A Hunter Education Class is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, October 8th and 9th, at the Kankakee Fish and Wildlife Area in North Judson.
The free course, which runs from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. CT each day, offers classroom instruction and a written test for certification. Attendance both days is required. Children who are under the age of 14 need to attend the class with an adult. Lunch and refreshments are not provided so you must bring your own to class.
Mint farmer, Mike Materna, of Hamlet, will be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, October 5th. He plead guilty to one count of Discharge of Pollutants without a Permit in violation of the Clean Air Act. He reportedly admitted in court that he discharged hot water into a ditch without the proper permit.
One of the questions that Starke County Economic Development Director, Charles Weaver gets is, “What’s the latest on Sysco or other industries here that want to expand?” Weaver then asks himself, “When new industries come or expand, do we have the workforce to fill the skilled positions?”
Weaver recently attended a presentation that was organized by the Northwest Indiana Forum, of which Starke County belongs, where the attendees discussed workforce readiness, and development. Starke County’s unemployment figures, although still in the double digits, have moved out of the “top 10” worst in the state, but will new industry help reduce that figure? Weaver says not if the workforce doesn’t have the skills needed by the employers.
Starke County Sheriff’s Department officers arrested a Knox and a North Judson resident Wednesday night after they were found to be in a residence in which they were not allowed.
Officers were called to a residence on 150 North where a woman taking care of the homeowner’s children tried to gain entry into the home to gather clothes for the children. When she put the key in the door, the door simply pushed open. She told officers that she locked the door before she left the home earlier in the day. When officers arrived on scene, they saw a different woman, Kristen Thompson, coming out of the home. She was asked if anyone else was in the home and she said Donnie Fletcher was in the home. Officers called for Fletcher to come out of the house and he didn’t answer. While searching the home, they heard a crash from the garage and found Fletcher standing on the stair platform. He was placed into custody. Police found methamphetamine related items and the finished product in the residence. A search warrant was issued to collect the items.
Haven Ewing was to go on trial in Starke Circuit Court this week, but the Starke County Prosecutor has decided to dismiss the Burglary charges against him and file amended charges in Knox City Court.
Ewing was allegedly involved in burglary incidents in the Koontz Lake area in March of 2010. Two others involved in the incidents, Zachary and Ian Bastin, plead guilty to seven counts of Burglary and were sentenced to 15 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections on those counts last year.
Hensler Nursery’s Annual Classic Car Cruise-In will be held this Sunday, October 2nd, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. CT. Last year’s Cruise-In featured over 60 cars. The show is open to all vehicles and there will be no gate or admission charges. The Award Presentation is at 2:00, dash plaques will be given to the first 100 entries and other door prizes will be awarded.
Hensler’s “Fall! All over the Place” continues concurrently with horse rides to the pumpkin patch. Both the Christmas Barn and the Fall Decorating Barn will be open. Pumpkins, gourds, straw, and mums are available in the yard. Food service includes pulled pork sandwiches, beef sandwiches, assorted cakes, apple dumplings, and….a possibility of Hensler’s home made vanilla and pumpkin ice cream!
The 39th Annual Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA) marching band season begins with District contests at seven sites Saturday, October 1st.
More than 16,000 students in 168 high schools will participate.
The Regionals are October 15th at four sites, and 10 bands representing four classes will then be selected for the State Finals on October 29th at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
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.
Have you been pleased that gasoline prices have dipped recently? Do you think it’s because consumption is down around the country? Don Good, at Good Oil in Winamac, says gasoline prices have been disconnected from supply and demand for a long time.
“Everything is driven off the markets,” said Good. “I think when China started coming out and saying that they were intentionally slowing down their economy, and then rumblings started about the Greek debt crisis and the European debt crisis. The stock market started to fall and gas prices went right with it.”
The Starke County Sheriff’s Department was called to a one vehicle accident on State Road 39 on Tuesday.
A witness told police that he saw Vivianna Hernandez, 33, of Knox, southbound on State Road 39 near 200 South and she left the roadway, hit a mailbox and then hit a tree. Officers determined at the scene that she had been drinking at the time of the accident. She was taken to IU Health Starke Hospital for injuries sustained in the accident and for a blood draw to determine blood alcohol level. The results of that blood draw are pending.
