5-9. There will be live music, food trucks, and local artists presenting goods for sale at this event. We had a great turn out last year and hope the event is even bigger and better this year.

May brings our photography show, “Captured!”, this year with cash prizes and ribbons to the winners. May is always busy with rentals as well. We have rentals practically every weekend.

Since our last meeting, I’d like to thank everyone who helped out and stepped up keeping our doors open. I didn’t come in as often as I’m used to, due to health reasons and home repairs! I resurfaced the front porch on our 1879 home up on Carlisle Hill. Alice Reynolds, Steve Robinson, Bev Reilly, Angela Young, Cheri Noel, and Dave Rieder kept the doors open, the floors and bathrooms clean, and engaged our patrons. We had good sales and visitations due to their continued dedication.

Our March Pioneer Show was very successful, much improved from last year. Thanks to board member Mark Trainer, owner of Carl’s Town House, for sponsoring it. Courtney Lewis, a staff member at Pioneer, made sure we had plenty of art, over 100 pieces. With over 150 people in attendance throughout our opening, we sold about half of the shown pieces, averaging about $12 per sale.

Our April Show, the Chillicothe Art League Spring Open, also was very successful. I can’t say enough about the spirit of cooperation we have with the Art League. They pretty much hang all our shows now and are happy to do it. This is a tremendous help to us. With their show, I just sat back and watched. They hung the show, labeled the artwork, planned and executed our opening night reception, cooperating in every fashion imaginable. We have already sold several pieces from the show and the month isn’t over!

Dr. Robert Kroeger, our August 2021 featured artist, paid us a visit April 6th. Starting at 8 AM, he painted a picture of the Maxwell Barn. Kroeger specializes in recording the history and painting historic barns. He has authored a book, Ohio Barns, featuring barn paintings from all 88 Ohio Counties. We held a raffle for the Maxwell barn and Nancy King, a local barrister, won the drawing. He is currently working on a new book about round barns. He gave an hour talk to conclude the day about his latest barn adventures. He also brought some additional barn paintings of Ross County Barns, and we sold 3 of those as well.

Coming up quickly is our Art in the Streets program April 29th, from 5-9 PM on East Second Street from Paint Street to Mulberry Street. PH Board member Jade Berry, owner of The Stack, is the brainchild behind this event. The street will be blocked off for this event and artists will have booths all along the sidewalks. There will be a stage with local musicians performing along with poetry readings and other presentations. With Chillicothe’s new DORA in effect, it will be a fun event for all!

Our May show is titled “Captured”. This will be a judged show, with ribbons and cash prizes and a continuation of having a photography show in May. Board Member Jarrod DePugh came up with the title. He is the creative force behind Metropolis Design Studios and designs all of our post cards and posters, along with any other branding needs. Bev Reilly, former Board President, is serving as our Program Coordinator for the Pump House and is putting together a fantastic show. She is currently working on our 2023 calendar. Board member Cheri Noel will cater this event as she has so many times before, creating many homemade treats for the attendees.

Angela Young, another PH board member, is working hard to ensure our June Show, Celebrating Artists of Color, is a success. In addition, she has something planned every weekend, cumulating in a Juneteenth celebration. There will be food trucks, June 4th, 11th, and 19th, an essay contest for Ross County Students, a Jazz Special June 11th, and an All Faith service June 19th from 2-6. She will have a tent for this to accommodate the crowd.

PH board member Alice Reynolds, our Grant’s Coordinator, has finished and submitted an Ohio Appropriation’s grant and submitted it to Senator Peterson and Representative Johnson for approval to the appropriations list for Ohio. If given, this grant will help us stabilize the exterior of the building bur replacing over 300 deteriorated bricks and 14 sandstone lintels, retuckpointing all joints. This is about a $270,000 project that will ensure the Pump House exists for future generations.

