Town Conventions will be held in Winamac, Francesville and Medaryville.
A Town Convention will be held in Winamac on Thursday, August 18th at 7:00 p.m. ET at the Winamac High School Auditorium. A vote there will determine a single Republican candidate for the position of Town Clerk-Treasurer. Republicans Christina L. (Shorter) Hoffa and Melanie A. (Parish) Berger have filed and one them will go onto the General Election to face Democrat David Weber.
The Knox Community School Board dissected the Corporation’s ISTEP results at their meeting Monday night.
Students in the Elementary School showed gains in the 3rd grade Math and English/Language Arts while the 4th graders were down a little in English/Language Arts and unchanged in Math. The 5th grade students had a five point gain in Math.
Lt. Governor Becky Skillman and Indiana Agriculture Director, Joe Kelsay, will present 72 families with the Hoosier Homestead Award on Wednesday, August 10th at 10:30 a.m. ET. The ceremony will take place in the Indiana Farm Bureau Building Auditorium at the Indiana State Fair.
SCILL Center Director Jerry Gurrado announced this week that there are still a few slots left for Junior or Senior area High School students or home schoolers who would be interested in taking the auto mechanics course. You will receive full accreditation in the highly competitive field of automobile mechanics while attending high school and receiving college credits.
Many people call it the greatest outdoor game that can be played by two people or two teams of two people. It’s horseshoe pitching and there is a new horseshoe pit at Sandy Acres Park.
George Byer and Clarence Marshall were completing the placement of the stakes for yet another addition at the Park on the south edge of Knox.
The Knox City Police Department had 483 calls in the month of July, responded to six accidents and officers completed 31 incident reports.
There were 4 Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated arrests, 3 Public Intoxication arrests, 3 Battery arrests, 2 warrant arrests, 16 people arrested on 18 traffic charges, 25 people arrested on 36 criminal charges and 2 juveniles arrested on 2 charges. Continue reading
The remains of Chief Warrant officer, Andy Howes, now move on to a final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery after Memorial Services were held in Knox yesterday. Those services will be Friday, August 5th.
The family had brought him back to Knox hoping the ceremonies would bring closure to the community that nurtured him in his formative years.
Town Conventions will be held in Hamlet and North Judson as several contested races have surfaced for town offices.
In Hamlet, Republicans Debra Goble and Jill Hovarter have filed for the Clerk-Treasurer’s office. A Town Convention will be held to determine the lone Republican candidate who will face Democrat candidate is Kristina Pitts on the November ballot. Brian Jeffrey Earnest, a Democrat, is the only candidate who filed for the Ward 1 seat on the Hamlet Town Council. Democrats Kerry Stone and Dean Hoy Goble have filed for the Ward 2 seat along with Republicans Dave Kesvormas, Sr. and Todd Leinbach. Democrats Frank Lonigro, Jr. and Leo Robert “Bob” Yung are on the Ward 3 seat.
The Starke County Commissioners toured the LaGrange County Jail last week. Commissioner Kathy Norem, who is the contact official for the jail, said the LaGrange facility was older than the other three they have visited. Earlier they went to the Marshall, Jasper, and Fulton County jails.
One of the advances the LaGrange County Jail did not have was video conferencing.
The Oregon-Davis School Board had a special celebration this week to honor just retired school Treasurer, Susan Rowles.
“We had a reception prior to our meeting where many former School Board members and Superintendents come back as well as Susan’s family and staff,” said Superintendent, Dr. Steve Disney. “It was a terrific tribute to Mrs. Rowles. Following the reception, we had a special board meeting in which we publicly and officially honored her years of service by dedicating and naming our Board room and Administration room the Mrs. Susan G. Rowles Board Meeting Room.”
Starke County Surveyor, Dennis Estok, appeared before the Knox City Council last week to ask for permission to burn off brush collected from the John Street storm system maintenance project. The County has jurisdiction over about 1,000 feet that drains into the Cavanaugh ditch. Excavating crews are coming in soon to channel that portion to give it a uniform slope to the outlet into the ditch.
Estok said there is brush and debris in the system as well as sediment.
The Council gave its permission to burn the brush. Estok estimated it would be only two small piles.
NASCAR driver, Tony Stewart, was in Lakeville yesterday to speak to fans and sign autographs at the Newton Center. The event was sponsored by Hoosier Racing Tire and Stewart appreciates that the Newton family has always stood by him throughout his career. Tony talked about what it’s like to be both an owner and a driver:
“It’s just a lot of time, I mean it’s a ton of time, a ton of pressure, especially trying to do both roles as a driver and an owner,” said Stewart. “It makes you appreciate guys like Jack Rausch, Rick Hendrick, Joe Gibbs, Richard Childress, and Michael Waltrip and all these guys who have multi-car teams. It’s definitely not an easy business by any means.”
The Pulaski County Health Department will be offering a walk-in clinic on Monday, August 15th from 3:00-7:00 p.m. ET for children that still need their immunizations for school.
Children in grades Kindergarten through 12th grade can receive immunizations for $8.00 per shot and if you are on Medicaid, you will need to bring a Medicaid card with you and Medicaid will be billed directly. Parents should take the child’s immunization card with you at the time of the visit.
Chief Warrant Officer, Andy Howes, returned to Starke County yesterday 41 years after he left for the war in Vietnam.
Howes left Hawaii yesterday morning in a trip that ended in Knox at 8:10 p.m. last night. Hundreds of people turned out along the way home, especially in Knox.
Starke County Prosecutor, Nicholas Bourff said that he and Deputy Prosecutor Mary Ryan and two detectives will be headed to South Bend to gain information into the death of a Knox toddler that happened June 19th
“We’re meeting with the pathologist who did the forensic autopsy,” said Bourff. “It has taken him longer to do the autopsy than we originally anticipated because he’s done more work than we originally knew he would be doing.”
EMS Director Paul Mathewson approached the Starke County Commissioners Monday and requested the purchase of a vehicle for EMS use, as per their original agreement when he was hired. Mathewson says that the car would be used to come to work, go home, respond to calls, visit hospitals and other business use, and could also be used as a chase vehicle.
The Pulaski County website was recently hacked, and Nathan Origer from the CDC approached the Commissioners with an idea to prevent it from happening again.
Origer recently requested a quote from Golden Technologies in Valparaiso for security upgrades to address some obvious security issues on the website. Golden Technologies handled most of the work of building the website originally, and they also host and maintain the website for the county.
Starke County Commissioner Kathy Norem will lead a delegation from the County to the National Institute of Corrections Conference in Colorado. The conference, transportation, and lodging is paid by the Institute.
Joining Norem on the trip will be Starke County Councilman David Pearman, Sheriff Oscar Cowen, Jail Commander Greg Hewitt, and Chief Deputy Bill Dulin.
The members of the Knox Board of Works opened bids this week for the million dollar Storm Water Project. The bid for the work will be “let” in about a week after being reviewed by the City attorney and Territorial Engineers.
Starke County Highway Superintendent, Steve Siddall told WKVI News that Bridge #156 over the Robbins Ditch at Range Road and 400 North is scheduled to go into the construction phase soon. Bids will be opened for construction work on August 4th.
Some immediacy was put on this bridge after it was closed because it is so heavily used by farmers. The fall season is a critical time for moving grain. The County Commissioners put a priority tag on #156 for this reason.
Engineering for the project is being done by Butler-Fairmont and Seufert, with Ken Minot, the representative.
Once construction begins, the bidder has 80 days to complete the work on the bridge.
