The busy festival weekend continues today.
Enjoy the town-wide yard sales at the Monterey Days Festival today, the MRZ Mobile Reptile Zoo from 9–10 a.m., Loehmer’s Hardware Pedal Tractor Pull and the Lion’s Club Ham and Beans at 11 a.m. followed by the Monterey Days Parade at 5:30 p.m.
The District 2 Task Force in Northern Indiana has not yet been deployed to help with emergency services in Louisiana due to Hurricane Isaac, but Starke County EMA Director Ted Bombagetti said all members are packed and ready to go if they are called to duty.
The District 2 Task Force has a swift water rescue and tactical rescue team within the unit and are ready to be mobile when called. Bombagetti commented that the teams can be on the road in a matter of hours. An exercise to prepare for events such as Hurricane Issac was recently held in Pulaski County.
The District 2 Task Force includes emergency personnel from Starke, Pulaski, Fulton, Marshall, and St. Joseph Counties.
A wrongful death suit is headed to a jury trial in Pulaski Circuit Court.
The family of a minor who died as a result of the ingestion of medication prescribed to Barbara J. Gilden of Medaryville and provided to the minor by her grandson is filing suit against Gilden. The family is claiming in a civil suit that Gilden was prescribed narcotics to treat a medical condition and that she knew narcotics were missing from her home and being provided to minors.
Formal charges have been filed against Paul A. Burke of Royal Center in Pulaski Circuit Court. Burke faces charges including Aggravated Battery as a Class B felony after he allegedly attempted to throw a hazardous liquid chemical on a police officer during a traffic stop.
A Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department officer conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle driven by Dana Candlish of Kokomo on June 22, but when the officer pulled the vehicle over, he noticed the passenger – later identified as Burke – open his door and set something outside of the vehicle. When the officer detained Burke and began examining the container, Burke reportedly grabbed the Styrofoam cup and threw it at the officer. Fortunately, he missed, and the chemical began to bubble and smoke on the pavement.
A Crawfordsville man was arrested in Pulaski County on Monday, August 20 after police found him picking marijuana near a cornfield.
The Pulaski County deputy was patrolling on State Road 39 near 600 North and found a man, later identified as Joshua Allen, reportedly picking marijuana from a plant in the field. After the officer detained Allen, Allen stated that he was working with a construction crew building a grain bin and was not feeling well. He left to go for a walk and saw a huge marijuana plant growing in the field. He stated that he knew the area was known for its marijuana plants.
The Eastern Pulaski School Corporation is now the owner of the abandoned state highway property that the corporation has been leasing from the Indiana Department of Transportation as a bus garage.
Superintendent Dr. Robert Klitzman made the announcement at the recent school board meeting.
“I’ve gone back to 1984 and found correspondence with INDOT stating that we could secure that property,” explained Dr. Klitzman.
The Pulaski County Jr. Historical Society Civil War Club made a trip to Springfield, Ill, on Aug. 4 to learn more about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.
The group of 16 youth and adults toured the Abraham Lincoln Museum, located next to the Lincoln Presidential Library in downtown Springfield, and viewed the life-sized replicas of the log cabin that Lincoln grew up in as a young boy.
Eastern Pulaski School Superintendent Dr. Robert Klitzman spent some time discussing the new teacher evaluation model with the school board this week.
“Education in Indiana has changed somewhat in that there is a prescribed procedure, methodology, timing and organization in how teachers are going to be evaluated,” said Klitzman. “At Eastern Pulaski, as many schools in the area and statewide, we’re going to start using the DOE prescribed evaluation instrument called RISE.”
The Eastern Pulaski School Corporation recently received two donations. Superintendent Dr. Robert Klitzman said the North-Central Co-op donated $840 to the elementary school, specifically for classroom supplies for the teachers.
“They just decided it was a project they wanted to do,” explained Klitzman. “Mrs. Collins [Principal of the Elementary School] did go down to their facility to accept the donation and asked them if they had children in our school corporation and no one did. They just wanted to do it to help us.”
In celebration of the return of the Winamac Kiwanis Club’s Farmers’ Market Festival, the club is inviting every member of the community to downtown Winamac on Saturday, Sept. 8. Glenn Wilson of the Kiwanis Club says this year’s festival will be packed with live entertainment, food vendors, craft booths, and of course, the popular pancake breakfast – on top of a couple new features.
“We’re adding a couple extra features to the festival this year that we’ve never had in the past. We’re going to have live entertainment as well as a 5K run, which we’re calling the Harvest Hustle, and a three-on-three tournament for middle school-age students – that’s sixth through eighth grade. Students from all area schools are welcome,” Wilson said.
Ralph Braun, CEO of the Braun Corporation and Braunability in Winamac, will appear on CNN this weekend in a piece called “The Human Factor” hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
Braun will discuss how he designed a four-wheeled and three-wheeled electric scooter to help in his mobility needs. He was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy when he was six and has been using a motorized scooter as a way to be mobile.