In the meantime, we have received a Shaeffer grant for $10,000 to paint the trim and shore up any rotted wood. Board member Vicki Pritchard, who assists Alice, has written and received for us a grant to work with Carver Community Center to bring art lessons this summer to their clientele. Alice and Vicki are currently working on a Paccar grant to replace the flooring in the gift shop room and main gallery. A Hernnstein Family Trust grant enabled us to replace the flooring in the restrooms and front entrance way, and a First Capital Rotary Grant enabled us to paint those areas. The board, with our surplus funds from 2021, had the main gallery and upstairs painted too, so, if we get the grant, with new floors, the inside will be fresh and newly updated! As far as daily upkeep and repairs, board member Stephen Steele has been a great help, from replacing burned out gallery lighting to fixing the elevator’s alarm that went off unexpectedly.

The Pump House is committed to working with other entities in the community. The Mighty Children’s Museum held a fund raiser last December at the Pump House, serving breakfast and selling tickets to their skate park. As a result, we are looking at partnering with them to bring the ice-skating park to the Pump House this December. We are looking forward to working out the details on this endeavor. Ohio University Chillicothe has also reached out to us and wrote a grant from which the Pump House will receive funds. Local students will be attending our “The Hills” show in September and writing essays for their classwork. Reaching out to community resources continues to be a valuable asset.

So, despite all the turmoil from the Pump House boards of the past, this new board is leading the Pump House to a bright future. They are committed to preserving the iconic Pump House building for future generations while bringing the arts to the people of southeastern Ohio!

Greetings from the Pump House! We had an eventful April with lots of activities. Our opening for the Chillicothe Art League’s Spring open was well attended March 31st, with over 150 people showing up. They had a nice award’s presentation, giving cash prizes to the winners and ribbons as well. After Dr. Robert Kroeger’s visit on the 6th, we had Earth Day. This is a rental for us, but a very busy day indeed starting at 8AM Shelly Pocock does a great job organizing this event. It was well attended, with over 200 people coming through the Pump House that day. We sold over $1000 worth of merchandise. It was a beautiful day for the event. April finished up with a nice rental on the 28th for a commissioner candidate and the month, all told, grossed over $8600.00. Included in this was a grant written by board member Vicki Pritchard for $1,600 from the Fox Hill Fund through the Chillicothe-Ross Community Foundation for an art camp for the Carver Community Center to be held here and taught by our own Cheri Noel, volunteer and board member.

The Street Faire, conceived and organized by board member Jade Berry, who owns “The Stack”, could not have been better. About 28 artists filled East 2nd Street on the evening of Friday, April 29th. Many board members and volunteers were there to help. Perfect weather made for a perfect night. It was well attended. On the band stand, local bands provided the entertainment.

May is already here and our show, {Captured!}, an open photography show, had its opening May 5th. Again, attendance was great. The show runs through the end of the month. Artists will be picking up their photographs May 29th.We gave a grand prize of $150.00 to the winner, $100.00 to first place, $75 to second place, and $50 to third. All winners also received a nice ribbon. The show was sponsored by Gerber Insurance.

The big news for the month is that we are beginning the painting of the Pump House trim. This is being funded with a grant from the Robert and Genevieve Shaefer Foundation, with $10,000 awarded for this project. We are going with the same exterior colors as they blend well with the brick and we don’t have to go through the Design Review Board. Work will continue on this for the rest of the month.

Next month, “Celebrating Artists of Color” will return with many activities planned for every weekend to celebrate “Juneteenth”. Angela Young, our Vice President on the board is chairing this event in conjunction with the NAACP. An itinerary is attached. Don’t miss out! Plan to attend all of our events!

It is hard to believe we are at the halfway point in our year already! We have finished up our May show, of photography, “Captured” and are full swing into our June events with the show “Celebrating Artists of Color” and an expanded “Juneteenth” celebration. The month of May saw good traffic to the Pump House and we had many graduation and wedding rentals.

On May 18th I attended a Park’s and Rec regular meeting, which was also for the purpose of a public hearing on the Mulberry Street entrance to the park, which is right up the street. The city received a grant for about $150,000 to landscape that area which used to be a bus garage and now is part of the park’s service department. With this grant, they are employing a landscape architect for $25,000 to design the area where those buildings currently sit. The large railway structure will remain as it is privately owned. This work will begin in the near future.

