My Favorite 10 Stories from NWIndianaLife.com from 2014

2014 was a tremendous year for the Ideas in Motion Media team and it definitely showed on NWIndianaLife.com. We loved covering good news in the region and 2014 saw us connect with a lot of great groups and organizations doing great things in the area.

I see about 99.9% of the events we cover and post about and have a crazy good memory for stuff like this (just ask my wife!), so I thought I’d throw together a personal Best-Of for my favorite stories I can remember posting about on NWIndianaLife.com this year.

Railing Against the Status Quo
Back in March, I had the opportunity to cover the Emerging Leaders Network’s “Laying Tracks for the Future” rally to support the South Shore Rail Line expansion. Whether you’re for or against the expansion, it is nice to see some young people in the area actually doing something that they believe will make their community a better and stronger place in the long run. 

A Cool Way to Raise Money
We invited a number of community members out to do the #ALSIceBucketChallenge with our staff and raised a decent amount of money at the office for a great cause. You can see all the people who came out to join us here. 

Connecting to Schools
With the launch of NWIndianaLife.com in August 2013 we expanded our audience by tens of thousands, and with that increase we saw a number of schools that we now needed to help tell the stories of. We had graduations covered throughout the region – increasing from seven to 30 covered in the summer of 2014. We also started our #1StudentNWI series that has had a number of unique stories told through the eyes of the students at school.

Look at Me!
Hey I won a Good Life Award!

Looking Back on Lew Wallace
2014 also saw the closing of longtime Gary’ educational institution Lew Wallace High School. Right after graduation, we reached out to LWHS alumni and asked them to share some of their favorite memories of the school and their time there. 

Sand in My Coffee
Earlier in the year, we asked members of organizations and businesses that have a common interest in the Indiana Dunes to come together and have a “Community Coffee Talk” about all things “dunes”. The event essentially served as a roundtable idea exchange and we had the hopes that groups that may not be communicating with each other regularly can learn from wins and losses from other groups, and hopefully work together going forward on efforts, be they expansion, preservation, or tourism.

Regional Independence
2014 provided the opportunity for our first “official” Independence Day for NWIndianaLife.com and we took full advantage. We were out in Chesterton, Cedar Lake, Highland, Merrillville, Schererville, Munster, Long Beach, La Porte, Hobart, Whiting, Portage, Crown Point, Hammond, Valparaiso, Crown Point, and Michigan City, taking some of the best 4th of July shots you’ll find online. 

TEDxCountyLineRoad Showcases NWI
The same group of leaders who made the call-to-action for rail expansion in Northwest Indiana also took a few months, passed several tests and criteria, and eventually hosted the first TEDx event for the region in November. This was a very cool and fun event to attend/cover, showcasing some of the best talent and minds in the region.

Shots! Shots! Shots!
We’ll close things out with my favorite photo gallery from an event that took place in Lake County this year, belonging to Leon’s Triathlon. Shout-out to Anna Hanson on her good, quick work with the story and gallery. A lot of people don’t realize that we’re out at these events, taking photos and writing the stories, then have hundreds of crazy-high-quality shots and a good story all thrown together in a relative few hours. This is a great example of what we do!

Learning About My “New” Home Town
A few years ago, I made the move into Lake County into Hobart from Valparaiso, and while I’ve lived there for a while, I learned more by reading Tim Moran’s City in the Spotlight on “The Friendly City” than I had just by living there. Shout-out to Cafe 339!