Now You Know Akron

In this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, reporter Kerry Clawson shares her exclusive interview with Canton native and Broadway dancer Amanda Kloots.

Kloots talks about her journey of healing on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” following the death of her husband, Broadway star Nick Cordero, to COVID in 2020.

In this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, host Craig Webb is joined by reporter Amanda Garrett to discuss the Beacon Journal’s comprehensive look at employee and supply shortages across the Akron area.

On Nov. 18, an editor, four photographers and 18 reporters visited numerous area businesses to discuss employee and supply shortages among a wide variety of establishments including hospitals, veterinarian offices, schools, daycares, toy stores, grocers, hardware stores and many more.

The full story will be published on BeaconJournal.com on Thursday, and a slightly abridged version will appear in the Beacon’s print edition on Sunday. 

Garrett led the effort in compiling the numerous scenarios highlighted, and most businesses are facing multiple challenges.

In this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, Craig Webb is joined by Stan Hywet Hall & Garden’s “Queen of Christmas,” Chloe Wingard. The curatorial projects specialist talks about the historic home’s Hollywood-based holiday theme, “Lights, Camera, Christmas.”

“Throughout the whole tour route, all of our visitors are going to see nods to old Hollywood, some historic movies for Christmas as well as themes of family-favorite Christmas movies,” Wingard said.

In this special edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, we catch up with Savannah Griggs, owner of Sweet and Savvy, a home-based baking business that specializes in custom cakes, cupcakes and chocolate-dipped items. The business also has a new storefront on the way in downtown Akron with plans to open in the summer of next year.

Sweet and Savvy was featured earlier this year as part of the Beacon Journal’s ongoing “Focus on Black-owned businesses” series. The Now You Know Akron podcast will also begin to highlight entrepreneurs from this series on a regular basis, discussing the challenges for young, minority business owners as well as the variety of goods and services they offer to the community.

For more information, visit https://www.sweetandsavvy.shop/.

On this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, host Craig Webb is joined by opera singer and music teacher Brian Keith Johnson. Johnson, a 32-year veteran of Akron Public Schools, recently sang the national anthem at the Browns-Steelers game in Cleveland.

“There are two songs, this is my personal opinion, that you don’t mess with,” Johnson said. “You don’t mess with the school’s alma mater, you do it as it was written. And for the most part, you do the national anthem as it was written, as Francis Scott Key wrote it. So that is what I do out of respect for the composer, out of respect for the music and out of respect for the country.”

In this week’s Now You Know Akron (NYKA) podcast, Tania Nemer, the community outreach prosecutor for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office, and Nicole “Niki” Clum, the legislative policy manager for the Ohio Public Defender’s Office, debate the merits of Senate Bill 256, a new state law that provides parole eligibility for juvenile offenders based on the amount of time they’ve served and what they were convicted of, as well as prohibiting life without parole sentences, except in rare circumstances.

In this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, host Craig Webb is joined by Beacon Journal reporters Mark J. Price and Tawney Beans to talk all things about Akron food. Webb, Price, Beans and fellow reporter Kerry Clawson contribute to a regular Beacon Journal food feature, Local Flavor.

The group reviews and spotlights area eateries and grub spots from the Akron restaurant scene every week, and here they discuss some of their favorite finds and preview what’s next in the popular series.

In this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, 10-year-old Cuyahoga Falls student Kaylan Park and her mother Kenyona “Sunny” Matthews join host Craig Webb and Beacon Journal reporter Phil Keren to talk about Park’s speech at a recent school board meeting.

Park stepped up to the microphone at a contentious gathering in the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium to discuss the importance of wearing masks.

“I could see that so many kids were not bothered by masks,” Park explained on the podcast. “We don’t want to wear them, but we are not bothered by them.”

On this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, host Craig Webb and Beacon Journal reporter Doug Livingston are joined by a panel to talk housing issues and how a group of residents from a pair of East Akron apartment complexes banded together to form a tenants union after a variety of concerns about their living conditions were going unheard.

In this edition of the Now You Know Akron podcast, host Craig Webb is joined by one of Akron’s most well-known and prolific artists, Don Drumm.

They discuss his legendary career and talk about his studio and gallery at 437 Crouse Street which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.