In an apartment off Nashville Road, three Saudi Arabian students passed the red hose of an ornate silver hookah. They reminisced about their first days in America and joked about gifts of spices and socks their mothers hid in their luggage.

Martha “Momfeather” Erickson shed her red-and-gray beaded shawl as she stood in front of the circle. “How many of you believe in dragons?” she asked. The glint in her eyes mirrored the firelight she remembers seeing in her grandfather’s as he told the same story when she was young.

Framed photographs and certificates tile the wall behind Alvaton senior Richard Burnette’s desk. His honorable discharge from the Army shares the wall with his wedding certificate. His diploma from John Marshall High School hangs with his daughter’s from the State University of New York, Purchase, and his son’s from Penn State.

The hammering of shoe soles in a clear rhythm reverberated through the floorboards from two rooms in the Dance Arts of Bowling Green studio Monday. Sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha and fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, both from the National Pan-Hellenic Council, were practicing routines for the council’s upcoming step show, “Rock the Stage.”

Bright blue, deep brown and pale purple yarns string from half-finished scarves and afghan blankets to the busy fingers and needles of four women in a small room under the main stairs in Mass Media and Technology Hall. It’s 9 a.m., and building service attendants Terri Jaworski, Brenda Croslin, Sheila Barlow and Tawanna Key are taking their lunch break.

Local musician Jordan Pendley wanted to put together a show to benefit Kaleidoscope, a youth arts program that recently lost its state funding. He also wanted a show that would serve as a mixing ground for the eclectic artists in Bowling Green to interact and to play together to one crowd.

Louisville junior Erica Dumeyer keeps her national and world championship trophies on her dresser to remind her to work and train hard. “I keep looking at them and I keep thinking ‘next year – I’ve got to get that next year,’” she said. This summer, Dumeyer won both World Wakeboarding Association National and World Championships within a month of each other.

The aromas of spicy meats and sweet, doughy funnel cakes and the overlapping sounds of thudding drums and metal gongs filled the air in Circus Square Park Saturday. Bowling Green’s 19th annual International Festival drew thousands of people outside on the sunny September day.

In the primitive village of Mano, secluded by miles of the Gola Forest and dotted with grass-roofed mud huts, Cornell Menking, a 24-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, lives among the Kissi, a peaceful tribe of farmers. The village sits in the northeast corner of the Kailahun District in Sierra Leone.

Bullitt County freshman Steven McCain stopped on his way into the Downing University Center Wednesday morning when he saw John Alexander holding a “Free Hugs” sign in the middle of the sidewalk. “Get one from the big guy,” McCain joked as he threw his arms around Alexander and patted him on the back.