On May 25th I met with representatives of the Mighty Children’s Museum. The ice rink will be in the large city parking lot next to the Pump House this fall, from Thanksgiving until Christmas. It will be lit up and they will sell tickets out of the Pump House from Thursday until Sunday during that time frame from when we open at 11 until 8 PM at night. This will bring many more people to the Pump House and give us great visibility. We appreciate this combined cooperation. In addition, we are working on a collaboration for out August show, Lego Artist John Bucy. John creates art out of Legos to hang on the wall and will have a full show of his work. The museum plans to have a Lego play area created at their facility and one at ours that we can promote children to come and get creative with Legos!

The Chillicothe Art League hung our June Show again for us. I can’t tell you how much this is appreciated. This is extremely helpful to us and they do a wonderful job. Our opening was on a Saturday this year, June 4th, and was very well attended. It has caught the attention of the Gazette and Columbus Dispatch and we have been on the front page several times this month already. We have vendors set up in the Pump House every Saturday and a wealth of events occurring, from dance competitions to musical concerts. Something for everybody.

Our exterior panting will finish up in July, weather cooperating of course. This is being paid for from the Schaefer Foundation grant for $10,000. It is great to see the old building come to life with a fresh coat of trim paint. In another bit of great news, the Pump House has been approved to be on the list for the state capital biennium budget for 2023-24 as soon as the Governor signs it. We worked closely with Senator Peterson’s office to make this happen. The appropriation was to repair our external bricks and we received $127,000. We will work out with the city for a matching component using the building that the city itself owns.

Our next show is an artist from Columbus, Gerry Enrico, who paints a nice blend of realism and abstract art. The show is sponsored by the Bryant “Beans” Butt Memorial Fund.

We are starting our second half of our year this July. The monthlong Celebrating Artists of Color/Juneteenth celebration has come to a conclusion after many successful events. Board member Angela Young did a great job coordinating the events along with the NAACP chair Adrienne D’Sousa. It took many meetings and lots of coordinating efforts to bring things together. We had activities for kids, such as the Hip Hop competition, vendors set up in the Pump House selling their wares, food trucks, and a large tent set up to feature our showcased activities and speakers. Very successful!

Our July show’s opening, The Art of Gerry Enrico, went well, but was limited in that the first Thursday of the month also is the Date of the Rotary project downtown that featured a wing fest, a beer truck, and live music. We still had over 50 people show up for our event. Our sponsor was the Bryant “Beans” Butt Memorial Fund. Gerry also showed up early that day and held a workshop. This was organized by our volunteer Bev Reilly. We had 10 participants and the workshop was held from 10-3. Gerry indicated he was willing to come back and do another!

At present, we have ongoing a class for Carver Community Center students. Our instructor for this is Cheri Noel, another board member and volunteer. She had 18 students in her first class! The class is funded by a grant written by Vicki Pritchart, another board member. It is designed to serve underprivileged children and introduce them to art. Cheri is a retired art teacher and is perfect for the job.

Board member and volunteer Alice Reynolds has just submitted a grant to the Ohio Arts Council to fund all of our show for next year. It will also get us on rotation to receive additional monies in the future. If we are funded for three years in a row, we can then ask for monies to help us with our operating expenses and future payroll needs.

Volunteer Bev Reilly, our program coordinator, has completed our calendar for 2023 and is working on 2024 at present. Our goal is to continue to bring exciting art shows to the area and offer southern Ohio a venue to enjoy art from local artists, part of our mission. Gary Bucy is our artist for August. He creates LEGO art that hangs on the wall as well as some beautifully created local buildings that sit on tables, such as the Ross County Court House and our own Pump House.

Our exterior panting will finish up hopefully in July, weather cooperating of course. Rain has been a problem. This is being paid for from the Schaefer Foundation grant for $10,000. All of the gutter trim, doors, and windows have been painted. There is still some work to do on the copula and the tower to complete and then we are done!

I am very proud of the work our board is doing along with our volunteers. Every one stays busy and keeps the Pump House vibrant and meaningful.

The Pump House’s new paint job is finishing up. This was enabled by a $10,000 grant from the Shaeffer foundation and was much needed. As near as I can tell, it has been quite a while since the last one. Some of the windowsills on the Palladian windows were rotted and fixed as well. All in all, the paint job looks great. We went with the original colors, as they were attractive, and we didn’t have to go through the Design Review Board.

