Bigfoots in Ohio

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Ohio State’s Latest Leadership Seminar: How to Resign in Under a Week

It was quite a week at Ohio State University, if your favorite genre is institutional panic with a side of board-approved embarrassment.

In the span of just a few days, Ohio State held a board meeting with President Ted Carter, learned he had been carrying on an “inappropriate relationship” with someone seeking public resources for her personal business, accepted his resignation, launched an investigation, and then promoted Provost Ravi Bellamkonda to the top job. Efficient, if nothing else.

For a university that loves to market itself as a global model of excellence, this was less “best damn university in the land” and more “HR emergency with a marching band.”

Carter resigned on March 9, a little more than two years into the job, after disclosing to the board that he had, in the university’s words, an inappropriate relationship with someone seeking state support for her business. In his statement to the campus community, Carter said he “made a mistake in allowing inappropriate access to Ohio State leadership,” which is one way to describe a scandal that detonated so fast the board went from glowing performance reviews to presidential replacement in what felt like the length of a long weekend.

And let’s pause there for a moment. In August 2025, the same board gave Carter rave reviews, a 4.5% merit raise, and a bonus worth nearly $400,000. Seven months later, they were meeting on a Saturday to figure out how to usher him out the door. That is not a leadership transition. That is a fire drill in scarlet and gray.

The details only got messier from there. JobsOhio said it believes the situation may be connected to Carter’s relationship with Krisanthe Vlachos, host of The Callout Podcast, a veterans-focused show Carter appeared on multiple times and was even listed on as a cohost. JobsOhio had paid $60,000 to sponsor a four-episode pilot series, though only one episode was actually completed. By the next day, the state’s private economic development arm was publicly trying to claw the money back, which is never exactly the sign of a clean and healthy arrangement.

So, to recap: Ohio State’s president resigns over an inappropriate relationship tied to a person seeking public resources, JobsOhio gets pulled into the orbit, tens of thousands of sponsorship dollars are suddenly in question, and the university has to speed-run a presidential succession before the week is over. Just a normal, stable stretch for one of the largest public universities in the country.

And if you’ve followed Ohio State long enough, this all feels depressingly on brand. This is a university that can build a national football empire, launch billion-dollar initiatives, and brand every square inch of human existence in Block O, but somehow still cannot stop turning the president’s office into a two-year stress position. Carter himself had only been in the role since January 2024, after Kristina Johnson’s own short and messy tenure. At this point, the most unstable thing on campus may not be the administration’s politics or priorities, but the actual presidency.

Which is saying something, because Carter’s tenure was not exactly quiet. Under his watch, Ohio State dismantled DEI programming under pressure from the state, established the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society to address so-called liberal bias, and cracked down on student protests over the war in Gaza. Critics on campus blasted his leadership as top-down, repressive, and unaccountable. Supporters could point to athletic success and strategic planning. But no amount of football glory or polished administrative language changes the fact that he left under a cloud of scandal, with the university once again forced into damage-control mode.

And now it’s Ravi Bellamkonda’s turn.

Ohio State moved quickly to elevate the provost, because when your house is on fire, the first thing you do is find the nearest person already holding a clipboard. Maybe Bellamkonda brings stability. Maybe he lasts longer than the last two presidents. Maybe Ohio State finally gets a leader whose tenure is defined by something other than political pressure, internal drama, or abrupt resignation.

But for now, the takeaway is simple: at one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the state, the adults in the room once again managed to make leadership look like a frat house problem with better salaries.

Ohio State may still know how to win championships.

Running the university is apparently another matter.

Scarlet Letter Trivia

Question: This has nothing to do with the Letter but how much a big mac (just the sandwich) in 2008

A. $4.50
B. $2.87
C. $3.57
D. $5.25

Ohio’s Economic Development Strategy Has Apparently Expanded to Include Bigfoot

While Ohio State was busy speed-running a presidential scandal, northeast Ohio was dealing with a different leadership crisis: multiple people claimed to see Bigfoot stomping around Portage and Trumbull counties like he was on a regional listening tour.

Over the course of just a few days in early March, witnesses in places like Mantua, Garrettsville, Windham, and Newton Township reported seeing huge upright creatures, usually described the same way: dark hair, long arms, somewhere between 7 and 10 feet tall, and making deep grunting noises in the woods. Which, to be fair, is also how some people describe men at Buffalo Wild Wings during March Madness.

