Limestone Post’s Top Stories of 2020, a Most Unusual Year

While 2020 is a year most of us would like to forget, it is worth remembering how our community responded with remarkable resilience and resolve to the two biggest issues of the year: racial justice and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite Limestone Post’s challenges due to the pandemic and beginning our first year as a nonprofit organization, our contributors created content on these and other topics popular with our readers: the arts, outdoors, profiles on interesting people, and in-depth looks at events, projects, and other initiatives in Bloomington and beyond. Because of their great work, we received more page views in 2020 than in 2019, even though we published fewer articles. True, some people may have had more time to read this year, but we’re glad they turned to LP.

Here is our 2020 recap of the articles and photo essays we posted in Limestone Post.

On July 7, Vauhxx Booker spoke to the crowd outside of the Monroe County Courthouse during a protest against anti-Black violence. A few days earlier, on July 4, Booker was attacked by racists at Monroe Lake. | Limestone Post

Racial Justice and COVID-19

As usual, the most-read stories on Limestone Post reflect the critical concerns people have in the community. Our coverage of racial justice and COVID-19 issues topped the list. While our photos of the Enough Is Enough march and protest against police brutality got considerable attention, a profile on Vauhxx Booker, by Michael G. Glab, was read by even more people than when it was first published 2018, due in part to the national coverage Booker received after being assaulted on July Fourth.

Ellen Wu, an associate professor of history and director of the Asian American Studies program at Indiana University, wrote three stories for us in the past year that epitomize our coverage of social-justice issues. For the first, “Bloomington 2019: The Year of the Farmers’ Market Controversy” (which we published at the end of last year but became our most-viewed article of 2020), Ellen interviewed eight women of color to get their perspectives on why they did not feel welcomed or even safe at the city-run farmers’ market. Ellen followed this in the spring with “Ethos of New People’s Market Focuses on Food Justice, Mutual Aid,” an article about how a group of vendors, community organizers, and university professors created “a farmers market model unprecedented in Bloomington and Indiana” — and how their plans had to pivot during the onset of the pandemic. In October, Ellen wrote a companion piece to her People’s Market story, on the People’s Open Pantry, whose goal is to support community access to healthy food.

A specific pandemic-related issue was covered in August by Diane Walker in an article she wrote about the residential eviction crisis brought on by the pandemic. Later that month, Diane produced a show for WFHB community radio, titled “Eviction Crisis in Indiana,” in which she interviewed many of the people from her LP article, including Deborah Myerson, Forrest Gilmore, Jacob Sipe, and Jamie Sutton. (In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a halt to residential evictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The new coronavirus relief bill would extend the CDC’s eviction moratorium until January 31, 2021, and provide “$25 billion to help families and individuals pay their rent and utility bills and remain stably housed, while also helping rental property owners of all sizes continue to cover their costs, including the costs of necessary to ensure residents’ health and safety.” But the crisis that Diane explained extensively will likely become an issue again.)

Jared Posey wrote about how the grim realities of COVID-19 — biohazard suits, protective masks, sheltering at home — raised fears and questions among children. In “Parenting Through a Pandemic: Role Modeling and Self-Care,” Jared created a guide for parents to teach children how to respond to this and future crises.

The Arts

Of course, the pandemic reached almost every facet of life in the community, including the arts.

Actors in the Emerging Theatre Artist Residency rehearse a play at Krista Detor and Dave Weber’s artist retreat, The Hundredth Hill, in northern Monroe County. LP contributor Dason Anderson gave us a backstage look. | Photo by Grayson Pitts

Longtime LP contributor (and part-time editor) Dason Anderson wrote two articles: “Bugs Come to Life in Ali Beckman’s So Fly Taxidermy,” about how Ali Beckman’s Instagram popularity led to a new book; and Dason and photographer Grayson Pitts gave us an up-close, behind-the-scenes look at Krista Detor and David Weber’s first theater residency at their artist retreat, The Hundredth Hill. A troupe of recent graduates from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts not only created two productions during the residency but they also performed them for live audiences — an all but unheard-of feat in theater during the pandemic. As Dason put it, the Emerging Theatre Artist Residency gave these young artists “the opportunity to rise above the generational stigma they’d otherwise face in a pre-COVID theater world.”

Photographer Paige Strobel toured several local galleries to find out how they were affected by COVID-19. In her photo essay, “Galleries Adapt to Pandemic While Artists Continue to Create,” Paige writes, “While the world looks different and extra precautions are in place, one can still experience the incredible artists and artistry this town offers.”

We published two stories with photos by Ian Carstens. The first, “‘Paper Pavilions’ Exhibition Looks at Race, Nature, and Public Art,” depicts a group exhibition of Midwestern artists, showing virtually and physically at the 411 Gallery in Columbus, Indiana. Curated by Sean Starowitz, an artist and the City of Bloomington’s assistant director for the arts, the exhibition allows artists to set the tone for the future of public art. The exhibition can be seen in Bloomington beginning on January 15 at the FAR Center for Contemporary Arts. One of the artists featured in Paper Pavilions is Bloomington artist Gnat Bowden. Bowden is also the lead curator of Abattoir Gallery, which Ian also wrote about this month. Bowden says Abattoir will exhibit across mediums while maintaining a safe space for LGBTQ+, Black, and brown people.