IndyStar.com: People
Indiana's leading news source for all the top stories, local news, sports and weather.
Shooting victim urges youths to 'think first'
Wilberto “Tony” Rivera knows what it’s like to have life turned upside down in a matter of seconds. One minute, he said, he was dealing drugs at age 23 on Indianapolis’ Westside. The next minute, he was shot in the back. He...
Pass the hat for a good idea
When Elizabeth Houghton Barden opened Broad Ripple’s Big Hat Books in 2005, she didn’t expect to end up with an in-store collection based on her shop’s namesake. But that’s exactly what happened, thanks to her customers. There...
Catching up with John Lesch
Furniture maker builds one-of-a-kind pieces John Lesch found his life’s work in wood. When the graduate of Brebeuf Preparatory School and DePauw University took a job at an Indianapolis woodworking shop right after college, his career was...
Author Joe Schreiber to visit area as part of book tour
From photographs, Joe Schreiber looks pretty unassuming. But that’s how he gets you. The Pennsylvania-based writer is a future master of horror. Schreiber, who just published two works of horror fiction, “Death Troopers” and...
Q&A: Andy Wilson
Communications director for Live-360 The most high-profile part of Andy Wilson’s year is behind him. He got the word out about concerts at the Indiana State Fair in August, about food and music at Rib America Festival during Labor Day Weekend...
Q&A: Patricia Wachtel
President and CEO of Girls Inc. works to improve self-esteem of young women. Patricia Wachtel, 54, became president and CEO of Girls Inc., a nonprofit organization, in January 2007 after years of working in the corporate world. Now Wachtel, who is...
Cougars in search of prey: younger men
There’s a creature taking over the pop culture scene. She’s confident, successful, and she knows what she wants: a younger man. She’s a cougar. Ilona Paris, author of “Hot Cougar Sex” (Skyhorse Publishing, $12.95), says...
Q&A: Rachel Perry
Fine-arts curator, Indiana State Museum Rachel Perry commutes to the Indiana State Museum from Brown County every day, but please don’t judge her. Perry has a commuter buddy, so her carbon footprint on the landscape she so treasures is not as...
Crowd takes puzzle guru at his word
There was standing-room only at the JCC Indianapolis last week when New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz appeared on the talk show “Mickey’s Corner.” “Around the country he is known as a puzzle rock star,”...
Q&A: Sabra Logan
Founder and artistic executive director, Iibada Dance Company When Sabra Logan was 3 years old, she exuded so much energy that her mother enrolled her in dance classes at the local community center in their hometown of Baltimore. Even at that age,...
Escaping the blog bog
It takes more than luck to make your site successful Julie Powell says she wasn’t thinking book or movie deal when she began blogging her recipe-by-recipe adventure through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French...
Q&A: Dr. Alfredo Lopez-Yunez, Director, Alivio Medical Center
At the Alivio Medical Center, the phones are routinely answered in Spanish. All of the signs are bilingual or in Spanish. Most of the patients in the waiting room converse in Spanish. It’s hard to believe that just outside the doors of the...
Students inherit jazz legacy at school
Komoyaka King coaxed steady patterns on conga drums from a group of beginner students — four young girls, a mother and her 3-year-old son — on a recent Saturday in the basement of St. Paul’s Methodist Church on the Eastside. He...
Q&A with Shirley Werner Carr
Watercolor artist, instructor, founder of the Watercolor Society of Indiana As a founder and cardinal fellow of the Watercolor Society of Indiana, Shirley Werner Carr has a fondness for water. But the Indianapolis native began her career bending and...
Q&A with Tanya Hand
March of Dimes director is devoted to a world of healthy babies Tanya Hand knows the pain of losing a child. Her son, Jon Thomas, was born 14 weeks prematurely in 1995 and died 28 days later. Hand, however, turned that tragic experience into the...
Fear is leading him down the aisle -- toward another mistake
Dear Carolyn:I’m an idiot. I cheated on my girlfriend of five years. When she found out, I went through hell trying to regain her trust, and I ended up proposing to her before I really felt ready. We are getting married this summer, but I still...
Her old friend is off-limits
Dear Carolyn:An old friend contacted me online. I have not seen him in 25 years. Although we dated for a short time in our teens, we were friends for several years after. We lost touch when I married and moved away. We agreed to meet for a drink....
Catching up with . . . Dale Crabtree
Who:Dale Crabtree of Indianapolis finished third in the Monopoly U.S. National Championship in Washington, D.C. Although he had played the game as a child, he got interested in it again while organizing a Monopoly tournament fundraiser at his...
Friendship needs self-exam
Dear Carolyn:I am perpetually struggling to retain a relationship with my (male) best friend while in a monogamous relationship with my fiance. My man has no female best friend. So I put myself in his shoes and I begin to feel sympathetic. My friend...
A life of note
For six decades, George Nicoloff has taken IPS students’ battered instruments and made them sing again After something like 120,000 hours on the clock, George Nicoloff would still have you believe his job as the musical instrument fix-it man...
Discover black history between the pages of books
Here are some books that should be on your reading list in February, for Black History Month, and the rest of the year, too:Amistad -- A Novel, by David Pesci. This novel blends fact and fiction to depict the events that began with an 1839 revolt...
Muscle in on savings by buying household items in quantity
You might not need a 12-pack supply of green beans or 36 rolls of toilet paper at a time, but you can save a lot of money by buying in bulk.Through their collective buying power, warehouse- style stores such as Costco and Sam's Club -- and on a...
The power of emptiness
Joanna Wos is haunted by World War II, but it’s her own fault.She just won’t let it go.Wos, 57, is the daughter of Polish Catholic survivors of both the German occupation during the war and Soviet prison camps after...
What's new
Do you plan on doing some long-distance driving this winter? If so, you might want to plan ahead. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests you first get your car serviced -- that includes having your battery, cooling system,...
Letters, book help ease pain of bully victim
MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- When Emily and Sarah Buder picked up the local paper one spring day last year, they weren't looking to change their lives -- or anyone else's, for that matter.But when the Marin, Calif., teen sisters saw a story in the San...
Media scan
Celebrate the dream with Essence magazine in its special collector’s edition that’s a 56-page tribute to President-elect Barack Obama. Michelle Obama adorns one version of the edition’s cover, while President-elect Obama is on the...
Emotional scars
Kathy Shedd had red hair. Meg Rafferty was shy.And Jodee Blanco was just different.Those were their crimes.The punishments for Blanco, Shedd, Rafferty and countless others just like them? Getting repeatedly kicked, punched and spat upon. They were...
Through thick and thin, you've kept reading
Crazy Mail. It's the brown envelope in my top right desk drawer that the family knows to hand over to the FBI in the event I go missing.It's filled with the more colorful letters and e-mails I've received in the 17 years I've been writing this...
Cheers leaders
New Year’s toasts can be tricky. You want to cheer the year and people, too. But you don’t want to make a faux pas or stumble on words.The trouble is that the more rules that govern toasts, the more nerve-wracking it becomes.A good toast...
Shifting gearsdeck:
If someone ever says that you have to “reinvent yourself,” or tells you to “embrace change,” just look to Turner Woodard for inspiration.The 60-year-old Indianapolis native with movie-star good looks and a CEO’s wallet...