This month we’ve written grants for new tables and tablecloths from the Herrnstein family trust and new flooring for the main gallery and gift shop from a Paccar grant. We will know shortly if they were successful. I can’t thank enough Alice Reynolds and Vicki Pritchard for their help on the grant writing team we have. The Table grant request was for $2,6000 and the floor grant was for $20,000. It sure will make a difference if they go through and we get the projects completed. We are still waiting approval of our capital grant through the state for our brick work. This was approved initially but is awaiting final approval with the governor. It was for over $125,000.

Bev Reilly has been working steadily on our programs for next year and the following year. She has 2023 completely booked and well on her way to complete 2024. It will be a great line up as it is taking shape. She has a broad background in the arts as an artist and has a long history with the Pump House, having served as the board president at one time. She also volunteers for a weekly shift, as does Alice. We are very lucky to have them.

We finished up with our Gerry Enrico show in July. It was a beautiful show with many creative pieces on display. Sponsored by Jim Butt’s trust in memory of his son, we had decent traffic, but as many of our shows go, not many sales unfortunately. This month’s show was hard to pull off, working against the Rotary’s First Thursday, we held our opening the second Thursday, which was during the Ross County Fair. The August show is all about LEGOS, Sponsored by Meredith Tomlinson of the Tomlinson Real Estate Group. John Bucy is a local LEGO artist and is highly creative. He has on display a replica of the Ross County Court House with over 80,000 pieces that were utilized. His show fills the downstairs gallery. We had hoped it would attract some of the younger children and it hasn’t disappointed us in that regard.

Next month’s show is The Hills, our regular September show. It is sponsored by the Kingston National Bank. This show will be judged with cash prizes and ribbons for the winners. It is always well received and attracts a lot of interest.

Fall is coming and we look forward to increased traffic in the gift shop. We are in negotiations with Jack Pine to do a repeat one-day show November 19th. We hope it brings in a crowd like last year. We are partnered with OU-C for three lecture type classroom experiences where a guest lecturer comes in with a class and they hold it in the gallery. They had five extra noncredit seats available that were offered up to Pump House members and the board.

We continue to strive to fulfill our mission to bring exciting art forms to southern Ohio and to maintain our wonderful 1883 building, The Pump House Center for the Arts!

Greetings! I hope everyone got their invite to our Membership Meeting this Thursday the 13th. It is from 6:30-8:30 and you’ll get an overview of the happenings of the Pump House, including a report for our 2021 activities. We will be offering a special class for members this spring that will be available to those of you who wish to participate. It is sponsored by our board President, Mike Throne. Thanks Mike!

Our new show for October is up and running! Fabric in Art, sponsored by Old Town Fabric Shop, has a wonderful collection of quilts, dresses, quilted photographs and more. Board member Angela Young organized this show and brought us this wonderful collection. If you haven’t seen it, it runs through October. She has a fashion show scheduled for October 22nd that you should not miss. With limited seating, you can purchase a ticket at the Pump House for $10. There will be venders there before and after the show. For October, we are also selling chances to win a Jack Pine pumpkin. Stop in and get your ticket and buy a chance to win one of these one of a kind pumpkins by Jack Pine.

Angela also organized out Juneteenth celebration with many activities back in June. She was recently honored by the Ross County Chapter of the NAACP with the President’s Award for her work bringing this celebration to life for all of Ross County and pledges to make it even better next year. The Pump House is very proud of her organizational skills and appreciates all of her efforts for this series of events.

Our volunteer staff has increased this past month with two new additions. Millicent Williams is working our evening shift on Thursday from 4-6. Millicent recently retired from a management position in California and moved to Chillicothe to be closer to her family. Her daughter, board member Jade Berry, who is active in the community and owns The Stack on Mulberry Street next to the Rost. Shirley Vickers has also joined our ranks. She will be working with board member and volunteer Cheri Noel on Friday from 11-4. Both are very talented and bring their organizational skills to an already outstanding group.

