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HIPSTER HOBBIESTiffani Walton, Lauren Boone and Chelsea McCarty relax outside Minton Hall on Western Kentucky University in their Hipster Hammock. All three girls are freshmen at WKU who live in Minton Residence Hall.

Including unicycling, photography, thrifting and beekeepingToday’s hipster’s have many

odd, unique and interesting hob-bies. The hobbies include, but are not limited to unicycling, photography, thrifting and bee-keeping.

This E-paper will review the previously mentioned four hob-bies in-depth in hopes that the reader may learn a little more about hipster’s and their unique and varied hobbies.

Photos and text by Mary-Kate Smith

Evan Mac, president of the WKU Unicycle Club and member of the ultimate frisbee team,

passes to a nearby friend.

(Left) Bees build honey comb on their hive at the WKU University Farm on April 29, 2013.

(Above) Tim Broekema teaches JOUR 131 stu-dents about depth of field outside of the WKU Mass Media and Tech-nologies Building.

(Left) Main trin-kets and furniture pieces are sold at Clothes Lion in Bowling Green, Ky. such as this table.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

THRIFT SHOPS On rainy days, Danielle Labold moves

things around. “I’m so sorry. I just started pulling

everything out right as you walked in,” Labold said as she riffled through a box of stuffed animals in her consignment shop on the square.

Labold, a 2000 WKU graduate and mother of two, founded Labold and Sons Salvage two years ago. The store is one of several thrift and consignment stores in Bowling Green, Ky., frequented by local hipsters.

The store is full of, well, everything. Furniture covered with trinkets, tools and textiles fill the building. Music plays from a record player behind the counter. There are hundred of odd bits and trinkets for hipsters to purchase.

“Once they come in, I call them my repeat offenders for life,” Labold said as she continued to rearrange her store.

Mikey Richardson, a WKU sophomore from Louisville, Ky., is a hipster continu-ing to practice the art of film photography.

“I like the idea of capturing a moment or memory on film,” Richardson said.

Richardson, a French and film double major, shots with an antique camera and develops his film with chemicals in his dorm bathroom. The images he produces are in black and white.

“It looks better,” Richardson said. “You get a lot of detail out of it. Theoretically, you can get more detail out of film than digital images.”

Richardson wants to help keep the dying art of film alive.

“There is an aspect of precision to it,” Richardson said. “There is some kind of gratification you get from developing it yourself that you don’t get from sending it into Walgreens and stuff.”

Tim Broekema, a WKU instructor, photographs a plant while teaching students during an introduction to photojournalism class.

Junkyard Gypsies is a home consignment store in Bowling Green, Ky., that sell funky, retro and vintage items to many local hipsters.

(Left) A WKU JOUR 131 student prac-tices photography on during a Thursday class.(Right) Tanner Cole, 19, looks through merchandise at Clothes Lion on April 29, 2013. Cole, a WKU freshman, is a frequnet thrifter.

UNICYCLING hipster hobbies

3The art of cycling on a single wheelEvan Mac, a WKU sophomore from

Louisville, Ky., learned how to ride a uni-cycle during October of 2012.

“My friend learned how to ride,” Mac said. “It looked like it would be a lot of fun, so I started learning.”

After learning, Mac worked to start an official unicycle club for his hipster hobby at WKU. Mac, 19, is a know the president of the official unicycle club.

The club does many fun things together.“We’ll cruise around downtown and

practice tricks,” Mac said.Mac said he loves unicycling because

it is so social. He enjoys the company of both his fellow unicyclers and the standing student spectators.

“You can meet a lot of people that way because a lot of people will stop you and ask you questions.”

(Above) A member of the WKU unicycle club rests before rid-ing and throwing the frisby with friends.

(Left) Evan Mac reaches for a frisbee from his unicycle. Ac-cording to Mac, one of the hardest things about learning to ride a unicycle is getting over the constant fear of falling forward. “Even if it you don’t realize the fear is there, subconciously it is,” Mac said.

(Above) To begin riding a cycler gets on the seat, grabs something for support, places their left foot on the ped-dal and pops the bike underneath themselves.(Left) Evan Mac practices for club ultimate frisby on the unicycle.

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BEEKEEPING

natural synergies that exist be-tween agriculture and beekeep-ing,” Butterfield said.

Big Red Beekeepers Vice President Holly Young encour-aged students to join the club.

“Not only are they learning something new, but it is a way to see how our environment is being constantly impacted by the acts of humans,” Young said.

During 2012 and 2013, mem-bers learned how to start hives and take care of bees. They also learned how to harvest, filter and bottle honey. The then get to sell their honey. Which can sell for up to $10 a pound.

Though many people may find the idea of caring for thousands of sting insects scary, hipsters with this hobby find it interest-ing, rewarding, fun, educational and economically profitable.

Students, faculty and staff founded the Big Red Beekeep-ers in the fall of 2012, as WKU’s own beekeeping organization. This hobby, beekeeping can definitely be defined as a hipster hobby because it is both unique and environmentally friendly.

Professor Jeff Butterfield of the computer and information systems department explained the club’s purpose was to spread information about bees.

“The assumption is you can be a member of the club and have never touched a bee in your life, so the monthly meetings are always instructional,” Butterfield said. “Then in the fall and spring of the academic year when the bees are still flying we will peri-odically go down and work the hives.”

The club’s hives are kept on the University farm. Addition-ally, some club members have their own personal hives.

“The department of agricul-ture here at Western has been very supportive because of the

(Above) Ryan Dickman, a member of the Big Red Beekeepers, checks his hives with friend Tanner Cole on April 29, 2013. Dickman’s hive is one of nearly a dozen housed at the University Farm.

(Left) Tanner Cole, a WKU fresh-man from Gallitan, Tenn., holds up and examines a honey comb from a bee hive, on April 29, 2012.

Ryan Dickman, WKU freshman biology major, holds up a frame covered in hun-dreds of bees at the University Farm on April 29, 2013.