Knox City and Starke County officials put their heads together this week to see if they could come up with making the Knox City Court solvent. The court, which handles judicial matters from throughout the city and county, is running close to $100,000 in the red. Officials and others gathered for a work session Tuesday night before the regular Knox City Council meeting.
It was 71 years ago today that one of the defining moments in Starke County history occurred. On September 28th, 1940, LaPorte had been chosen as one of 73 sites in the country for the construction of an ordnance plant. That led to the building of the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant better known as KOP.
For residents of Starke County and those who followed them here, that meant loading shells, assembling fuses, boosters, detonators and primers, and packing complete rounds of ammunition.
After the government had cleared all the families off the 13,454 acres of land it had purchased, it began construction of KOP. By May of 1942, the number of people employed reached a high of 20,785. Nearly half of the people employed were women. For many it was their first job outside the home.
Starke County citizens turned out to remember and reflect during September 11th ceremonies in North Judson and Knox. At Knox, WKVI sponsored a service at the Knox High School Football Field.
The day was arranged by Gene Blastic, and featured talks by Ted Hayes, Tom Berg and Paul Mathewson. Mae Crider provided three patriotic songs, and Pastors Ed Hasnerl, Paul Begley, Jim Pradtke, and James Adcock added spiritual messages. Continue reading
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.
A Greenwood, Indiana man was arrested in Starke County Sunday after cutting off his electronic monitoring device attached to his ankle and fleeing his home.
An anonymous tip was called into the Starke County Sheriff’s Department that Zackary Schacht was in the area on a warrant out of Johnson County. Officers went to the residence in question and found Schacht at the residence. Police announced their presence and Schacht ran. K9 officer, Chad Keen, warned Schacht to stop or the K9 would be deployed. Schacht did not yield to the warning and K9 Marco was given the command to apprehend the suspect. The K9 stopped Schacht from fleeing. Schacht was then taken to IU Health Starke Hospital for treatment. When he was medically cleared, he was transported to the Starke County Jail on the active warrant and was charged with Resisting Law Enforcement.
There have been many stories about John Dillinger being in Starke County. The famous outlaw may well have been in Starke County on this date 77 years ago. He may not have been here long, as the Dillinger gang held up the Merchants’ National Bank in South Bend just before noon.
The man identified as John Dillinger entered the bank carrying a machine gun and announced the holdup. Dillinger fired the machine gun into the ceiling creating panic as he and his gang members took $28,500. Once on the street, they encountered Patrolman, Howard Wagner, and killed him.
They escaped and their getaway car was later found in Newton County in Goodland, about 100 miles away.
Goodland is southwest of Starke County and very well could have been on the escape route.
The Arrow Head Country RC&D Forestry Committee and Forester Bruce Wakeland invite you to the Country Kettle in Knox, tomorrow, to discuss issues you may be having in your woodland areas. The event will be tomorrow, June 21st, from 7:00-8:30 a.m. CT.
Wakeland and representatives from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Purdue, Consulting, and Industry Foresters will be available for conversation and questions.
A Starke County mint farmer has pleaded guilty to knowingly discharging pollutants without a permit in violations of the Clean Water Act.
Michael Materna, 56, of Hamlet was operating a still which harvests mint leaves and distills them to create mint oil. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, water that was heated to temperatures of 160 to 190 degrees and mint oil was also being discharged from the facility into a roadside ditch which then flowed into the stream. The water reportedly scalded a dog to death when Starke County resident, Pete Dailey’s, dog entered the heated water. Charges were filed May 31st as a result of an investigation by the Envrionmental Protection Agency-Criminal Investigation Division and IDEM.
This week on “Ted Hayes Remembers”, Ted will talk with Jim Shilling.
Jim and Melba Shilling have been in the forefront of collecting and maintaining a history of Starke County for decades. Jim has shown the Starke County Courthouse to hundreds of people, and taken hundreds more on tours of the Starke County Museum.
Ted asked Jim to talk about historical events over the past 50 or so years that have impressed him.
Governor Mitch Daniels has issued a disaster emergency for 34 counties due to severe weather that caused widespread damage to homes, businesses and public property beginning April 18th.
Affected counties experienced flooding, damaged roads, downed power lines and other severe damage. The Executive Order includes Starke County, which is the only county in the northern part of the state to be included. Starke County EMA Director, Ted Bombagetti, told WKVI that the levee break on the Robbins Ditch was included in the claim along with a levee break by the Kankakee Fish and Wildlife area outside of North Judson.
