The Northern Indiana music scene has witnessed the rise of several churches or church run venues in the past 10 years, including Hebrews. Located in Leo, Hebrews Coffee and Music has been putting on shows since 2008. The venue is connected to Harvest Christian Fellowship and, as the name suggests, the show space also includes a coffee bar. Hebrews books Christian or Christianity-inspired artists including The Glorious Unseen, The Future of Forestry and Showbread. For larger shows such as John Mark McMillan or ex-Underoath drummer Aaron Gillespie, performances are held in the church sanctuary. Overall, this venue is pretty relaxed and the ticket prices are generally affordable.

Address: 11225 Grabill Road, Leo, IN 46765

Website: HebrewsFortWayne.com

“A Rock Club Dressed as A Dive Bar”
Venue: The Brass Rail

One of the most popular bars in Fort Wayne books some of the best shows in town. The Brass Rail books a large variety of artists from a multitude of genres; However, the venue specializes in punk, garage, and folk. Some of the past performers at “The Rail” include Titus Andronicus, The Tallest Man on Earth, and The Queers. Because The Brass Rail is a bar, all shows are 21+., but shows are generally pretty cheap and they can be a lot of fun – the way shows should be!

Address: 1121 Broadway, Fort Wayne, In 46802

Website: BrassRailFW.com

Fort Wayne’s Finest DIY Venue
Venue: The Harrison House

The Harrison House might not have the most elaborate set up, being a basement venue, but it is full of heart and the epitome of DIY punk aesthetic. The Harrison House is a place of acceptance, where people of all ages can see a show, hang out with friends and feel safe at the same time. The venue is drug and alcohol free and bands with racist, sexist, or homophobic views are not booked. Artists booked at Harrison House tend to favor the hardcore, grindcore, and power violence side of music, but it’s not unusual to see a punk act or a metal band at any given show. The venue lacks a proper website, but operates a facebook group under the name of its address.

Address: 1624 N Harrison, Fort Wayne, IN 46808

Shows for the Hot-Topic Generation
Venue: Gnarly Shows

Since 2007 Gnarly Shows (previously Sound Services) has booked shows at a variety of different locations. Past artists range from metalcore giants like August Burns Red and Asking Alexandria to pop acts such as The Ready Set and Forever the Sickest Kids. Within the past year, Gnarly Shows has also taken to hosting themed raves and adding more diversity to their shows. If you want big city club shows in a lower market touring town, Gnarly Shows is your best bet, but be prepared for potentially higher ticket prices.

Address: Shows vary in location.

Website: Fort Wayne Shows

Who Doesn’t Like Free Shows?!
Venue: The Firehouse

Located in North Manchester, this venue is about a half-hour from the Warsaw/Winona Lake music scene and an extra fifteen minutes from Fort Wayne. Despite the distance, this venue is definitely worth noting for several reasons. All shows at The Firehouse are donation based, meaning you can see a really great show completely free of charge. The venue survives mainly from the support of the community, but if you feel inclined, donations can be made to The Firehouse at each event. This venue consistently brings in great folk/indie pop, with shows by Danielson, Horse Feathers and Saturday Looks Good to Me scheduled for this summer. Seeing a show at The Firehouse is generally worth the drive.

Address: 108 West Main St. North Manchester, IN 46962

Website: theFireHouse.net

First up, Rachel Dincoff, from Dekalb High School, will throw the shot put and discus. Dincoff, announced as the 2012 IATCCC Indoor State 4A-5A Champion in shot put, has a personal record of 45-10.

Incoming freshman Laura Moynahan, of Garrett High School, will also be competing with shot put and discus. With a personal best of 36-1, Moynahan’s been named 2012 ACAC Indoor Shot Put Champion and was a 2011 IHSAA Regional Qualifier.

Elizabeth Frazee, coming from McClutcheon High School, was also signed on to compete in the shot put and discus events. Her career-best comes in at 35-6, and her longest stretched 95-10.

Frazee was both a 2012 IATCCC Indoor State Qualifier as well as a 2011 IHSAA Regional Qualifier.

Mikalah Lambert, of North Judson High School, will be multifunctional for the Mastodons. Lambert is able to throw shot put, hammer throw, weight throw and the javelin. Career bests are 36-4, 105-0, 36-5 and 88-6, respectfully.

Lambert was also an IHSAA Regional Qualifier, as well as having taken 23rd in this year’s weight throw at the New Balance Indoor Nationals and 14th in the hammer throw at the 2011 USATF Junior Olympic Nationals.

Lastly, Emerald Eviston, of Homestead High School, will be the Dons’ only competitor in the pole vault event. Personal best height comes in at 12-4. She has placed 8th in the USATF Youth National Meet and got 14th in the 2011 USATF Junior Olympic Nationals.

This season, the Dons have placed between 5th and 10th in all the meets, aside from 11 meets where there was no team scoring.

“We have really expanded our field events with these signees,” Fruchey said to gomastodons.com. “There were opportunities and I think we capitalized well on them.”

Head Coach Tony Jasick signed on three junior college standouts for the 2012-13 season: Kevin Harden, Luis Jacobo and Steve Forbes. They all stand well over six feet tall.

