ourney Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> BRANDON: Coming up... >> ASHLEY: Get pumped with America's strongest woman.

>> BRANDON: Discover a vintage printing process.

>> ASHLEY: And meet some barnyard buddies.

>> BRANDON: That's all on this episode of -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> ASHLEY: Welcome to "Journey Indiana."

I'm Ashley Chilla.

>> BRANDON: And I'm Brandon Wentz.

And we're coming to you once again from the Wabash & Erie Canal Park in Carroll County.

At one time in the mid-19th century, this serene waterway was part of a liquid superhighway, stretching more than 460 miles from Toledo, Ohio, to Evansville.

This engineering marvel transformed Indiana by allowing for the smooth and predictable transfer of goods and people through previously remote regions of the state.

Financial mismanagement and the advent of the railroad spelled the end of Indiana's canal era, but visitors to the Wabash & Erie Canal Park can still explore what remains of the canal, and even visit an 1850s era pioneer village to see what life was like during the canal's heyday.

You know, going down this river, it is impressive just how calm and serene it was.

Can you imagine just, you know, 1800s, sailing down the river, headed to your new hometown?

>> ASHLEY: I think it sounds like a great life.

Maybe we should try it.

Well, up next, producer Nick Deel is going to take us to Monroe County to meet America's strongest woman and see how she's preparing for her shot at Olympic glory.

♪ >> Mary Theisen-Lappen is one of the best female weightlifters in the world.

She can hoist nearly 300 pounds over her head without breaking a sweat.

Her climb to the top of her sport has been sudden and surprising.

And it's not over yet, because this summer, she'll represent the United States on the sport's biggest stage, the Olympics.

>> I love weightlifting because I love to compete.

I love getting on stage.

I love hearing people, like, cheer for me.

I'd much rather get on a stage and lift as much weight as I can than ever speak in front of anybody.

I don't like getting in front of people when it comes to that, but if I have a heavy barbell on the ground, and they want me to try to pick it up in front of a lot of people, I will do it.

>> But first, what exactly is Olympic weightlifting?

>> An Olympic weightlifting competition consists of two lifts.

The first lift will be the snatch.

And the snatch is going to be lighter, because it's one movement from the ground to overhead in one continuous movement.

They are going to keep it real close to their body, and then turn it over and catch it in a deep squat with their hands wide overhead.

They are going to stand up, make sure they are under control, and then they will drop the bar.

And the second lift in a weightlifting competition is the clean and jerk.

It's going to be more weight.

First, those athletes will pull it, and then kind of jump under and catch it in what looks like a front squat.

They will stand it up, and then they will do a jerk to drive it overhead in one motion.

And then they recover their feet to parallel, and drop the weight.

At the end of a meet, your best snatch and your best clean and jerk get added together, and that makes your total.

♪ >> Weightlifting is actually Mary's second athletic career.

In her college years, she was an all-American shot putter at Indiana State University, and she placed ninth at the 2014 U.S. Championships.

After she wrapped up her throwing career, she returned to her home state of Wisconsin, and found a new passion when she took a coaching job at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

>> Oh, I loved coaching.

I believe that's where I was supposed to be, no matter what, and maybe that's where I end up back.

I think I found out that I just love coaching in general.

I don't think it matters necessarily the sport.

Maybe if I coached like a youth soccer team, I'd still love that.

>> But then, an inflection point.

In March of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Mary was furloughed.

>> I was scared for what was next, but at the same time, I was -- I was kind of getting pretty serious into weightlifting.

So I basically just used that four- or five-month period to be able to be a professional weightlifter.

>> In a custom-built weight room at the back of her garage, and with her husband Casey racking her weights, Mary started to see serious improvement.

>> I basically went all in, and it went really well.

I got really strong.

My technique got better.

When I got back from work, basically my husband and I talked about how that's probably what we need to figure out a way to make happen full time.

>> She left her coaching job and started training in earnest.

And in 2022, she and her husband moved to Bloomington, Indiana, to be closer to her coach, champion weightlifter Wil Fleming.

>> Up, feet and hands.

>> So I first heard about Mary just like everybody hears about everything these days, is through Instagram.

In 2019, at the American Open Championships in Salt Lake City, was really where everybody first kind of heard of Mary.

At that meet, she clean and jerked the third most in the history of the United States, and the two women who were ahead of her were both Olympic bronze medalists.

So to be in that company, people kind of stood up and noticed and realized, wow, she really has a shot.

>> She may have had a shot, but it was anything but easy.

For the better part of the last year and a half, she was locked in a tight back and forth with two-time Olympic bronze medalist Sarah Robles.