We are open Tuesday-Sunday. On Tuesday, board member Alice Reynolds works the shift 11-4 with her ever present companion Jake. Alice has a love for writing grants and works with me as our grant’s coordinator. Wednesday, Steve Robinson is there 11-4. He has a great knack for technology and keeps the computers running. An avid photographer, he has entered many of our shows and has prints for sale in the gift shop. On Thursday, Bev Reilly is there 11-4, then Millicent takes over for the day. Bev is a long time devotee of the Pump House and has previously served as our Board President. She is a talented artist and has won numerous awards at area art shows. With her knowledge of the local art scene, she serves as our progam coordinator. We already have our 2023 shows booked and she is working on 2024. As mentioned before, Shirley and Cheri run the 11-4 shift on Friday, and board member Angela Young keeps us running until 6 PM.

Board member and Treasurer Dave Rieder has the weekends as he’s done for over 15 years! 11-4 on Saturdays and 1-4 Sundays. With over 30 rentals per year, Dave serves as our representative for many of them. There needs to be a representative for all of our rentals to make it work. We have had class reunions, weddings, receptions, political fund raisers and parties this year to name a few. We would like to have more volunteers. Ideally, we would have two volunteers for every shift./. That is the goal. If you are interested in volunteering, reach out. Call me at 740-703-6514 and we can talk about how you can fit in. Office skills, a love for decorating, handyman abilities, all are needed to keep the Pump House viable and a necessary anchor for art in our area.

We have recently received a grant to help with our show costs for 2023. Local businesses such as Tomlinson Insurance, The Atomic Credit Union, Kingston National Bank, B&B Roofing, Meredith Tomlinson, and other local businesses. All of our shows this year have had sponsors to cover our costs. That’s how you get your postcards!

We wish you well. Please support the Pump House. With your membership, we continue to preserve its architectural integrity and promote local art. It’s a great combination. Made possible by our dedicated volunteer staff, grants, membership, rentals, and donations.

December is already here and with it the end of our fiscal year. For those of you fiscally minded we are ending up in the black. Sort of. We ended last year with a large amount in our checking account due to a grant for $10,000 for painting the outside. We then spent that in June of 2022 for the needed paint job. The building looks great. The north side eve has a big spider problem and there are webs over the new paint job. We are looking into spraying that in the spring to get rid of those critters.

This year we also benefited by the board getting the main gallery painted upstairs and down. This was a board expense but was much needed. Through a grant, another project is replacing tables. We received funds recently for 8 new round tables and cloths as well as 8 new 6 foot tables and cloths to replace our existing ones that are worn out. I have fixed most of the old ones and have a potential buyer for them from another entity. This grant was from the Herrnstein Family Trust.

We have an approved grant from the Ohio Arts Council to help with our shows for 2023. We will continue to solicit monthly sponsors, so this money will be used to add to and improve our shows for the year. Monthly sponsors were obtained for every show in 2022! Alice Reynolds, Vicki Pritchard, and Lisa Humphries, all board members met in November with The Ohio Art’s Councils chairperson to see how they can continue with funding in the future. If we receive 3 consecutive awards from them, we can ask for monies to be used for operating expenses. This could be a big help to us in the future.

We had a great turn out for our December opening of “The Holiday Show”. We have artwork and crafts both downstairs and up. We sold several paintings that night and continue to do so. The venders were mostly present for the show and that certainly helped boost sales.

You may have noticed the skating rink in the adjacent city parking lot. We met with The Mighty Children’s Museum and gave permission to sell skating tickets and skate rentals out of the Pump House for the holiday season. Their business has been picking up and they are having a good year. The advantage to them is that they can set up a full rink instead of an abbreviated version. Their ticket sellers can remain warm while selling tickets. We even have Santa upstairs on the red sofa to see all of his kids he is bringing toys to! They are open til 9 on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The advantage to us is that many people are coming into the Pump House for the first time. You’d be surprised how many people still don’t know there is an art gallery right here in Yoctangee Park!

Our present show runs through December 30th, when it will come down. We are closed the month of January, and reopen with our “Best of Ross County” high school show. The Atomic Employee’s Credit Union is again sponsoring this event. See you at the Pump House!