Sam Stall

Features

Indianapolis Monthly •

It Will Always Be Deer Creek

TODAY, Noblesville’s 35-year-old outdoor concert pavilion is officially named Ruoff Music Center. But return with us now to the 1980s, when “naming rights” wasn’t a thing, and some Hoosiers thought a state-of-the-art outdoor concert venue just might be the work of the devil.
The BackgroundThe original Deer Creek was the brainchild of Sunshine Promotions founders David Lucas and Steve Sybesma, who for years booked shows in Indiana and surrounding states. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, their larger I...
Indianapolis Monthly •

The Future Of Broad Ripple High School

Guests filled the hallways. In the cafeteria, alumni pored over old yearbooks or pointed out the tables where they used to eat lunch. Nearby, a man in his 50s lingered at the bathroom entrance. “I’m going to go in there and smoke one, for old time’s sake,” he said.
The balance of the crowd was black or brown—products of the school’s post-integration era. There was also a smattering of folks from the ’50s and early ’60s who might have had talk-show host David Letterman, architect Michael Graves,...
Indianapolis Monthly •

John Green's Latest Diagnosis

INSTEAD OF producing another devastatingly quirky novel along the lines of Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, or his breakout The Fault in Our Stars (which has sold some 30 million copies, making it one of the 21st century’s most popular books), he has released a nonfiction volume under the auspices of Crash Course Books, his new imprint from Penguin Young Readers.
Published last month, Everything Is Tuberculosis tracks the medical, political, and cultural history of a disease that kills around 1....
Indianapolis Business Journal •

More women turn to trucking as shortage of drivers opens doors - Indianapolis Business Journal

Armed with an English degree, Julia Hogan turned to a career as a truck driver after the pandemic hit. (IBJ photo/Chad Williams)
Julia Hogan spent the first decades of her professional life as a journalist, a blogger and a comedy club bartender. But when the pandemic struck, she found herself mostly unemployed.
“I decided it was probably time for me to do a hard pivot,” Hogan said.
Actually, it was an extremely hard pivot. About a year ago, the 53-year-old Indiana University graduate (with an En...
Indianapolis Business Journal •

Age, usability pose preservation challenges for Columbus architecture - Indianapolis Business Journal

A quiet two-lane road intersecting the business district of many midsize Hoosier cities probably wouldn’t be expected to host anything more remarkable than a strip mall or a gas station.
And yet, here on Fifth Street in Columbus sits the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, designed by I.M. Pei (whose other projects include the Louvre Pyramid in Paris and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland). And across the street, facing the library’s expansive brick plaza, resides First Christian Church, one...
Indianapolis Business Journal •

2018 Carroll Award winner: Frank Basile, an ‘honest broker’ who gets things done - Indianapolis Business Journal

Frank Basile is one of the city’s premier philanthropists, sitting on nine not-for-profit boards and (along with his wife, Katrina) handing out funds to arts groups ranging from the Indiana Repertory Theatre to the Phoenix Theatre to the Indiana Historical Society.
But his “office” isn’t some walnut-lined sanctum. Often it’s a quiet table at his default meeting place, the nearest Panera Bread.
Basile’s taste in dining establishments perfectly sums up his management style. Esc...
Indianapolis Monthly •

Beau Bayh Is Mr. Positive

BEAU BAYH HAS every right to feel a bit angsty just now.
Last November, he turned 30—a milestone that can send anyone into a tailspin of existential dread. But not Beau Bayh. He doesn’t “do” angst and dread. At least not in public. It isn’t his style. Or his family’s, for that matter.
“Thirty has been great,” he says. “I’m turning 30, running for office, and practicing law, and it’s all been exciting and sometimes stressful, but overall pretty positive.”
There’s no time to wallow in self-pity....
Quill •

When Words Evolve

August 20, 2025 • Quill Archives
Nothing (other than an empty breakroom coffee pot) triggers journalists and editors quite as much as grammar controversies. And these days, with arguments raging about everything from the Oxford comma to the proper use of the possessive apostrophe, they seem to come at a record pace.
Of course, the phenomenon isn’t new. For centuries, evolutionary changes to written English have set off prickly discussions around horseshoe desks and wrathful pronouncements from t...
Indianapolis Monthly •

How Big Car Collective Is Walking The Tightrope In Garfield Park

Were it not for Big Car Collaborative’s track record, their plans for the Garfield Park area might sound a tad grandiose. Maybe even nuts.
Until recently, the near-southside neighborhood was known almost as much for its abandoned buildings as the green space for which it is named. Crime rates were high and rents were low. But Jim Walker and his wife Shauta Marsh, cofounders of Big Car, saw potential in the place. And where the leaders of that community arts group see promise, good things usuall...