The Pulaski County Jr. Historical Society Civil War Club has announced they will be hosting an Historical Cemetery walking tour of the Winamac Cemetery on Sept. 8 during the farmer’s market. Featuring local veterans from the War of 1812, a local resident who served in the Revolutionary War, and many others who participated in historical battles, the tour will begin at 1 p.m. at the Winamac Cemetery west of town.
Parking is available in the northern section of the cemetery near the Memorial Gardens, and Linda Irving will lead the tour. Roughly 12 headstones will be featured on the tour and each will be viewed with a description of the person, their family history, and their historical significance to the county. A self-guided walking tour booklet along with a map of the cemetery will be presented with biographical information of each person and stone visited.
Pulaski County Community Development Commission Executive Director Nathan Origer told the commissioners this week that the county council has earmarked $15,000 in next year’s budget to go toward the creation of a county website. Origer says he would like to get county organizations together to come up with a website they can all use and agree with.
He also informed the commissioners that an organization is looking to connect Pulaski County to a nationwide bike trail, U.S. Bicycle Route 35. He says their plan is to come from Illinois, through Starke, Pulaski, and other counties, and ultimately link up to U.S. 35. The organization is asking for the commissioners’ approval.
Criminal charges have been filed against an 18-year-old male accused of stealing $60 from woman in Winamac.
According to the criminal information filed in the Pulaski Circuit Court, Mitchell A. Wolff had broken into the home of Jane Dilts in the 600 block of North Hathaway Street on July 16 with the intent to steal. He is charged with Burglary as a Class B Felony and Theft as a Class D felony.
A Winamac man was arrested after a late Friday night accident that injured two people.
A call had been placed into the Starke County Dispatch Center of a man speeding and driving off the side of the road. A short time later, Starke County emergency personnel were called to a two-vehicle accident at County Road 450 South and County Road 210 near Bass Lake. The driver of the vehicle that reportedly caused the accident, Gregory Moore, was extricated from his vehicle and taken to IU Health Starke Hospital. A blood draw was performed which showed that Moore was intoxicated at the time of the crash with a BAC of 0.25, which is more than three times the legal limit.
Pulaski County officers were called to a Medaryville residence Saturday night in reference to a fight.
Stacy Conley, 26, of Medaryville told police that she and her sister had gotten into an argument because she would not provide her sister with a clean urine sample for a drug test. Her sister, 25-year-old Kimberly Wireman of San Pierre, reportedly became upset and started screaming at her. Conley stated that her sister was going to borrow her car and when she went out to the vehicle, Wireman was already in the driver’s seat and Conley took the keys out of the ignition. Wireman then reportedly grabbed Conley’s hair and began to hit her while dragging her into the van. Police saw that Conley had been hit in the face. Conley stated that she probably struck Wireman in the face as she was being pulled into the van.
Two public hearings are scheduled for Monday, Aug. 27 to address an application for rezoning and zone map change and for a variance in Pulaski County.
At 6 p.m. ET, the Pulaski County Advisory Plan Commission will hear a rezoning and zone map change for the property at 4877 W. 200 S. in Winamac.
At 7 p.m. ET. the Board of Zoning Appeals will hold its first public hearing since its creation. The hearing will cover a proposed variance for a 40’x60’ pole barn to be built at 7567 W. 950 S. in Winamac to house bag ingredients and cover more than ten percent of the parcel. The meetings will be held in the Commissioners’ Room in the Pulaski County Courthouse.
Both applications are available for review in the Building/Planning Department located in the government building on Riverside Drive in Winamac.
The Pulaski County Commissioners at their meeting this week discussed the use of military surplus equipment for the Recycling Center, Sheriff’s Department, and other departments as well.
According to county attorney Kevin Tankerslee, the equipment must be used by law enforcement agencies only for at least one year after it has been received from the Department of Defense. After that, however, the title is transferred to the Board of Commissioners, who can then allow other departments to make use of the equipment.
Indiana’s rate of job growth continues to exceed the U.S. average. More than 143,000 private sector jobs have been added since July 2009 and Indiana has significantly outpaced the national rate of growth during this period.
The unemployment rate for July was calculated at 8.2 percent which is a 0.2 percent increase from June.
Starke County ranks 12th in the state with an unemployment rate of 9.9 percent. LaPorte ranks 14th with an unemployment rate of 9.8 percent, Marshall County is 44th with 8.4 percent, Porter County is 56th with 7.7 percent and Pulaski County is 83rd with 6.8 percent. Fayette County has an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent, giving them the highest rate in the state. DuBois County has only 5.4 percent.
Forty-two counties have reported an increase in unemployment and 30 counties reported a decrease.
This was the first week of school for area students.
Superintendent A.J. Gappa talks about how the first week went for Knox Community School students.
“After talking to the principals at each building, I guess the one word we could use is smooth,” said Gappa. “There were no major glitches. Bus loading and unloading seemed to go well. I talked to the people at the transportation garage and all of the routes seemed to be in place and moving well. I don’t have any preliminary numbers, but hopefully our student population is at least as much as last year.”