Only one woman from their weight class would have a shot at making the Olympic team.

In December 2023, at the International Weightlifting Federation Grand Prix in Doha, Qatar, Mary finally topped Robles with combined lifts of 283 kilograms.

That's 623 pounds.

Robles dropped out in February of 2024.

>> The whole thing with her, like, she just is so good, and she's done so good for so long, and she has so many meets under her belt, and I don't.

But just being able to kind of chase her and chase her and chase her is definitely what's made me better.

♪ >> Passing Robles allowed Mary to punch her ticket to the Olympic Games.

And because Mary competes in the 87-kilo plus weight class, the heaviest female weight class, passing Robles gave Mary a very big, if somewhat unofficial title, America's Strongest Woman.

>> I think I feel a little differently than everyone else does about, like, being America's strongest woman, just because, like, there are other sports, there are other, like, strength sports and whatnot.

And I'm, like, well, how do you really measure, like, if I'm stronger than somebody who is doing strongman or, like, powerlifting and whatnot.

But technically, I lift the most weight out of anybody in weightlifting.

So I guess technically I'm, like, the strongest weightlifter.

>> Up, good, clean.

>> I think it's a cool title.

I would never use it on myself, but people do and that's fine with me.

I just -- you won't catch me calling myself that.

♪ ♪ >> Since she's moved, Mary has been training at the Iron Pit Gym on the south side of Bloomington.

Her husband Casey is still by her side, leaving work early on training days to lift her weights and her spirits.

>> Just helping her and being her -- being here with her, you know, when she's having a rough day or a good -- even a good day, I'm here supporting her.

I get a good workout.

I lift a lot of weight every day.

You can't really tell by looking at me, but I do.

>> He loads my bar every day, just having him there, and then when I go home and talk to him about training, it's a little bit easier because I'll be, like, you know that one lift that this happened?

And we can kind of talk about it a little bit.

So I couldn't ask for a better partner for me to be able to be the best I can in the sport and really just do well in life.

>> That was really good.

>> Heading into the Olympics, Mary is ranked sixth in the world in her weight class.

So she'll have a real shot at making the medal stand.

And that's remarkable.

Because of Mary's late start in the sport at 33, she will almost certainly be older than any of her competitors.

China's Li Wenwen, the current world record holder and favorite for a second Olympic gold medal, is only 24.

But Coach Wil isn't concerned.

>> The fact that she came to it late, already had a career, she has a great husband and she has a really supportive family, those are, like, superpowers in weightlifting, because a lot of times, you know, if you are younger, you don't know what you are going to do for a career.

As soon as Mary gets done lifting, she could -- she could do anything.

She knows that because she's already done it.

She's been really successful.

Certainly people would say, gosh, it would be nice if you started at this age, but I think Mary started at the perfect age for what she's going to accomplish, and it's largely a benefit.

>> Just exactly what Mary will accomplish is yet to be seen, but regardless of the outcome, she says she will be ready for whatever comes next.

>> When I'm done with Paris and I -- I don't know what's next.

I don't know if we'll move back home.

I don't know if we'll stay here.

I don't know if I'll keep weightlifting.

I haven't decided any of that yet.

I've got some time to figure it out, but that's kind of what I'm hoping is I can finish weightlifting and say I did all I could and I did the best I could, and I think I will be ready to be done when it's time.

I'll know.

♪ >> ASHLEY: I am in awe of Coach Mary.

It has always been a goal of mine to not necessarily be a weightlifter, but to feel, like, super strong.

And to see, like, that woman just taking charge of that and making that her goal, I love to see that.

>> BRANDON: Yeah.

>> ASHLEY: Want to learn more?

Head to the address on your screen.

>> BRANDON: Up next, producer Saddam Abbas keeps us in Monroe County to meet an artist with a decidedly old-school approach.

♪ >> For me, I think the thing that's so thrilling or fun or special about riding a motorcycle is because you can purchase a 50-year-old motorcycle for $200 that's a piece of junk and fix it and make it run and have kind of a bit of pride in taking something that was thought to be garbage, and then go for a ride on it and use it to get groceries and drive to work and go visit your family and just travel kind of all over the place because it's a necessity in a lot of ways to have a vehicle.

But to have your vehicle be something that you feel that connected to is a lot like the process of printing and maintaining these presses.

I feel so close to these presses because of the care and knowledge that it's taken for me to make them work.

And I also think that because I've been working on motorcycles longer than I've been working on printing presses, the confidence that I've gained from, you know, rehoning a cylinder on a motorcycle and understanding those tolerances, is something that is similar to caring for, you know, a printing press.

