Hilliard Beacon is a fascinating, still somewhat relatively new (it’s been around about 2 and 1/2 years) undertaking from a diverse, or even what you might say are unlikely trio of locals. Although I still haven’t unearthed enough about their backstory to even know how the three of them met. It’s Kevin Corvo, Jordan Smith, and Tim Hofmann, collectively involved with something called Franklin Street Creative. Apart from the Hilliard connection, what all three of these guys share is a deep concern for the demise of local reporting, here and pretty much everywhere – which they are hoping their efforts can effectively combat. Kevin is responsible for the bulk of their reporting, on a Substack newsletter called The Hilliard Beacon; meanwhile, with Jordan as the ringleader, all three of them also collaborate on regular podcast episodes, a program titled, as you might imagine, The Hilliard Beacon podcast.
I’ve actually been working on this post for approximately a year and a half. And was attempting to get somewhat caught up on the material before publishing. But much like other local efforts which I also subscribe to, these hardworking gents are cranking out their reports at a faster rate than I can possibly keep up with. Which becomes exponentially worse when you begin to stack all the irons I have extended into various fires. It just takes me forever to finish everything, not because I abandon the projects, but more due to just having too much crap in general going on. So while I’ve been kind of worried they might feel I haven’t properly appreciated their efforts on my behalf (more on that to follow), my good intentions are there, and I have chipped away at this slowly.
On one hand I will admit lamenting that I’m only getting around to writing this stuff a couple years – or more – beyond the date it was originally posted, and these events transpired. Thinking that what’s the point of summarizing someone else’s local news dispatches, on current events from two or three years ago? Except then it occurs to me, well, no, it’s an even more depressing thought to believe that nobody cares about the events of today beyond this very day. We can only hope that our efforts would be timeless, whatever they are. At any rate, I find this material fascinating, and am certain that other souls out there among our collective readership might consider it so as well. Bottom line is I am wishing it will inspire you to check out The Hilliard Beacon, in whatever form best suits you. Because it truly is an exemplary production, from a few guys who decided to take local reportage matters into their own hands.
Considering that I’ve listened to the podcast more than I’ve deeply read the articles, it makes sense to start here…
Audio Companion #1
Kevin says he graduated from Hilliard in ’88 (at the time there was just one high school!) and started covering the city in ’99. He also attended OSU and was writing for This Week and Suburban News at the same time while enrolled here. In this inaugural transmission, they are detailing their collective histories – Kevin especially – and frustrations that local based publications have pretty much ceased to exist. Not just because their own careers have been impacted, but on philosophical grounds as well, what a shame it is that this rich information source is no longer available to most communities. They also make some great points about how a local reporter covering issues close to home is going to have connections and more of a bird’s eye view of the issues than some random, outsourced corporate conglomerate ever could.
About halfway through, they switch gears and begin discussing a then current (in 2023) financial scandal, whereby a city employee fell for a phishing scam and lost the town a boatload of money. Even here, in the first episode, it’s already striking to me what’s changed between now and the bygone newspaper heyday they are lamenting: they don’t name any names. It’s hard to imagine even a small-time local paper back in “the day” would have covered a story like this without doing so. I guess we are living in much more litigious times, but still, I find this interesting.
Local references of note: Hilliard Northwest News, Jack’s Appliances.
Most comical unintentional moment: you can hear a door creaking open and someone asking, “anybody home?” in the background at one point. I’m glad they didn’t clean this up. It certainly adds to the homespun charm.
Audio Companion #2
Jordan says he is known as “the donut man,” and Tim, “the coffee guy,” although I haven’t unearthed precisely what this means yet. Kevin as “the reporter man” is more obvious, considering that Corvo is the one behind the written version of this project. Somewhere along the line I discover Mr. Smith there does own a donut shop in Hilliard, which explains at least the first portion of that mystery.
They kick off this one by discussing mysterious local phenomenon, The Turkey Gang. Tim begins to explain this saga by stating that February of ’22 is the first time he saw a pack of wild turkeys in Hilliard. He was so intrigued, driving past them, that he circled back to photograph them. Then, in discussing this with a friend, learned that there was already a Facebook group dedicated to this topic, the Hilliard turkeys of unknown origin.
Apparently things get a little heated on that page – Tim says he stopped checking in as a result. But anyway, it seems these wild turkeys liked to hang out mostly on Leap Road, in between the post office and Cemetery. Apparently someone living in an apartment complex along that stretch had a bunch of bird feeders out, which was a major draw. Then somehow a trio of them became impartial instead to hanging out in the yard of this one house at the corner of Leap and Cemetery.
The ODNR initially said they were doing nothing about these birds, because this was their natural habitat, so people would just have to deal with it. Well, these dominoes started to fall when one bird somehow injured its leg and was transported to an animal hospital or whatever. The remaining duo kept the flame alive for quite some time – and we’re talking about a year at this point, this odyssey with the turkeys – before the ODNR changed its mind and agreed to find proper homes for these fellows.
All in all, a highly entertaining saga. This episode then concludes with Kevin saying he might cover Hilliard train history in a future episode. That might seem like a jarring shift, but that’s the beauty of this podcasting format, it all flows in a manner that makes sense – it’s not a newspaper article and it’s not a news broadcast, it’s a totally unique brand of reporting specific to this medium. The closest thing might be talk radio, except there are no callers throwing hot potatoes at these guys. Anyway, Corvo mentions that Hilliard used to be formally known as Hilliard Station, in honor of John Reed Hilliard, because there was a rail stop at Main and Center. And that not so long ago, trains used to block traffic to an ungodly degree on Main and Cemetery both, sometimes all at once.
As far as modern tidbits, we learn that Hilliard voted for a city manager awhile back, which was supposed to mitigate financial scandals like the one mentioned in episode #1 – which they are still following up on as well.
Local reference of note: Darby Glen Park, where Kevin notes that he occasionally spots deer
Most unintentionally awesome moment: what sounds like an old school landline telephone ringing in the background
Audio Companion #3
As Jordan attempts calling this chaos fueled meeting to session, I’m already starting to get a feel for their basic personalities, or at least the lane they are tasked with patrolling in this podcast. As the moderator, so to speak, he’s more of the moving things along, connective tissue, staying on task guy; Kevin, in a role befitting his experience, skews towards serious, in-depth, feature length reporting; and then Tim’s balancing things out with a lighter, more comedic touch. All three are capable of firing off some zingers, though, of course, just as they are the insightful observation. Jordan for example breaks out the big guns using the word maturation early on today, impressive enough on its own to stop me in my tracks. In all seriousness, though, they’re all well-spoken and bring great personal observations to the table, none of which is easy to pull off – for example I’m not at all sure I would be up to this task.
In this one they begin by discussing an Axios piece spotlighting their brand new endeavor. And speaking of tracks, as hinted at last time around, the next topic involves the train industry and how it pertains to Hilliard. Norfolk Southern and CSX are two freight lines which move through this great town at present. And I actually think I might recognize that fence along the tracks, which they are using for this episode’s thumbnail image – if I’m not mistaken, that’s along Scioto Darby. Anyway, Kevin details some points about a couple of historical derailments here in town, which he’s also reported upon in this week’s newsletter. Back then they had to store at least one fire response truck on the south side of the tracks, because the fire station was on Norwich behind an IGA.
Notable mentions: Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall on Hilliard Rome Road.
Audio Companion #4
In this episode they begin by covering a forthcoming primary, and observe that Hilliard is one of the rare regional suburbs which holds partisan city council primaries. Jordan surprisingly relates that he once ran for city council here, but lost. Next, there’s an update on the phishing scam which cost the city over $200,000 and led to the termination of former finance director David Delande. Since resigning, Delande has sent a letter to city council outlining his case for why he believes he is due at least some sort of severance package. I don’t know all the details, but one interesting point which might potentially bolster his argument is his saying they caught wind of the scam, and called the bank, who initially told them the payment had not yet cleared and so everything appeared to have been properly sewn up in the nick of time. Therefore Delande didn’t sound off a ton of panic alarms. However, it soon emerged that the bank representative was wrong and the payment had already cleared. Cue up complete pandemonium.
Well, again, I don’t know anything about this guy or the job he was doing. However, I will admit that I kind of like it when people in high places occasionally lose their jobs – generally speaking, I feel like there’s not enough oversight (in politics and in the corporate realm both), that folks appointed to even relatively “small” local government posts can wield a tremendous amount of power, and scandals like this show someone was at least paying attention this time and that there are consequences. Sometimes, anyway.
On that note, the following segment essentially hews to this same theme. Jordan’s discussing this recently created Hilliard Development Corporation board of directors. He expresses considerable reservations about where this is headed, because he feels like this process has proven somewhat of a hollow victory, and the city’s residents have ended up right back where they started: voting to strip power from what they’re terming a “strong mayor,” one who maybe greenlit unchecked expansion at all costs, in favor of a “city manager” instead. Only for this resolution to pass, creating this committee which is bound to consist of…a bunch of well-connected, moneyed up, developer types who are probably going to greenlight every expansion opportunity which comes down the pike. Well, I’m with him in this regard. It’s frustrating to feel like being steamrolled by these power grabs is seemingly unavoidable and that the average citizen has no true say in these matters.
Although I must say Tim does offer an interesting counterpoint in that it would be hard to find someone for a committee like this who knew what he/she was doing, and had the experience to get things done, yet didn’t present some sort of conflict of interest. Admitting he’s right reeks of issuing people in power a free pass, however, so I’m not really sure what the answer is here. Except that maybe even city-wide power is too broad, and we should breaks things down instead by the ward. Also quite clearly that everyone needs to get much more involved.
Finally, the fellows offer a little tribute to former police chief Robert Fisher, who had recently died following a battle with cancer.
Audio Companion #5
In this one, our intrepid reporting trio delves into more detail yet concerning that theft case. Then up next on the docket is a somewhat brief mention of the city manager’s “State of the City” address at Crooked Can Brewery on 3/22/23 – she mentions that they’re breaking ground on the new community/wellness center on April 14.
There’s a reference to something colloquially known as (I think) “Blatz Lake?” I like what Jordan has to say on the topic of thoughtful land use. This relates in part to some grading in progress on the west side of Trueman, south of Davidson. A baking company on Main recently opened. My favorite moment(s) of the episode, though, are when the sounds of what I swear must be someone pecking away on an old-school typewriter occasionally bubble to the surface. If it’s not that, then it sounds close enough to it – and I’m not sure I want to hear otherwise.
Audio Companion #6
More details about the “State of the City” powwow at Crooked Can – Kevin was impressed overall. The city manager and her crew want to focus on the Cemetery Road corridor more. There’s talk about how they plan to extend Cosgray to meet Alton Darby – will need to relocate the soccer fields in order to make this happen, however.
The current community center, they are saying, was built back in the 1970s. It used to be much more difficult to get things done around here. As for the new one being constructed, that was funded in part by income tax increases which the majority of everyone (or at least those who voted – which I’m guessing was probably a sadly miniscule percentage of the residents) agreed upon.
Then discussions veer sharply into some terrain that I would say is much more in my wheelhouse – though I’m at a loss to explain why this stuff fascinates me ever so. I’m into the history of various addresses, obviously, and also into current happenings, and yet I find the collision of these two topics most fascinating of all. As in, what is happening now versus what used to transpire in this very spot, with maybe a little commentary on the side about what it all means. Totally killer!
Well, so anyway, at this time it is breaking news that Popeye’s is going into Mill Run where Burger King (and I think something called Rapidfire) used to be. This leads to an amusing and extensive discussion about the days of yore where it was somewhat shocking when a Sheetz gas station took over where Max & Erma’s used to be.
This in turn leads to even more arcane discussion about the minutiae, finer points, hair splitting – whatever you want to call it – about what technically belongs to Hilliard, versus Columbus proper, and the zoning differences for such. Like how when Kmart was here, their store sign was technically a Hilliard concern, whilst the road sign fell under Cbus purview. Tim refers to this one section of the Mill Run area as “Wild Columbus,” which I love, and by this he means it’s often falling into these no-man’s-land zoning peculiarities. Like how there’s some guy with a table selling honey in front of the donut shop that Jordan owns, which is only permissible because this is technically Columbus, not Hilliard.
other references of note: First Responder Park, Splash Pad. Speculations about Converge Technology, which took over some of the building space formerly belonging to the Rahal/Letterman race team. Apparently Converge landed a contract at some point to make drones for the police department. I’m also doing silent (or not so silent, actually) fist pumps in the air when Kevin pronounces Fishinger Road the same way I always have – a lot of people have corrected me over the years, claiming that I should be saying “fishing-er.” But no, he is evidently of the same mind as me, that it’s more like “fish-injure” instead. Score one for the home team!
Well, this is as far as I’ve gotten in transcribing my notes thus far. Have listened to quite a bit of these podcasts, however, and read many of Kevin’s Substack pieces in the course of my travels. If even remotely interested in these topics, and/or of a mind to support these guys in their fine local reportage quest, then by all means seek them out. Future dispatches in this space will follow – as soon as I can shoehorn in the time! Keeping up with their prolific output, however, I’ve already written off as an impossible task.
