The Ohio River Bear Co. in Middleport (Meigs County) handcrafts collectible teddy bears. Susan Baker began the business 10 years ago at her dining room table, making the bears for family and friends. The creatures proved so popular she began offering them at craft shows and leaving them in consignment shops. It wasn't long before the bears caught the attention of wholesalers, and now you may even see them on QVC. Today, the Middleport retail shop draws collectors from around the region, and the bears are sold in 49 states and in Japan, Hong Kong and England. Growth in foreign sales, aided by trade development specialists in the Ohio Dept. of Development, earned the company the Governor's E award for excellence in exports in 1996. "Now is a big time for bears -- everybody likes them," says Baker. "Collectors say that dolls, including bears, are second in popularity only to stamp collecting in the U.S." Baker says the teddy, named after President Teddy Roosevelt, can be extremely valuable. For example, a 1908 bear was auctioned for $40,000.

Appalachian art: The mural adorning the Rocky Shoes and Boots factory in Nelsonville (Athens County) celebrates the shoe. In an industry dominated by imports, the family-owned company has grown into a 1,000-employee, NASDAQ-traded success story commanding a solid niche in the specialty shoe and boot market. With advice from Ohio University consultants, the company shifted from the old piece-work concept to team production.

New Uses for an Old - A - Plant

If Southern Ohio is bucolic and perhaps a little sleepy in some spots, consider this: at one time, it was named the "nation's next boom area."

In 1952, during the Cold War years, the federal government announced it would put the world's largest atomic energy plant in Pike County.

It took a cast of thousands to build the facility. Pike County was called "the growingest area in America." Bulldozers were as common as autos, hard hats were standard apparel, school teachers worked first or second shift and basement rooms rented out to the influx of workers were considered choice living quarters.

The site was chosen because it wasn't subject to earthquakes, because of its abundant water and because of its rural character. Initially, it was operated by Goodyear Atomic Corp.

Currently, the U.S. Enrichment Corp. produces enriched uranium, feeding the 21 percent of power in the U.S. generated by nuclear energy. It also accepts reprocessed uranium from Russia and blends it into a usable fuel.

Today, the plant's operations contractor, Lockheed-Martin, draws its workers from Pike, Scioto and surrounding counties. These are well-paying jobs that cast an aura of high-tech on Southern Ohio.

But with the easing of Cold War conflicts, rumors have floated for years that the plant might be decommissioned. That is not likely to happen, although some of the buildings have been released. The work force has stabilized at about 2,500.

Thus, it is possible that a project promoting Southern Ohio as a center of optics and laser technology might be launched. The technology in back of the "Laser Valley" project is known as Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS). The project would make use of the area's 40+ years of experience working with enriched uranium products. Ohio has the technical and education resources necessary to support such a project, and the site has the infrastructure and available buildings, including rail service and abundant power. The current A-plant is the largest user of electricity in the country -- consuming enough to power the metropolitan area of Cleveland or the city of Los Angeles. The advantage of the new technology is that it uses about 1/20 of the energy, thus reducing the cost of production. The plant would be operated by the U.S. Enrichment Corp., a quasi-government agency created by the U.S. Dept. of Energy.