There's a lot of things there that have kind of translated over and made for a really rewarding experience.

In talking about the workflow related to letterpress, it's really wonderful because there's all these limitations.

You know, when you are dealing with digital medium, oftentimes the sky is the limit, right?

You can -- you have a thousand fonts to choose from in your font library, and even more to download.

You have infinite workspace on your art boards.

You can just do so much.

But when you are working in a space like this, there are the limitations of how big you can print because of how big the press bed is, what type you own and how to utilize that type, how large that type is.

You can't simply change the proportions or make something fit in the way that you can in a -- when you are working in a digital space.

And because of that, it really forces you to be creative.

So the process of selecting type is so different than what I think the majority of us are used to now, which is clicking on a drop down menu and picking your Verdana or your Times New Roman or your Bodoni, or whatever typeface that you want to use.

In this shop, we actually have cases.

And just like a little fun sidenote.

A typecase, when you have uppercase and lowercase, the upper case is where you put all the uppercase letters, and the lower case is where you put all the lowercase letters.

The cases that we are going to be pulling from in here are called California job cases, which is a type of job case that has the uppercase and the lowercase all in the same case together.

But what you do in a type shop is you essentially walk around and you look at the type.

So there's no drop down menu, but hopefully you have some nice labeling in your shop.

You pull out your cases, and you hand select each letter.

So if you need an L, you pick an L. And if you run out of Ls, you are in trouble because you don't have anymore.

The poster that we're going to produce for "Journey Indiana," I'm going to draw it digitally and, like, play with my iPad essentially in producing it.

And then we'll output it by cutting into what is just Luan wood, which is a cheap wood that you can get at your local hardware store.

Really, really inexpensive.

So we are going to laser cut out this block.

From there, we will use a double-sided tape to mount it to a piece of MDF, which is just a subflooring material, and luckily enough, that three-quarter inch MDF with quarter inch Luan is actually just below an inch.

So it comes very, very close to being exactly type high.

So then we take that over to the printing press, and we run our sheet of paper through the press, and that block itself is collecting ink as the press is running.

And then it is pushing the paper against the actual block and creating an image from it.

So everything in the cutting has to be flipped.

So everything is carved in reverse.

Then we're going to include the majority, or some of the type at the bottom by using handset metal and wood type.

So in the negative space that we've created for it, we're going to take each individual letter and set it into what's called a job stick, measure everything out and pull our prints.

And most likely the first time we pull it through the press, things are going to be a little bit off.

Every once in a while I get, you know, I will say lucky or the 15 years I've spent printing just kind of pay off and things line up beautifully, but more often than not, we have to adjust back and forth, or adjust for the kind of letter spacing, the tracking and the kerning of the letters by using small pieces of lead or wood to space out those letterforms.

So we'll get all that set in the press bed.

Each time we want to print a different color, we have to clean the press and put new ink on the press that's a different color.

Meaning, every single color you see in this print is a result of a different pass through the press or two colors overlapping to make a third color.

So we use a little bit of our basic color theory when we are teaching this stuff as well.

I think one thing that's, like, really important to acknowledge, related to letterpress printing is that although this isn't a giant industry anymore, it is a way in which people are still making their livings.

And I think that I would encourage anybody who is interested in this medium to go seek out those artists in their communities and those artists when they travel and to support them.

It's not just a piece of history and a great teaching tool.

It's actually still a way to have a viable and interesting and meaningful career as an artist.

♪ >> ASHLEY: Brandon, in elementary school, did you ever do, like, an at-home printing press or, like, in your art class a printing press like?

>> BRANDON: I mean with a potato, but I don't think that's exactly the same thing.

>> ASHLEY: Well, I mean, it is sort of the same thing.

And definitely a very cool process.

>> BRANDON: Yeah.

Want to learn more?

Head to the address on your screen.

>> ASHLEY: Up next, producer John Timm takes us to Hendricks County to get down and dirty at Oinking Acres Farm Rescue and Sanctuary.

[ Rooster crowing ] ♪ >> Come on.

Do you want to get up?

I know.

You would rather nap.

♪ Oinking Acres is a farm animal sanctuary and a safe haven for animals that find themselves in a place of need.

My name is Olivia Head.

I'm the founder and president of Oinking Acres Farm Rescue and Sanctuary located in Brownsburg, Indiana.

We take in lots of different types of animals.

Our primary focus is pot-bellied pigs, but we have a heart for all animals, and we have everything here at the sanctuary from cows to peacocks, goats, sheep, ducks, turkeys, cats.

