Columns
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Sowers Harvest Café: At 10 Years and Counting, What Are the Secrets to Its Success?
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Any new customer at Sowers Harvest Café might feel a certain measure of curiosity. After all, this downtown State College restaurant has somehow attracted a growing clientele while ignoring most of the strategies or shortcuts used by other eateries. The café just marked its 10th anniversary in early September, and it’s experiencing out-the-door lines of…
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Inside/Outside State College: Nearby Hunting Options Abound
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Inside/Outside State College is a monthly column by Jeff Deitrich offering views on downtown and the outdoors within a 30-minute driving distance. We’re blessed in this little hamlet with a wide variety of places to pursue outdoor leisure activities. One of those is hunting. Hunting, for many of us, is a ritual as much as…
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Battista: Who to Believe?
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Halloween 2025 has come and gone but it reminded me of one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on a naïve audience. On Oct. 30, 1938, just over 87 years ago, a then 23-year-old Orson Welles used a relatively new technology (for the masses) to put fear into the entire nation with his CBS radio broadcast of…
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PSUPoorman’s Top 10: It Ain’t as Bad as You Think
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Sure, Penn State’s 38-14 loss to the top-ranked Buckeyes here in Ohio Stadium was not what you had hoped for two months ago. Or certainly what you expected. But, it has been that kind of season. A bad season. A really bad season. There are some silver linings. A few. So, we are…
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Penn State’s Loss to Ohio State Could’ve Been Worse. Of Course, Indiana Is Next
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Penn State’s 38-14 loss to Ohio State here in The Horseshoe on Saturday could have been a lot worse. Like 63-14 worse in 2013, when Urban Meyer pressed on the gas pedal and took it to the sanction-decimated Nittany Lions and Bill O’Brien to the bitter end. Like Penn State’s 45-6 loss…
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Penn State Football Must Regain Its Identity
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Like an underage student trying to get into a downtown State College bar, Penn State football’s ID has been taken away. Not a physical card — but an identity nonetheless. Over its 139-ish seasons (number varies depending on who you ask), the program has come to be defined by certain characteristics, including…
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What Players, Coaches and the Numbers Are Saying About Penn State Defensive Coordinator Jim Knowles
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Penn State’s game at Ohio State on Saturday in The Horseshoe will be a homecoming of sorts for Nittany Lions defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who was hired away from the Buckeyes back in January. But, we probably won’t be seeing a TV adaption of it on the Hallmark Channel any time soon. As the Buckeyes’…
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Local Historia: Murder by James Munks, Part 2
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Crime, confession, execution and resurrection in the early 1800s.
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We Had to Destroy the Universities to Save Them
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“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” – Ronald Reagan Skim most any document wordsmithed by President Trump’s courtiers and it can almost sound reasonable. Take the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” a letter sent to nine universities that sets conditions…
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Hook: Should Fans Expect — Or Even Want — Longevity in the Next Penn State Football Coach?
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Longevity. A long continuance. That’s what I think of as this fall has unfolded. Because this is the first fall in over a decade that my wife and I have been able to focus our weekend sports attention solely on the Penn State football team. When your son plays youth sports – club and scholastic…