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PrintJennifer Brunner's glass ceiling
Jennifer Brunner: Breaking a ceiling. File photo.
Jennifer Brunner considered more than just location and other conventional amenities when she relocated her law firm in downtown Columbus. The firm, Brunner Quinn, which the former Ohio Secretary of State founded in 1988 and also includes her husband, Rick, moved to a second-floor suite in a building on North Fourth Street just prior to her rejoining the practice in January. “When we had a choice of floors . . . I liked the fact that there was a glass ceiling above the conference room,” she says. “I thought it was very symbolic.” The next step, she jokes, is to smash the ceiling. “I said, ‘I may bring a bazooka in,’ ” she says with a laugh.
Another veteran political writer has left the Dispatch. Following the recent departures of Statehouse reporters Mark Niquette and James Nash (both for Bloomberg), the Dispatch’s D.C. bureau chief, Jonathan Riskind, jumped ship at the end of January. Riskind, a Dispatch employee since 1989, is now the Washington, D.C., correspondent for MaineToday Media publications, which includes the Portland Press Herald and several other Maine newspapers. The loss of Riskind, however, doesn’t mean the end of the Dispatch’s D.C. bureau, which also includes Jack Torry, a reporter the paper shares with the Dayton Daily News. In early February, Dispatch editor Ben Marrison told Insider in an e-mail that the paper was interviewing for a replacement. “Fortunately, there are many talented journalists available in Washington who have already contacted us about coming to work for us,” Marrison wrote.
Actor and Bexley native Josh Radnor, also known as Ted Mosby on CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother,” is releasing the comedy happythankyoumoreplease, his directorial debut, in March. In September, Radnor presented the film, which he also wrote, at the Drexel Theatre, a place he frequented often when he lived nearby.
The Pink Flamingos will hit the stage again to honor Mike Harden and raise money for the late Dispatch columnist’s favorite charity. The band, founded by Harden and several other then-Citizen-Journal writers, developed a loyal following among politicos during its run from about 1982 to 1992. After Harden’s death in October, former Plain Dealer Columbus bureau chief Mary Anne Sharkey, the wife of Flamingo and former C-J columnist Joe Dirck, suggested the reunion. The show, scheduled for March 26 at Roadhouse 66, 480 E. Wilson Bridge Rd., will benefit the Tom Fennessy Back-to-School Project, named after the late Dispatch columnist who preceded Harden at the paper. Harden helped start the charity, which provides backpacks and school supplies to poor children, with a 1998 article and continued to support its efforts. The reunion show will include Dirck, former PD reporter T.C. Brown (a Columbus Monthly contributor) and Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, a former C-J reporter.
Longtime U.S. District Judge John Holschuh received a surprising tribute following his January death from cancer. In a letter that appeared in the Dispatch, the Rev. Leroy Jenkins, the notorious ex-con faith healer, praised the judge. Jenkins wrote that he considered Holschuh one of just two public officials “who have blessed my life” (the other was a South Carolina state senator). The minister wrote that Holschuh, who presided over two tax-evasion trials involving Jenkins, “made sure that I was given a fair trial.” (Jenkins was acquitted of the charges.) Jenkins, who moved from Central Ohio to Scottsdale, Arizona, about seven years ago, wrote that he cried after hearing the news of the judge’s death.
