Friday, July 31st, 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 1968, Dayton native Tommy James and the Shondells hit No. 1 on the British singles chart with "Mony Mony."

In the Top of the Fold, a Canton house explosion left two men badly burned, and a New Albany data center is building its own power grid so ratepayers don't foot the bill.

MTV turns 45 tomorrow, and we drove around Ohio looking at a giant cuckoo clock, a field of concrete corn and a 33-foot soup can. Those stories are in the Peach Section.

CANTON — An explosion around 4 a.m. Thursday destroyed a house in the 1600 block of Bonnot Place NE, blowing one occupant into the street with burns to roughly 80% of his body.

A second man reported inside wasn't found in the rubble but turned up badly burned a few blocks away on 15th Street NE about four hours later.

NEW ALBANY — Utilities company Veolia said it was selected to operate a 350-megawatt grid that will power an AI data center campus entirely on its own, using on-site generation and battery storage rather than drawing from the electric grid Ohio consumers share. 

The arrangement sidesteps both the cost increases residents have seen as data centers strain supply and the seven-to-10-year wait AEP Ohio says a new large-scale connection can take.

WILMINGTON — Tyler Wilkin, 35, was found shot in the head at Playa La Selva near Luquillo, Puerto Rico, on July 10, about five minutes from the campsite where he had been staying alone. 

Puerto Rican police say he was killed at close range with a single shot to the back of the head, have identified no suspects, and the investigation remains open.

COLUMBUS — The Blue Jackets will scrap their radio broadcast beginning with the 2026-27 season, carrying the television audio feed on the club's radio network instead.

Play-by-play voice Steve Mears and analyst Jody Shelley will be heard on both.

The change cost radio announcer Bob McElligott his job after 17 years with the team.

MTV signed on at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 1, 1981, and the first video it ever played was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. Somebody in that control room knew exactly what they were doing.

Ohio's small towns figured this out a while ago. Nobody drives forty minutes to see a plaque, but they'll drive forty minutes for a giant anything.

A lot of towns lean into whatever oversized, weird thing happens to be sitting on their main street — sometimes advertising that outlived the business that paid for it, sometimes art nobody asked for. Either way, the chamber of commerce promotes it, and at the very least there's a sign as you enter town.

Five that may (or may not) be worth the gas:

The World's Largest Cuckoo Clock — Sugarcreek. 23 feet tall, built in 1972, and it made the cover of the Guinness Book in 1977. A three-foot polka-dancing couple comes out while a robot oompah band plays. It's free, and it doesn't run in winter, because even the clock knows better.

Field of Corn — Dublin. We struggle with this one, because, well, it's concrete corn. People say it's art. There are 109 ears, each about six foot three, standing in rows in a field across from an office park. It was created in 1994 to honor Sam Frantz, who spent decades developing hybrid corn on that exact piece of land, and when you say it that way it seems OK. But still it's concrete corn.

Big Muskie's Bucket — McConnelsville. For some reason this one seems interesting as far as giant buckets go. The machine was one of the largest things ever built to move under its own power, and it got cut up for scrap in 1991, but somebody had the sense to save the bucket. It weighs 460,000 pounds; it would hold eight school buses, and you can walk right into it.

The Giant Campbell's Soup Can — Napoleon. 33 feet by 33 feet, parked outside the plant, and it feels very Andy Warhol. Believe it or not, someone (probably a high school math teacher) in Henry County sat down and figured out that it would take 2,178,645 actual cans of tomato soup to fill it. One suggestion. The city needs to build a giant grilled cheese sandwich next to it.

A Christmas Story House — Cleveland. We've been there. Great setting, great memories, even greater movie. Ralphie and his Red Ryder are embedded in our Christmas souls. The leg lamp stays in the window year-round, so in July it's just a bungalow on West 11th with a lamp in it.

Got one we missed? Send it over. We'd rather run yours than ours. Bonus points if your town put up a sign for it.

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Will you be attending the Ohio State Fair?
- Yes - 30%
- No - 30%
- Maybe - 40%

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