6-2 Harden from Orlando, Fla., averaged 13.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists a game with his time at Santa Fe College. He was also shooting 47 percent from the floor, 33 percent from behind the line and had 67 percent in free throws.

Jacobo, a 6-5 forward also from Florida, helped take his team to the NJCAA Regional Championship game when playing for the College of Central Florida in Ocala.

He averaged 13.2 points a game, along with 3.9 rebounds. Hitting 78 percent of his free throws, Jacobo connected on 47- and 36 percent of his field goal and three-point shots.

The final signee, Forbes, is a 6-9 foward from – that’s right – Florida. Forbes was only able to get court time in 18 games last year due to injury, and averaged 4.9 points, 3.2 rebounds in the limited time.

When a freshman, Forbes was teamed with Jacobo at Stetson, playing in all games. He averaged 7.8 points and 4.4 rebounds, shooting 53 percent from the field.

Last season, the Dons managed to finish 11-19 overall.

“My summer plans include staying up until dawn every night, playing video games and gorging myself on snack food,” said Smarts. “I don’t even know if I’ll see sunshine until the fall semester.”

This is the first time Smarts has made anti-plans for the summer. For his previous two summers at IPFW, he mapped out the perfect break like everyone else, only to be incredibly disappointed in himself once school started again.

“You set out low goals and you meet them,” said Smarts. “Isn’t that what college is all about?”

Some of Smarts’s fellow students are viewing his lack of plans skeptically. “We were planning a road trip,” said BFF Rosie Bloomberg. “Zack wouldn’t commit to anything until the day of the trip. How are we supposed to get any planning done if he won’t make plans?”

Smarts shrugged when asked about the road trip. “Yeah, we’ve been planning a road trip since we all turned 16. It’s never happened.”

The business major has already been enjoying his summer, spending an entire day on Facebook while streaming Firefly on Netflix in the background. He claims that he doesn’t even know where his swim trunks or sunglasses are.

Psychologist Betty Jinks said that Smarts’s behavior is a reaction to both his last summer as a college student and a sudden relief from the stress of the spring semester. “Having these two events occur at once basically made his brain go into full relaxation mode,” said Jinks. “It is incapable of seeing things in the shortish long-term.”

Smarts himself waves off Jinks’s diagnosis. “I’m telling you, if you don’t make plans then you don’t have to worry about anything,” he said. “If I feel like going to the zoo tomorrow, I’ll go. But I won’t beat myself up for sleeping in past 5 p.m. and missing the monkeys either.”

The always diligent IPFW Anthropology department has been conducting a study all semester long on rave-culture in Fort Wayne and how it works.

This study was no easy undertaking for the Anthropology Department with hundreds of dollars being spent on entry fees, several outfits of the observers being stained by the chemicals inside of glows sticks, and one near death experience involving the drug ecstasy.

Despite these hardships, the department finds the information gathered from this to be very conclusive and provided a greater understanding of a small section of Fort Wayne’s youth. The most jarring figure from the study is that on average nine out of ten people are clueless on exactly how they should dance to dubstep.

“There seems to be this underlying sense of awkwardness among its members. No one really knows what they are doing,” says Junior Anthropology major Emanuella Kant.

“The catch is everyone tries to act with confidence, while floundering with an unestablished move set. You may see a couple grinding on each significantly off-time with the music, you may see someone mimicking that arm-bob motion found in hip-hop dance, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll catch some kid playing air-guitar to a song that lacks any sort of guitar part. It’s strange to say the least.”

Have insight on the rave community? Feel free to contact the IPFW Anthropology department at 260-481-6676.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Jeanne Walker, who just finished her freshman year as an English major. “There it was, a mastodon statue just trotting through the grass in front of the Science Building!”

Walker’s Tweets documenting the incident went viral, but not everyone was as shocked.

Renee Mavis, a senior anthropology major, has been taking summer classes since her freshman year. “It happens every summer,” she said with an uninterested shrug. “You should really go see the mastodon fossil come back to life in Kettler. Much cooler.”

Physics professor Mark Manning told reporters that the incident was likely not related to the portal through space and time that opened up near the Science Building early last fall. Rather, he said that it was the spirits of mastodons long dead, on top of whose bones IPFW was built.

“It’s a simple case of prehistoric mammalian possession,” said Manning. “It’s actually quite a common phenomenon. I mean, the science is really complicated and you probably wouldn’t understand it anyway, so I won’t even bother trying to tell you.”

When long-time IPFW janitor Sten Biller was asked about the animated statues, he said, “Hold on, is this a Night at the Museum reference in 2012? Come on!”

“There are no cars in the parking lot, no loud music above my apartment every night,” said Brick, staring into empty space. “Everyone is just gone.”

Brick spent the first few days of his solitude moping around until he realized something amazing.

“This is just like when all of Harry Potter’s friends went home for Christmas break and Harry was the only person back at Hogwarts,” said Brick.

The new perspective has made Brick’s vacation infinitely better, he claimed.