At least ten of the people arrested in the cock fighting raid that occurred in Starke County in late February still have not had their day in Knox City Court. Those cases where the defendants announced in court that they were securing attorneys have yet to be settled. According to court documents, those defendants are trying to work out settlements through their attorneys with the prosecutor’s office. If that is not worked out, trial dates will be set and those could occur in July.
The 2011 session of the Indiana General Assembly, as required by law, will end tomorrow night by midnight or before. Senator Ed Charbonneau says after considerable study legislation of interest to area mint farmers was passed by the Assembly and signed by Governor Daniels April 20th.
The third annual Turkey Tracks hunting event gets underway in Starke County this weekend. The hunt allows physically handicapped youngsters to experience a turkey hunting experience with assistance from local Adopt-a-Hunter volunteers. Carol Corey outlines some of the events planned for the young hunters.
“They come to the Knox VFW Saturday morning before daylight to go out and find the turkeys coming off the roost and then in the evening, we invite all of our Adopt-a-Hunter volunteers and landowners there for a dinner. If you are an Adopt-a-Hunter or landowner, we would appreciate it if you would come and join us and meet our hunters.”
The Starke County Traffic Safety Partnership will be conducting a Rural Demonstration Project beginning Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 15th. This is a special grant to be used for truck seatbelt enforcement.
During the Traffic Safety Partnership’s last enforcement blitz, 10 officers spent 41 hours on increased traffic patrol. 4 seat belt citations were given, 1 misdemeanor DUI arrest was made, 1 criminal misdemeanor arrest was made, 1 criminal felony arrest was made and 14 speed violations were recorded. 47 traffic warnings were issued with a total of 65 vehicles being stopped. The enforcement ran from February 26th through March 4th.
A Starke County Commissioner, Kathy Norem, who is the former CEO of Starke Memorial Hospital, now known as IU Health Starke Hospital, is in today with an update on a committee’s early efforts to evaluate the possibility of upgrading the county’s ambulance service to include paramedic service, also known as Advanced Life Service.
The deadline date for paying the first installment of personal property taxes is just two weeks away, May 10th. Starke County Treasurer, Linda Belork, says the service in her office could be more efficient in the final rush days before the deadline, but currently, most taxpayers have not been too inconvenienced by long waits.
“Right now, taxes are coming in really well for us and most taxpayers, surprisingly, are paying for the whole year,” said Belork. “We do have some lines, but again we’re still trying to work with the County Council and the Commissioners to have our second Deputy in. They verbally gave me the approval and then at the public meeting, they backed off of it. I guess that’s an issue we’ll have to take up at budget time.”
The Holloway Motel complex was the site of a huge drug bust in Starke County on Friday with some of the building used for clandestine methamphetamine production. Because of the fact that dangerous particles remain in the air, Starke County Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Alexander, evacuated the facility and condemned it after the arrests were made.
A jury of 8 men and four women has returned a guilty verdict on 6 of the seven charges against John Brooke in Starke Circuit
Court. The trial was conducted in front of Circuit Court Judge Kim Hall.
A stoic John Brooke heard the guilty verdict given, while friends and family in the gallery wept.
He was convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Armed Robbery, Intimidation, Possession and Manufacturing Destructive Devices, Resisting Law Enforcement,
Unlawful Use of Body Armour, and Assisting a Criminal.
The only count he was found not guilty on was a seventh charge, possession of a destructive device.
Sentencing has been set by Judge Hall for May 12th. at 10:00.
Brooke was part of a potentially deadly situation at Bass Lake in February of 2010 in which an occupant in his home opened fire on Starke County Police officers who were trying to serve an Illinois warrant. Michael Drogosz, the shooter in that incident was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in August.
We’ll have more information in the morning.
Offenders serving time at the Westville Correctional Facility have been in Starke County since April 4th collecting garbage. The six man crew is taking part in the statewide Trash Bash. As of Friday, the offenders had picked up 113 bags of garbage on 19 miles of roadway. The offenders are all minimum security individuals.
Two Starke County residents were arrested this morning after a routine traffic stop.
A Knox City Police officer pulled over a vehicle on 300 E. and 250 N. in Knox. During the course of the traffic stop, a K9 was deployed to search for drugs. The K9 indicated that drugs were the vehicle and methamphetamine was seized. After an investigation, the officer found a handgun in the vehicle. Traci Jacobs and Paul Higdon were then arrested on preliminary charges of Serious Violent Felon in Possession of a Firearm and Possession of Methamphetamine. They are currently being held in the Starke County Jail.