According to Jeremiah Byron of the Bigfoot Society podcast, this may be what enthusiasts call a “flap,” which is a sudden cluster of Sasquatch sightings in a short period of time. And if that sounds fake, please know that “flap” is a real term in cryptid culture, which means there are people who have spent enough time discussing Bigfoot to develop industry language.

What makes this especially rich is that the current setup is only a few years old. Voters The stories are, admittedly, incredible. One witness in Mantua claimed to see a 9-foot-tall Sasquatch in broad daylight. Another reported hearing deep footsteps and “vibrating grunts” before spotting an 8-foot figure moving between trees. In Garrettsville, hikers described a black-haired creature with broad shoulders, long arms, a musky odor, and a grunt so dramatic it sounds like Ohio’s forests are now doing immersive theater. In Newton Township, one man said his German Shepherd completely lost it after a large black shadow crashed through the woods behind his home at 4 a.m.

No physical evidence has turned up yet. No clear photos. No video. No tuft of hair. No giant footprint that can survive more than one news cycle. Law enforcement agencies also said they have not received much in the way of formal reports, which is probably for the best, because there is no quicker way to test a dispatcher’s patience than calling 911 to report a suspiciously enormous woodland gentleman.

Still, the legend persists because Ohio is an ideal place for this kind of thing. We are a state full of woods, fields, weird little towns, and just enough regional melancholy to make “what if there’s an 8-foot ape-man out there” feel almost plausible. This is also the same state that has given us the Loveland Frog, the Melon Heads, Orange Eyes, and enough ghost stories to fill a Buc-ee’s parking lot. Bigfoot is not an outlier here. He is part of the brand portfolio.

And maybe that is the real charm of the whole thing. In a state constantly trying to sell itself through business incentives, sports, Intel chips, and carefully scripted growth language, there is something refreshing about Ohio still being, at heart, a place where several people can look into the woods and say, with total sincerity, “I know what I saw, but I don’t know what I saw.”

That may not be science. But it is very Ohio.

Columbus Will Gather This Summer to Celebrate the Pickle, a Food We Have Somehow Turned Into a Lifestyle.

Columbus has hosted a lot of festivals over the years. Arts festivals. Jazz festivals. Beer festivals. Taco festivals. Mac and cheese festivals. Entire weekends dedicated to standing in the sun while paying $14 for something served in a paper boat.

So naturally, the next step in our civic evolution is Pickle Palooza.

On June 27, Huntington Park will host the national pickle-themed food and drink festival, which is exactly what it sounds like: an evening dedicated to pickle-inspired food, craft beverages, live music, games, and what can only be assumed will be a deeply unsettling number of adults willingly competing in pickle-eating contests in public.

The event is being produced by Outlier Events, the group behind other traveling food spectacles like Mac and Cheese Fest, Taco & Tequila, and Donut & Beer. Which means they have correctly identified the modern American business model: take one ingredient, add alcohol, a DJ, and VIP tickets, and watch people sprint toward it like it’s cultural enrichment.

And honestly, they may not be wrong. Organizers say the first Pickle Palooza in Grand Rapids sold out in just three hours, which means there is either enormous untapped demand for pickle-based entertainment, or the Midwest has finally become too powerful.

Columbus attendees can expect pickle-themed food from local vendors, including fried pickles, pickle pizza, and surely several other menu items invented by someone who looked at a cucumber in brine and thought, let’s see how far we can push this. Drinks will include beer, cider, cocktails, and nonalcoholic options, all sampled through tokens that come with admission, because no festival experience is complete until you are doing beverage math with a commemorative lanyard around your neck.

There will also be live music, a DJ set, and games, because apparently eating pickles at a baseball stadium now requires the atmosphere of a bachelorette party and the logistics of a county fair.

And yet, this makes perfect sense for Columbus. We are a city that loves an event. We love a theme. We love a food item elevated just enough to become an outing. We are spiritually the kind of place that sees “pickle festival at Huntington Park” and says yes, that feels right, that feels like summer, that feels like something I will absolutely complain about paying for and then attend anyway.

So if you have ever wanted to spend a warm June evening surrounded by brined enthusiasm, competitively crunchy energy, and the kind of crowd that treats a tasting cup as a personality trait, Columbus will soon have your moment.

The pickle’s time has come.

And apparently, it came with platinum admission.

C) 3.57 I was on the phone with my buddy writing the letter, and we were guessing the price, so I thought it would be fun for the letter.