A longtime supporter of Ancilla College will continue to offer posthumous support to the two-year private school. Starke County Philanthropist Jim Hardesty was an Ancilla College trustee and also founded the Starke County Community Foundation. Continue reading
Ancilla College is getting a boost with its efforts to provide on-campus student housing. The Starke County Community Foundation has announced plans to provide a total of $105,000 in grant funding from its Hardesty Memorial Endowment Fund over the next five years. That includes an initial grant of $25,000 for the college’s new dorm building. Continue reading
Eleven months after dedicating its first residence hall, Ancilla College officials gathered once again Monday for the blessing of its second student housing facility. Continue reading
The Starke County Community Foundation has reached a major fund-raising goal. To take full advantage of the Lilly Endowment’s GIFT program, the foundation raised $750,000 in donations. Continue reading
The Starke County Community Foundation has announced that nearly a quarter-million dollars ($247,630.00) was awarded in 2014 grants and scholarships. The total was revealed at last night’s “Impact Celebration” at the Nancy J. Dembowski Community Center.
This week we have followed Jim Hardesty of Hamlet from his time at Purdue University to the invasion of Germany during World War II. It is part of a story written for “Generations the Magazine,” a publication dedicated to telling the stories of those people who shaped our nation one generation at a time.
This final episode features Hardesty’s experience with the allied army as it fought the Germans in the Hurtgen Forest along the German-Belgian border.
We have been following the military career of Jim Hardesty of Hamlet this week after he was featured in the latest issue of Generations the Magazine, recounting his military experience in World War II. D-Day was June 6, and every day after that had a number attached. Hardesty landed with the 172nd Field Artillery Battalion on D-8 – June 14.
Today, however, the story focuses on the battles fought in hedgerow country.
Hedgerows were mounds of dirt covered with trees or bushes that were so thick that a tank couldn’t get through them. As the American forces worked their way through this terrain they were forced to endure a considerable cost in lives. The Germans took full advantage of these barricades. Initial attempts at fighting through these barriers consisted of American tanks charging the hedgerows. When it reached the mound it would lift up, exposing the unprotected underbelly. This unarmored part of the tank was vulnerable and, Continue reading
With the permission of “Generations the Magazine,” we are this week presenting a portion of an April – May story about Jim Hardesty of Hamlet. It’s entitled “The Fire Mission Controller,” and chronicles Hardesty’s WWII military career.
Raymond and Anna Hardesty were hard working Indiana farmers who tilled the soil on their land outside the village of Hamlet. On January 29,1922, the young couple had their first child, a son they named James. Growing up on an Indiana farm at that time was an ideal existence.
While growing up, young James was responsible for feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, and cleaning the barn.
