Firstly, what is this new up and coming beverage company? Key Beverages is a new small business that has helped many people with their gut health and is filled with many probiotics that provide health benefits. Specifically, the company sells kefir water which is similar to other natural health focused drinks. Though it has more probiotics, and a greater taste. These waters include six different flavors: Lemon-Lime, Cherry-Lime, Orange Cream, Fig, Grape, & Cranberry Apple. 

The company owner of the business is Kasey Guelda who created every part of the company himself. Guelda explains some of the health benefits of water kefir, “What a lot of people do not understand is that 70% of our immune systems are located in the gut. There are 10 times more bacterial cells in the human body than human cells. Water kefir is packed with probiotics, with up to 40 different strains of probiotics and billions of CFUs per serving.” This is a lot of information about gut health and the digestive system, but the key takeaway, he explains is, “By adding these good bacteria to your gut it can have a profound effect on the digestive system.” 

I asked, “This is more of a general positive, to improve one’s gut health, but what does that mean? How can drinking kefirs, and putting these good bacteria specifically improve your gut health?” He replied, “From clearing up acid reflux, keeping you regular, aiding in absorption of nutrients, fighting bloating, indigestion, etc. What people are also not aware of is 90% of the body’s serotonin is created in the gut. Serotonin is a hormone responsible for modulating mood, cognition, reward, learning, memory, and numerous physiological processes.” 

These specific positives have had a great impact on multiple people, so much so, a few people subscribed to Key Bev’s to have the drinks regularly delivered to them. One of the Key Beverage subscription customers, Sally Anne, was able to make a few comments about the drinks herself. “The drinks are light, fresh, bubbly and refreshing.” She explained that the drink are very similar to a regular enjoyable soda. But more importantly she explained that, “The impact these beverages had on my gut health was almost immediate. I almost never had acid reflux or indigestion anymore. They have also impacted my overall gut health.” Overall Anne said she would recommend to anyone that they try these drinks, “Not just for the gut benefits, but also because they are delicious and healthy too.”

What makes Key Beverages better is that people have looked to other beverages for good gut bacteria, and kombucha is a very popular drink that provides some of that good bacteria. So I asked, “which is better for gut health, kefir or kombucha?” Guelda explained, “Kombucha has similar effects, but kombucha contains 3 times less probiotics and less diversity with the strains of probiotics.”  

The other factor that has made kefir more desirable among people newly introduced to good bacteria filled drinks, is many people do not enjoy the vinegar taste of kombucha. But kefir is flavored with 100% natural juice, and therefore has a lighter and more enjoyable taste. This has made it more marketable to everyone and not just health focused people. Kefir has been marketable to kids, teens, adults, everyone. Obviously not everyone will enjoy it, but the public has had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it.

So where can people try Key Beverages? These drinks are available at the following locations: Paul’s Fruit Market, Rainbow Blossom, Norton Commons Cafe, Wiltshire Pantry, The Block Gourmet Deli, I Love Juice Bar, and farmers markets. On Saturdays, Key Beverages is primarily at the J-Town Farmers Markets, however it has also been at varying markets throughout Louisville. Though Sundays are spent at the Norton Commons farmers markets, all locations and times for where Key Beverages are sold are on the Key Beverages Instagram page, so everyone should definitely look it up and check it out!

Peach blossom jellyfish originate and are native to China, but you can find them in many places around the world. They’re freshwater jellyfish and can live in just about any body of water with freshwater, but the conditions have to be pretty exact for them to be seen. In early August, Liz Winlock (the program director at Olmsted Parks Conservatory) discovered thousands of these jellyfish living in one of the ponds at Shawnee Park. 

The reason there are so many of these jellyfish without us finding out sooner is because the conditions of the water they live in have to be just right for them to be visible. The water needs to be clean, warm, and still so they can fully mature and be seen. They are around the size of a dime and, despite their name, are clear with white accents. They do sting, but they have such a weak stinging power that most of the time you can’t even feel it. They eat the algae that grows in ponds and the scientists said that they don’t think the jellyfish will hurt the current ecosystem living in that pond at all. Many students I interviewed changed their opinions on the jellyfish when they found out they weren’t hurting the environment. Most of them thought it was cool that they were there, as long as they weren’t hurting anything.

When asked what he thought of these jellyfish, Paul Rademaker said, “They’re fine because they’re not hurting anything.”

When McKenzie Reasor was asked the same question she responded, “I think it’s a cool situation but I don't think they should be here.”

When Matthew Davis, the Study Skills and weight-lifting teacher at Brown, was asked about his opinion, he responded, “I don’t have one because I didn’t know they existed. I’m very surprised they exist.” He was very astonished when he was presented with the information about the jellyfish. 

