Muncie Parks Department votes to pursue new YMCA project and close Downtown and Northwest branches

The mission of the YMCA of Muncie is “to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all,” said Chad Zaucha, president and CEO of Muncie’s YMCA.

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Muncie Origins: Viral TikTok farm Barnside Blooms offers flowers for visitors to pick

What was once an empty patch of dirt now houses more than 16,000 sunflowers, each one with its head turned toward the sun, looking at the bright side — how Garret Conway did last spring.

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Muncie Origins: Downtown Dogs opens as Muncie's newest pet groomer

As the front door swings open, wind blows dog hair across the wooden floor, dogs bark from the back room and Jenn Morgan, owner of Downtown Dogs, trims the fur of a shaggy 8-month-old puppy and greets everyone with a cheerful “Hello.”

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Cozy Noodles n’ Love

Tee Cozy’s mission is to spread love, and he does that through his restaurant, Cozy Noodles n’ Rice.

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Middletown: The Untold Stories

Muncie is known nationally as America’s Middletown thanks to a series of sociological studies. However, some crucial perspectives were left out of its pages.

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Ball State’s Field Station and Environmental Education Center works to better Muncie’s environment

When she was in high school, Erica Forstater said, she participated in the Student Conservation Association (SCA), a non-profit group whose members protect and restore land throughout the U.S. 

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Bold Type: Not a quirk

When my mom dropped me off at preschool in the morning, I would take off my coat, hang my backpack up on my hook and immediately begin to cry.

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On the clock: Rinard Orchid Greenhouse student employees learn about plants, discipline

Dee Slagle, junior general studies major, said her plant-loving grandma inspired her green thumb and her passion for the solitude, peace and beauty of plants.

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The New York Experience

New York City has always sparked the greatest curiosity in my mind. It has always been a city I have seen countless times in movies and could only dream about visiting, a city where you were either born there or made enough money to move into a penthouse in Manhattan. No one in my family really liked the idea of going to a “bigger, dirtier Chicago,” but I have always longed to understand what made the City That Never Sleeps so special, to understand what it was about it that captured so many people. In June of 2018, I stepped foot in what has since become my favorite place on Earth for the first time, and since then, I have promised myself that one day I would be able to call New York City my home, and here’s why.

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Bold Type: Keypsakes

My mom had a typewriter in her old office. I would sit at the desk in the back corner and type my name over and over again until I reached the end of the line, and then, I would push the lever on the left-hand side until I was back to the beginning — just one line lower — and type, “mommy” below my name.

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