“I just started re-reading the series and I’ve begun to find so many similiarities between Harry and me. He had awkward teenage years, I had awkward teenage years! He didn’t feel like he belonged, I didn’t feel like I belonged!”

Brick did say he was disappointed to find out that there were no rooms of requirement or chambers of secret at student housing, but he was able to dress like a wizard and no one was there to make fun of him.

Finals week is over.

Temperatures are peaking in the 80s.

The birds are chirping and Fort Wayne residents are crawling out of the woodwork to enjoy the fresh air.

Most people walk their dog, go jogging or ride their bike around town.

Not Micah and Andrea Rapp, Fort Wayne couple who plan to bike across the entire country this summer.

And not just for the fresh air either.

Micah and Andrea are riding their bikes in a group effort to, “…raise money and awareness for affordable housing groups,” according to their blog.

The name of this endeavor is Bike and Build, a non-profit organization.

“Over nine seasons, Bike & Build has contributed $3,387,200 to housing groups to fund projects planned and executed by young adults…,” according to bikeandbuild.org.

Each participant must complete 10 hours of volunteer work with certified non-profit affordable housing organizations, e.g. Habitat for Humanity, and raise $4,500 before the trip.

“At this point we’re not entirely done with fundraising efforts, but we’re within striking distance,” said Micah.

“Bike and Build puts together eight cross-country trips a year, and each trip involves some thirty young adults…,” according to Micah’s blog.

Micah and Andrea will be riding on the Central U.S. route, which begins in Virginia Beach, Va. and finishes at Canon Beach, Ore.

And unlike fair-weather bicycle enthusiasts, Micah and Andrea will be on the road rain or shine.

After a two-day orientation and bike repair seminar in Virginia Beach on May 27, the team will head west through Virginia for their first building project in Suffolk and Lynchburg.

The Central U.S. route team will be seeing elevations above 12,000 feet crossing the Rocky Mountains after making their way through the Blue Ridge Mountains and across the flatlands of the Midwest.

“A brief two-day stop in Denver, CO prepares the group for the breathtaking ascents (and descents) on the roads leading to Rocky Mountain National Park,” according to Bike and Build’s website. “The climb up Trail Ridge Pass, voted by many year after year…,” is considered the trip highlight.

After rolling through Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and then Oregon, the team is scheduled to reach their final destination on the Pacific coast August 8 with an estimated total mileage of 3,811 and ten days of building.

Not your usual summer bike ride.

To follow Micah and Andrea’s progress throughout the summer visit their blog at oregonbound2012.com.

The owner, a shaggy-looking man sporting a green t-shirt and a stoner’s stubble, is looking at charges of animal endangerment and possibly animal cruelty. Although the dog’s owner is part of the gang of vigilantes that tries to solve crimes by unmasking citizens, friends of his said he never really did anything except eat food and try to talk to his dog.

Members of the gang also stated that this was not the first case of animal neglect from the owner. Two years prior existed a tiny, brown Chihuahua that went missing. The tiny dog was said to be incredibly annoying and not good for the group’s ratings.

Regardless of the outcome, the brown dog muttered what sounded like “ruh row,” at the bad news.

IPFW is located to provide students with easy access to shopping and food options, but the campus itself is built more to encapsulate the feel of a park, making it perfect for recreational activities with friends and fellow students.

Whether it’s exercise or relaxation, the campus is prepared to offer opportunities for both.

Student housing has its own outdoor amenities, including several basketball courts and a sand volleyball pit.

Rodney Kalvin, who plays basketball at the student housing courts nearly daily, says that an average of 15 to 20 people come to the courts every day.

“It’s just cool to hang around. You can play basketball or sit and watch other people play. If these courts weren’t here, I’d probably be at my house on the Xbox 24/7,” said Kalvin.

But aside from these obvious fixtures, the Waterfield campus also has two pavilions spaced out across housing that generally provide decent outdoor meeting places to sit and talk. Cole Commons also offers cook-out equipment that is located near the center of housing and its pond, making it ideal for resident students who want the feel of a day at the park without the transportation to travel to one.

According to RA Heather Sheron, the grills at student housing only get used three or four times a week, when they are open to any residents with a little food and the urge to barbecue.

The main academic campus offers more in the way of natural amenities. The West end of campus is bordered by the St. Joe river, giving students the opportunity for quiet study or relaxation on one of the many benches along its banks. The trees and woods on campus are also part of the Native Trees of Indiana River Walk, which students can access from several of the walkways or the Rivergreenway.

The greenway itself makes a great place for runners and bikers to get exercise while they’re on campus.

The campus also has several pavilions – the Friends Pavilion in front of the student union and the Pavilion in the Children’s Garden located behind the visual arts building. They can be quiet places to enjoy the scenery while studying, but also great places for outdoor meetings and picnics.

For those who enjoy games, the student union boasts a large outdoor chessboard, and the open spaces around the student union as well as in the science mall are frequently home to impromptu frisbee and football tossing.

IPFW has an immense amount of room for students to engage in recreation and get outdoors during the summer and fall semesters. Students – both incoming and returning – should take the time to enjoy one of the prettier perks to getting an IPFW education.