The scientists who discovered them, Marry Anne Fox and Lauren Hendrickson (field technicians),. aren’t really sure how they got there. Their best guess is that there were some polyps (the first stage of these jellyfish and the stage which they are invisible during) attached to the plants that were installed in the pond. They also think they could’ve been attached to some of the animals that drink from the pond and live in that area. 

The students I talked to had the theory that someone had bought the jellyfish in some way or another and ended up ditching them in the pond. 

When asked how they thought the jellyfish got there, Shelby responded with, “Other animals brought them or people bought them illegally and dumped them in the pond.” Paul also said they might have been brought in through a flood. Another student said they might have been brought on or attached to a boat. They’re planning on doing more research and testing to try and figure out exactly how these jellyfish got here. They do, however, think the population of the jellyfish in the pond will die out once winter hits. 

When telling the other students this news, most of them were sad to see them go, because the general consensus was that they were cool. Remy Le’Boeuf, even called them his friends and would be devastated to see them go. Matthew Davis added that he would be sad to see them go if they were good for the environment, but if they were negatively impacting the environment he would want them gone.

It’s no secret that Louisville has a plethora of opportunities to experience and engage in Shakespeare. Since the 1970s, Commonwealth Theatre Center and Kentucky Shakespeare have been prominent community forces who spearhead their own Shakespeare festivals and offer various non-Shakespeare opportunities throughout the fall and early spring. While both companies offer both adult and student acting opportunities, CTC is best known for its youth acting classes. It’s not an uncommon sight to see Brown School students crowding the bus stop on Tuesdays and Thursdays, waiting for the 17 and 40 lines that will drop them off along Payne Street. 

Since its founding in 1976 by Nancy Niles Sexton, Commonwealth Theatre Center’s aim has been to provide the most diverse and comprehensive theater education possible. The curriculum for advanced students includes three four-week “rotations”, each with a focus on a different aspect of theatre- such as Movement, Voice, and Comedy- and a variety of teachers from different academic and theatrical backgrounds.

As a longtime student at Commonwealth Theatre Center, senior Chloe Fitch has fond memories of how going to the conservatory sparked her love of Shakespeare. “I remember getting really, really into ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ when I was, like, eleven, and I was reading all these articles about it- and I think that’s really, really cool because you don’t see that in a lot of places.” Even six years later, Fitch still has a passion for Shakespeare and theatre as a whole.

“As the times change, you know, accessibility is kind of on the forefront of a lot of people’s minds. And styles have changed, but CTC has been able to really make Shakespeare fun and entertaining and engaging and accessible for me, even as a young child,” says Fitch.

“It was just nice to be around people who had the same interests, and people who were interested in Shakespeare,” agrees senior Bea Friesen, who started classes with CTC when they were in elementary school. “Shakespeare is cool because it’s so relatable and funny. I just like that he’s good at writing stories that everyone understands, and that we can change it however we want.”

Those changes are part of the reason Shakespeare has become so accessible to Louisville youth. In the past few years, CTC has embarked on the challenge of re-adapting Shakespeare into different settings and time periods, rather than keeping them in their original Elizabethan context- bringing each production to a professional level that many high schools across the country can only dream of. These adaptations require not only an understanding of the plots of each play, but also an innate understanding of the language in order to reinterpret it into different contexts- improving each student’s individual cognizance of Shakespearean language.

“I know that auditioners at college audition conferences, so many reps have said, ‘Hey, you CTC people are doing something right because your Shakespeare is better than anyone else’s I’ve seen’, and I think that’s so important,” said Fitch. 

In recent years, CTC has collaborated with Kentucky Shakespeare’s ‘Globe Players’ professional training program to set up private auditions through the conservatory, putting the talents of Brown’s students on display on Kentucky Shakespeare’s Central Park stage. Program director Kyle Ware recounts a particular anecdote from this year’s summer production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’: “[During our dress rehearsal,] sometime around Act 2 or 3, a couple sitting in the audience approached me and asked, ‘Is this Shakespeare? I thought you all just did Shakespeare.’ [I said] ‘It is Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing’. [Their response- ]‘Oh, wow. We understood everything.’ That’s huge,” Ware clarified. “That comes through the time [the students] spent with the task and the clarity and thoughtfulness of applying that to the work.”

Friesen, a Globe Players alumni who played clownish night constable Dogberry in this summer’s production, commented, “Dogberry was actually really hard, a lot harder than I expected, but I think I learned a lot from it. He’s a small role, but a big personality, and it was just a really good challenge to try to make it my own because Dogberry’s known already.”

Like Friesen, many teenagers in the area have gotten the opportunity to play iconic roles in professional-level productions due to the scope of Louisville’s youth theatre community, which opens up possibilities for students to play roles of different genders, linguistic levels, and dispositions- from Juliet to Hamlet to Benedick. The ‘great migration’ of Brown Schoolers to CTC every Tuesday and Thursday has been a time-honored tradition for many years- and will continue to be so for years to come.