So we have a little bit of everything here at the sanctuary.

I grew up on a farm with my family.

When I was little, I had lots of different pets.

I first got my start by adopting a pot-bellied pig from a rescue group called A Critter's Chance, who I still work with very closely.

[ Pig grunting ] Sometimes she gets nervous, like she thinks I'm gonna -- like, we're going to bother her.

Liv?

Okay.

Maybe.

Okay.

[ Pig grunting ] I'll just start from the beginning.

I adopted my first pot-bellied pig from a rescue group called A Critter's Chance, and I still work very closely with them.

I started volunteering with A Critter's Chance.

Then I actually started fostering pigs for them, and the first four pigs that I ever fostered, I ended up keeping.

So I wasn't too good at this whole foster mom thing.

By the time I was 16, the need was just too large, and fostering was not going to be enough.

So I filed for my own 501(c)(3), obtained my nonprofit status.

I resigned from the board at A Critter's Chance and opened up Oinking Acres as an official nonprofit in 2019.

♪ Come on in.

♪ Here comes Monkey, Nelly, Frog, Minka, Sven.

A day in the life of a pig here at Oinking Acres, breakfast is served at 8:30 a.m. sharp.

No soon, no later, and if you are late, they will let you know.

[ Pig squealing ] After that, we move right into cleanup.

We change everybody's water.

In the summertime, we have baby pools that we fill up for them.

So if they get hot, they can go for a swim and cool off.

If any of the pigs have mud wallows, those get filled.

On an average day, it probably takes a total of three hours to care for them for one morning shift, and then another three hours in the evening too.

[ Pig grunting ] >> The majority of the animals that come to us have come from animal control.

They have been confiscated from their previous owners due to issues of neglect or abandonment, but we also work a lot of cruelty cases, a lot of hoarding cases.

We work a lot with counties that might not have an animal control.

So they call us frequently for any type of pig or farm animal that comes in.

[ Pig grunting ] Our adoption process is very thorough.

We take in so many animals from such poor situations, and the last thing we want to do is put them back into another poor situation.

So we have a very lengthy adoption process.

We have an application.

The first thing we do, if you apply to adopt a pig, is we check zoning.

If you live in a neighborhood, an apartment, anywhere where there is an HOA or city ordinances, nine times out of ten, you are not going to be allowed to have a pot-bellied pig.

I would say, we deny probably seven out of ten applications just due to zoning alone.

We check vet references.

We make sure all of the animals in the applicant's care are up to date on vaccines.

We do personal references.

I would say since 2017, we've probably saved well over 500 pigs, if not more.

>> It's incredible how many animals that we've been able to save.

Since Olivia started at 14, we've literally saved hundreds of animals that nobody else was coming for.

>> We've done a lot in a short amount of time.

♪ In addition to rescuing animals here at the sanctuary, another aspect we really try and hit on is community education, local outreach.

We've opened up the farm for visitors to come out and visit the pigs and make a personal connection with them.

Starting in May, we will be open our regular visiting hours Saturdays and Sundays.

Our Fridays are designated for field trips.

So I think every Friday until August, we're booked with field trips from clubs, schools, home school co-ops.

It's a great opportunity to bring younger kids out.

One thing we really try and stress to our younger visitors is with a kind heart and a good work ethic, you will get far in life.

Oh, he's a big baby.

When people come and visit at the sanctuary, I want them to leave with a newfound appreciation and understanding for the pigs.

They are extremely intelligent.

They are the third smartest animal in the animal kingdom, following dolphins.

If people can leave here with a new perception of pigs, and hopefully that will encourage them to make kinder choices.

>> It's a beautiful place, and the animals give you way more than they ever take.

♪ >> BRANDON: Now, I have some experience with a rehabbed sheep, but not pigs.

Have you ever done anything like that?

>> ASHLEY: I do have experience with a rehabbed pig because the first house that I owned in Bloomington, right around the corner was a pig that somebody took in that had been -- I don't know, attacked or left out and -- and it lived in the backyard, and we often would go over and feed it, um, carrots, and we loved this pig.

So, yes, I am in full support of people rehabbing pigs.

Want to learn more?

Head to the address on your screen.

>> BRANDON: And as always, we'd like to encourage you to stay connected with us.

>> ASHLEY: Just head over to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, and suggest stories for your neck of the woods.

>> BRANDON: We also have a map feature that allows you to see where we've been and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

>> ASHLEY: Well, I think we should enjoy more of this beautiful river.

We'll see you next time on -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!