Iconoclast View

Todd Gratz, formerly of Bluffton, - brother of Kevin Gratz - and former editor of the Bluffton News read our story about Henry Huber and "knee high by the Fourth of July." (Click here to read that story.)

He took one of the iconic photos of Farmer Huber in 1972 and sent us a copy from his personal collection.

Thanks Todd.

The Icon offers viewers a three-part photo series that took three years to complete. We intend to continue this series. Here’s the story about it.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away there was a newspaper editor in a small town called Bluffton, Ohio.

The editor’s name was Charles Hilty. He created a tradition that The Icon has adopted. Every year on or very close to July 4, he’d take a photo of an old farmer, Henry Huber, standing in Henry’s cornfield.

News flash:

During the May clean up the village reports 33.07 tons of refuse was collected over a two-week period at the Spring Street recycling center.

Using an estimated figure of 4,000 residents in Bluffton, how many pounds of crap was dumped per resident during spring clean up? First off, 33.07 tons is 72,906 pounds. The answer is 18.2 pounds.

This fact begs the question: Is every person in Bluffton – babe in arms to elder at Maple Crest –  collecting 18.2 pounds of junk each year, or slightly over 1.5 pounds per month?

The Icon invites you to consider a book reading list unlike most you've encountered. We invited our Bluffton University intern, Nnenna Onwukeme, to offer a reading list of African writers. Here's her list: