The official Average Daily Membership, or ADM, count at the Knox Community School Corporation showed a drop in enrollment. Superintendent A.J. Gappa explained the statistics to the school board Monday night.
“We dropped from 1924 to 1882.5, which is a drop of 41.5 students,” explained Gappa. “The reason for the half-student is because Kindergarteners are still considered only a half-student.”
Applications for the Starke County Community Foundation Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship
are now available in local high school guidance offices. This scholarship is for Starke County Seniors who will be graduating by the end of June 2013.
The scholarship offers a four-year full-ride tuition to any Indiana college. The recipient must be beginning college in the fall of 2013 as a full time student. The scholarship committee will select the nominee and alternates for the scholarship, then they will send the nominations to Independent Colleges of Indiana before a completely separate panel will make the final decision on the 2013 Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship recipient.
The decision is based on academic performance, community service, service at work and school, application essays, and a personal interview. The deadline for the application is Jan. 25.
Kersting’s Cycle Center will be celebrating its 50th anniversary on Saturday, Oct. 20 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
As part of the festivities at the business located four miles south of North Judson on Highway 39, there will be free refreshments, hourly door prizes, and music form accordionist Tom Royce and the “Monday Night Pickers” featuring owner and founder Jim Kersting.
Three people were arrested late Tuesday night after a search warrant was conducted at a home in Knox.
Officers from the Knox City Police Department, Hamlet Police Department and the Starke County Sheriff’s Department conducted a search warrant at 403 S. Shield Street in Knox where an active methamphetamine lab was found. Two children were in the home at the time of the incident and Indiana Department of Child Services was called to the scene to get them into a safer environment.
A LaPorte man was killed after being hit by a vehicle on the Toll Road.
The Toll Road dispatch center received a call about an erratic driver and shortly after that call was made, another came in about the same vehicle that just hit the back of a maintenance pick-up truck.
A worker for LaPorte District Maintenance Area 2, 52-year-old Daniel J. Miller of LaPorte, just exited the pick-up to retrieve trimming equipment from the back of the vehicle when a passenger car driven by 78-year-old Paul A. Kimbrugh of Coldwater, Michigan slammed into Miller and back of the maintenance truck. Continue reading
A North Judson man was arrested Friday after a battery incident.
Cody Barnett’s mother told a Starke County Sheriff’s deputy and a state trooper that Barnett was intoxicated and battered her. He also reportedly destroyed items in the house and pinned her down on a bed before locking her in the house.
Economy Auto Sales of Knox received the prestigious Joe Krier Quality Dealer of the Year award for 2012 from the Indiana Independent Automobile Dealers Association, and owner George Mammarella said he was proud to receive it. The award was presented to Mammarella in September at Ironwood Golf Club in Fishers at the association’s 25th Anniversary Golf Tournament and Awards Day.
The Quality Dealer of the Year is chosen based on several attributes: the dealership must not only be consumer-oriented, but also have a record of good business decisions based on honesty and integrity. On top of that, the dealership must represent themselves as a civic leader within the community, and Economy Auto Sales not only meets those requirements, but embodies them.
Mammarella said he truly believes in helping the community, because without the community’s support, he would not be where he is today.
The town of North Judson’s golf cart ordinance is nearly solidified after the town council this week approved its first and second readings. Clerk-Treasurer Donna Henry said two people in the audience expressed their objections to a part of the ordinance requiring child restraints.
Henry said the ordinance will require a safety restraint be used by any golf cart passengers that weigh less than 48 pounds, and two people objected to that requirement. The council noted their objections but proceeded to approve the first of two readings of the ordinance.
Starke County Highway Superintendent Steve Siddall gave the county commissioners an update this week on their efforts to lay new asphalt on County Road 700 East. Siddall told the commissioners that he had sent a sample of their asphalt to the state laboratory in Indianapolis, and the results came back good. The state indicated that the typical pug asphalt mix is typically anywhere between 3.8 percent and 4.5 percent for asphalt content, and their mix results were ideal.
Siddall told the commissioners that the asphalt generally takes about a month to harden up after being mixed, so they typically mix the asphalt in the spring and lay it in late summer, allowing the material to flow in the summer heat.
The Pulaski County Assessor’s office may soon undergo some modifications as Assessor Holly VanDerAa told the commissioners this week that Maintenance Director Morry DeMarco has offered to make adjustments to the boiler room, enlarging it, to allow her office to expand into that room. DeMarco explained he would have to enlarge a doorway, removing a section of wall, but the commissioners were uncomfortable with allowing that to happen without first having an engineer check the integrity of the building.
DeMarco explained that this would be the most cost-effective plan because the assessor would not have to move her office, but would rather enlarge it. Fire safety exits and other safety requirements will be unaffected, and he estimated that the overall cost would be less than $1000.
