The week's good news: Nov. 17, 2022

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1. Baker turns great-great-great grandmother's pie recipe into a business venture
2. Minnesota fitness instructor inspires older students to 'go, go, go'
3. Designer makes one-of-a-kind wigs for girls with hair loss conditions
4. 4th grader uses Heimlich maneuver to save choking classmate
5. Researcher finds that dung beetles protect offspring amid temperature changes

published 17 November 2022

1. Baker turns great-great-great grandmother's pie recipe into a business venture

Joye B. Moore's family recipe for sweet potato pie has been delighting friends, relatives, and anyone else lucky enough to try it for decades. "It tastes like home and it evokes memories of home," Moore told The Week. The recipe was created by her great-great-great grandmother, but was never written down — the ingredients, measurements, and instructions were repeated orally and memorized in the kitchen. Friends had been telling Moore for years she should start selling her pies, and after she lost her job in 2019, that's exactly what she decided to do. Moore launched JOYEBELLS Sweet Potato Pies in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia. During the pandemic, JOYEBELLS partnered with the grocery store chain Food Lion through its Supplier Diversity initiative. Today, her pies can be found on the shelves of Food Lion's 1,100 stores, as well as at Sam's Club and QVC.

Anne Tudor is motivating older adults to "move and groove" through her ForeverWell fitness class. Tudor, 75, is an instructor at the Ridgedale YMCA in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Her class is specifically designed for older adults, and her students range in age from late 60s to mid-80s. They say Tudor has helped them improve their balance, avoid knee surgery, and strengthen their backs. "People are getting stronger, people are getting better posture," Tudor told the Star Tribune. Her devotees say Tudor's sense of humor and positive attitude are why they show up to class. "Anne is my inspiration — you want to go, go, go when she's doing it," student Don Benson said. "If I hadn't been doing this class, I wouldn't be able to do half of what I do at 80."

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Every wig that Briana Davison makes is not only stylish, but also delivers an extra boost of confidence. The Memphis, Tennessee, designer is the founder of Kids Wigs and Kid's Explosion Tour, which gives custom wigs to girls across the United States who have hair loss conditions. In 2018, Davison created a wig for a girl with alopecia, and told Good Morning America this made her "fall in love with hair all over again." Davison recently made a wig for Bailey Strange, who shared with GMA that she felt "insecure" being the only person at her school with alopecia. When she was surprised with one of Davison's braided wigs, "I just felt so amazing," she said. Davison, she added, "provides more than a wig. She provides a friend, she provides a safe haven. It just felt so right sitting in that chair talking to her when she was doing my wig."

Essie Collier's quick thinking likely saved her classmate's life. On Nov. 8, the fourth-grader from Racine, Wisconsin, noticed during lunch that her classmate appeared to be choking. "I just saw that she was holding her neck, and I rushed up there as fast as I can," Collier told The Associated Press. She started performing the Heimlich maneuver, which she learned two years ago from a YouTube video. Collier's teacher, Samantha Bradshaw, said within just a few seconds, the classmate's airway was cleared and she was once again breathing normally. "I have never seen a student react in that way before," Bradshaw told AP. For her heroism, the Racine Unified School District Board of Education plans to honor Collier during its meeting in late November.

Researcher Kimberly S. Sheldon made a promising discovery about dung beetles and how they are adapting to changing temperatures. Dung beetles are "among the insect world's most important recyclers," Sheldon, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, writes in The Conversation. "They eat and bury manure from many other species, recycling nutrients and improving soil as they go." They also lessen greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming and are secondary seed dispersers. Sheldon wanted to know how they are responding to temperature changes, and found that adult dung beetles are burying their brood balls deeper to protect their developing offspring from changing temperatures. "My colleagues and I are encouraged to find that these industrious beetles can alter their behaviors in ways that may help them survive in a changing world," Sheldon writes.

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.