Friday, August 28th, 2026

Welcome to Friday’s edition of The Pennant. To listen to this newsletter, click the “Listen Online” link in the top right corner of this email.

On this day in 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to more than 200,000 people at the March on Washington.

A Supreme Court mail-ballot ruling has states scrambling while Ohio manufacturing nonprofits dispute a federal fraud audit that cost dozens of jobs – those stories are Top of the Fold.

And college football starts this weekend, Hamilton's West Side team heads to the Little League championship game, and the Peach Section remembers how Dolly earned her way into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

COLUMBUS — After a U.S. Supreme Court ruling gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to compile lists of mail-voting-eligible residents and restrict USPS ballot delivery, Ohio officials say nothing changes for voters yet. 

Secretary of State Frank LaRose said the state has no plans to alter its "stable and well-understood" process, with absentee applications due Oct. 27 and ballots due by 7:30 p.m. Election Day. 

Legal challenges continue, including a 25-state lawsuit against the Postal Service.

CLEVELAND — Nonprofits in Ohio's Manufacturing Extension Partnership are disputing a federal audit alleging widespread misuse of taxpayer funds, which led to a funding freeze last December and deep staff cuts. 

MAGNET CEO Ethan Karp says the audit mischaracterized $6.6 million in pandemic-era PPE distribution funds as unreported income. 

CIFT's Rebecca Singer says she was never given a draft to respond to before publication and disputes the cited figures. A government-accountability expert noted the report's unusually pointed language. 

Ohio's development department says it takes the findings seriously; new federal MEP funding awards are expected by mid-September.

SPRINGFIELD — A second Haitian pastor was detained by ICE in Springfield this week, according to Central Christian Church Senior Pastor Carl Ruby. 

The arrest follows last week's detention of Pastor Gilbert Joubert Adrien and comes as ICE ramps up enforcement against Springfield's 12,000-15,000 Haitian immigrants after the Supreme Court allowed Trump to end their Temporary Protected Status in June.

College football is technically back this weekend, with a handful of Week Zero games kicking off the season — including TCU and North Carolina meeting in Dublin, Ireland, and Hawaii traveling to Stanford. Catch the action on ESPN and ABC.

But the real start of the season comes next week, when No. 1 Ohio State opens at home against Ball State on Sept. 5. That same day, Toledo travels to Michigan State and Ohio University heads to Nebraska, while Bowling Green already opens its season Sept. 3 at home against Tarleton State.

Get ready — football is back.

Dolly made everyone feel good, no matter the size of the room or where she was performing.

Whether she was trading one-liners with Johnny Carson, lighting up a Hollywood set in "9 to 5" and "Steel Magnolias," or singing to a packed arena from Nashville to Toledo, she never once felt like she was playing a character.

The city of Cleveland experienced that firsthand back in 2022, when the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominated her — and she actually tried to turn it down.

"Even though I am extremely flattered and grateful to be nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I don't feel that I have earned that right," she wrote at the time. "I really do not want votes to be split because of me, so I must respectfully bow out."

The Hall refused to take her off the ballot. So Dolly went home and made an entire rock album, "Rockstar." She wanted to earn it. And she did.

Her biggest commercial success came when she was 77, long after she was already well beyond needing one. "Rockstar" debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, her highest chart position ever, out of 49 studio albums across five decades.

It topped six different Billboard charts at once. Then she celebrated by performing "We Are the Champions" at halftime of a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game, in front of a sold-out stadium and roughly 44 million people watching at home.

Her Ohio connection was like having a favorite cousin. She called it close to a second home, and for decades her music found its way into our concerts, our radios, our record collections here just the same as anywhere else.

She was also one of the rare celebrities who stayed married to the same man for nearly 60 years. When her husband, Carl Dean, passed away last year, something in Dolly went with him. Anyone who watched her in the time since could see it.

It wasn't just the death of a celebrity. It was Dolly. She was one of those rare people whose first name was all that was necessary.

The German-American Festival returns to Oak Shade Grove in Oregon, Ohio, today through Sunday, marking its 60th year since starting in 1966. Organizers expect around 35,000 paid admissions across the three-day event, which features German beer, food, music, and traditional contests like stein lifting and Swiss stone throwing. 

Organizers call it the largest ethnic festival in northwest Ohio.

Have you ever visited Dollywood?
- Yes - 40%
- No - 60%

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