The Starke County Health Department will hold a flu shot clinic today from 1:30–3:30 p.m. The clinic will be conducted in the health department office on the first floor of the courthouse.
Starke County Health Nurse Frank Lynch said flu vaccinations for adults and children will be administered at a cost of $20. Children who are covered under Medicaid, have no insurance or insurance that doesn’t cover vaccines, can be vaccinated at the Health Department. If a flu shot is covered under insurance, that child will need to go to his/her physician’s office to get a flu shot.
If you have questions, call the Health Department at (574) 772-9137.
Two tax sales are scheduled in the area this month.
SRI Incorporated will conduct the Pulaski County tax sale on Thursday, Oct. 11 and the Marshall County tax sale on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 10 a.m. ET.
Come show your support for the volunteers that will be helping 15 local seniors move into their new homes on Saturday. IU Health will be partnering with Northwest Indiana Community Action Corporation and Community Services of Starke County for the Safe at Home project.
This project is designed to help seniors with low income own their own home and provide them with the basic necessities and safe surroundings that they need.
The event will be held on Saturday at IU Health’s billing center located at 11 S. Main St. in Knox. The event will begin at 8 a.m. CT.
A death investigation is being conducted by the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department.
On Saturday evening, Pulaski County EMS and deputies were called to 518 W. Montgomery St. in Francesville for a man who was not breathing. Nineteen-year-old Devin Holbrook and 32-year-old Anthony Gentry were working on landscaping at the house and Holbrook reportedly made the comment that he wasn’t feeling well. The pair went into the house to watch television and Holbrook fell asleep in the chair. When Gentry went to wake up Holbrook, he found that Holbrook wasn’t breathing and his lips were blue. Gentry began CPR and told his mother to call 9-1-1.
The Starke County Jail Committee is currently searching for property for a new jail.
Starke County Commissioner Kathy Norem told the committee that the sooner that they find property for the new jail, the better. The city of Knox will not allow the installation of a new radio tower for the jail over 100 feet, so the sooner they find property, the sooner a radio tower that fits the county at the best suitable height can be built.
The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a brutal battery incident that occurred Saturday night.
Officers and the Pulaski County EMS were called to a residence on State Road 14 in Winamac after a woman had called requesting medical attention. She said her ex-boyfriend, James Penicaro, held her against her will for two hours. When emergency personnel arrived on scene, they found the woman severely beaten with injuries to her face and head and other minor injuries to the rest of her body.
The Starke County Commissioners yesterday morning made a couple changes to the voting system, including a pay raise for poll workers. Clerk Evelyn Skronski approached the commissioners with a few requests, including a request to combine a number of precincts and raise the per-day pay rate for inspectors, judges, sheriffs, and other workers at the polls.
Skronski told the commissioners that she wanted to combine precincts Washington 1 and 2 together, and Wayne 1 and 2. Commissioner Kathy Norem said that Skronski needed the approval of the commissioners to do so, and she was “vehemently against” the idea of combining precincts. Commissioner Dan Bridegroom agreed, saying it would cause a number of problems with people trying to vote, because the increased number of voters at the same location would increase wait times, which could cause some people to turn away from the polls.
The Pulaski County Commissioners last night approved a bid to perform an electrical upgrade to the courthouse. According to Maintenance Director Morry DeMarco, one contractor backed out of the bidding process because the scope of work was too extensive for their company.
Complete Electric presented a bid of $74,910 for the upgrade, and Rogers Electric came in at $49,750. A third bidder, Kennedy Electric, quoted $18,870 for the work.
The Indiana Department of Transportation has allocated a $2.1 million federal grant to build a portion of U.S. 31 in Marshall County near Plymouth to make sure the state doesn’t lose the money.
The Obama administration announced in August that states had until yesterday to specify how to spend $473 million in federal dollars that had been earmarked for highway projects between 2003 and 2006.
INDOT spokesman Matt Deitchley said that the state had always intended to use that money to rebuild a portion of U.S. 31 between South Bend and Plymouth, but not a specific part. He says the state will hear bids from contractors to begin construction on that stretch of the road next year.
Knox Clerk-Treasurer Jeff Houston told the city council last week that the city’s audit has been completed by the state, pending official approval by the state supervisor. Houston explained that the audit, overall, went well; though he was unsure as to how city court fared with the audit. He said the only exception that the state took was that the deposits were not corresponding with what the books indicated was being deposited.
Houston explained that this was because some deposits were not listed as to whether they were cash or checks, so they could not be checked back on in the records. So, Houston said he has implemented a new form in his office that will be used to reconcile all cash and checks collected with the amounts deposited.
