Celebrate With Us

When I speak to associations and groups around the state about the history and mission of Ohio Magazine,I almost always receive more than I give. Everyone in Ohio has a unique story to tell and many of the stories I’m told make it onto these pages. It’s one of the joys of the job.

Ohioans love their state and are eager to share the reasons. It never ceases to amaze me how deep that love goes and how knowledgeable Ohioans are about the state they call home. I routinely toss out some Ohio trivia questions and the audience is seldom stumped.

On this, the occasion of our 30th anniversary, we thought it would be fun to test your Ohio IQ. We asked frequent contributor Mike Harden, popular columnist for theColumbus Dispatch and our favorite authority on the Ohio psyche, to give us the ultimate quiz for the bona fide Buckeye.

Do you qualify? Click here to find out.

We asked Bob Greene, another of our favorite columnists and authors — whose Buckeye bona fides include his longtime friendship with the late Woody Hayes — to give us some personal insights into the Ohio experience.His “My Ohio” column, beginning on page 15, is a special summertime treat.

Are you getting the impression that we Ohioans like to talk about ourselves? There’s nothing new about that, which is why we scoped out some of the best and brightest quotes by sons and daughters of the country’s 17th state. (First state admitted to the Union under the Northwest Ordinance, in case you’re cramming for the next trivia quiz.) You’ll find that section beginning on page 118.

Our anniversary package wouldn’t be complete, of course, without a special cover story to celebrate. What better way to express our appreciation for our state and our readers than to capture Ohio’s beauty in words worth preserving and pictures worth framing?

Enjoy your visit to “Beautiful Ohio.”

It is no secret that magazines and newspapers are hopelessly sentimental and nostalgic when it comes to major anniversaries. They give us an excuse to reflect on where we’ve been instead of the journalists’ usual focus on what’s coming next.

But atOhio Magazine,we’ve always had the best of both worlds. Ohioans, we’ve found, delight in looking in the rear-view mirror as much as they anticipate the view on the horizon.

No wonder our job — to capture the beauty, the adventure and the fun of life in Ohio yesterday, today and tomorrow — is such a pleasure. And our 30th anniversary pledge to you is, with your help, to keep doing more of the same.