The November General Election is nearing and so is the deadline to register to vote. The last day to register is Tuesday, October 11th.
If you have a valid Indiana driver’s license or Indiana state-issued identification card can use the online service. You can visit this website to register or update your voter registration card. If you have moved since the last time you voted, you should update your information. You may also register by mail or in-person at a county voter registration office, the Indiana Election Division or a branch office of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The Knox City Council, on a unanimous vote Tuesday night, gave Mayor Rick Chambers the go-ahead to do the sidewalk work on the Courthouse square to make it ADA accessible.
“We’ve discussed doing something with that sidewalk to make it handicapped accessible on the west side of the Courthouse and I’ve talked with several contractors,” said Mayor Chambers. “We’ve went over ADA regulations and I’ve talked with the Commissioners and I don’t feel comfortable just diving into that project without having it engineered.”
The members of the Legacy of Women Organization in Starke County are working on a project to help fund the education of a woman, or women, in the county. The scholarships would be awarded to an individual, or more than one, who have expressed interest the reason for continuing their education to better their life through an essay.
Legacy of Women spokeswoman, Sherri Bartoli, said this week that the applications have been received and scored. The applications are now in the hands of the Northern Indiana Community Foundation who will tabulate the scores before announcing the recipient, or recipients.
During the downturn in the economy, a lot of people are in need of the bare essentials. Over 250 families a month have depended on the Starke County Food Pantry to help feed their families.
Now Knox High School student, Taylor Kemble has stepped out, and on her own, put together a rummage sale to help buy food for the pantry.
“This year it will be at the Knox United Methodist Church and it will be this Friday, September 30th, from 3:30-5:00 p.m. and Saturday, October 1st, from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.,” said Kemble. “All proceeds will go toward the Starke County Food Pantry and all items will be $.50 unless otherwise marked.”
Donations will be accepted today from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at the Knox United Methodist Church.
The Starke County Planning Commission discussed the proposed dog kennel ordinance at their meeting last week.
Dan Bridegroom suggested that a commercial kennel definition in the form of an I.C. code be added to the ordinance. Bruce Williams, Administrator/Building Commissioner, suggested adding the phrase “more than four and less than 20 unaltered female dogs that are at least twelve months of age” to the ordinance under commercial kennel definition. Commission Counsel, Steve Dodge, added that if more than four male or female dogs are at one residence, the homeowner will need a kennel license. The changes were approved by a vote of 5-3 and now the revised ordinance will be sent back to the Commissioners for their approval.
Starke United’s Board has approved the reallocation of funds to enable Community Services to provide the matching funds for 125 meals to the homebound elderly, matching funds for 133 hours of homemaker service to the elderly and disabled and for the preparation and printing of the Starke County Resource Directory. The Starke United Board also approved $1,500 for the food pantry in July after allocating $2,500 for the pantry in April.
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.
They went to Urbana, Illinois and now they are paying the price. In the most recent legislative session, Democrat Minority Leader, B. Patrick Bauer, of South Bend, led his fellow Democrats out of the state to, as he said, work on legislative bills that mattered to working people. The Republicans viewed it as a stall tactic to defeat bills offered by Governor Daniels and the Republican majority.
House Speaker, Brian Bosma, finally resorted to imposing a fine for every day the Democrats failed to appear in their house seats. 17th District State Representative Nancy Dembowski (D-Knox) was one of the members that followed the Democrat delegation to Urbana.
Even though we live in a digital age, there is still a lot of paper collected in governmental offices. It stacks up, it goes into boxes, it’s stored in every nook and cranny, and then one day the officials in those offices say, “enough is enough.”
Knox and County officials recently got together at a Public Records Commission meeting. This is the first such meeting held in seven years.
At the meeting, Knox Clerk-Treasurer, Jeff Houston, was elected Chairman. Retention schedules were adopted in which old receipts, bills and other paper records could be destroyed. Some records, like minute books and ledgers, must be retained.
Ancilla College’s annual recognition dinner will be on October 6th on the campus of the school at Donaldson, Indiana.
Betty Chesak will be honored as the Sister Mary D. award winner and Charles Weaver will receive the Ancilla Award. This award is given to an individual who is a community leader who has demonstrated service and commitment to Ancilla and the community.
