Nearly 150 Knox Elementary School third grade students visited the Starke County Museum this week to learn more of the history and the people of the area in which they live. In the annual trek to the museum at 401 South Main Street in Knox, the home of former Governor Henry F. Schricker, seven classes each spent an hour with volunteer guides and watching local history videos. Continue reading
More than 200 Knox Community Elementary School students’ original poems could be published this fall in the 2011 Young American Poetry Digest, a program of the National Schools project.
Charles Ratliff, writing teacher at the school, says nearly 800 poems were submitted to be considered for the anthology, which is a collection of writing in book form. He says the work of 50 fifth graders, 79 fourth graders,
and 70 third graders were accepted.
Starke County Sheriff’s Department officers arrested four on methamphetamine charges at a Knox residence Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading
The Knox City Police Department investigated a two vehicle accident that occurred shortly before 1:00 p.m. today at the intersection of Culver Road and US 35 in Knox.
According to City Police Officer, Chad Dulin, Sharon Button, of Winamac, was traveling southbound on US 35 when she reportedly disregarded the stoplight at the intersection and struck a vehicle driven by Dalerie Ford of Knox. Ford was traveling westbound through the intersection when the accident occurred.
Representatives of Indiana University Health Starke Hospital will meet next week with members of the Starke County Board of Commissioners and the County Council to discuss the future and continued use of the facilities leased from the County. The current lease expires in 2016.
“We are committed to be here, we want to stay here, but we also know that improvements are going to have to be made along the way, particularly in relationship to the building” stated hospital CEO Linda Satkoski. Continue reading
The six individuals arrested at the Holloway Motel on various methamphetamine charges were given their initial hearings this afternoon. Matthew Schoff, Timothy Clark, Cheryl Paschen, and Kimberly Hurley were charged with Dealing in Methamphetamine, a Class B Felony, along with other charges. The others, Tracey Gaideski and the Holloway Motel manager Freeman Spelts, were charged with Possession of Methamphetamine, Possession of a Controlled Substance, as well as other charges. Gaideski was also charged with one count of Taking a Minor to a Nuisance after her 8-year-old child was taken into protective custody following the arrests. Schoff, Paschen, and Hurley were additionally charged with Possession of a Syringe.
A plea and sentencing hearing for Kevin Eggert was held Wednesday morning. Eggert is accused of threatening to kill Misty Ross while pointing a 12-gauge shotgun at her, and faces one count of Intimidation, a Class C Felony, and one count of Pointing a Firearm, a Class D Felony.
EMS Director Larry Brock presented his report to the Pulaski County Commissioners on Monday. Brock is seeking grants for repairing two ambulances and purchasing a generator for their Winamac station.
“We are seeking a ambulance grant to replace two of our ambulances , rechassis them, and a second grant for a generator for the Winamac station,” said Brock. “We have some rust damage due to a light that’s rusting in, of course because it’s on top of the ambulance it may fall through and we need to take care of that issue right away.”
The March unemployment rate in Indiana and in all those Counties in the Kankakee Valley area dropped from February, according to the latest figures from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. Starke County dropped a full percentage point to 11.2%. That’s still a ranking of 10th highest of the state’s 92 counties.
The North Judson-San Pierre School Corporation has received new paperwork concerning the budget.
“We’re still kind of looking through that information. The proposal is for a large cut, but it’s not as bad as we thought,” said Superintendent Lynn Johnson. “We’re still waiting for specifics with the Full-Day Kindergarten funding and hopefully that will help out the budget too. The cuts weren’t quite as deep as we thought. They’re still considerable, but we’re working hard at managing those. The original proposal was $1.2 million. I’m really not quite sure how it’s going, we’re just starting to work on that. It’s less than a million, but still a significant cut.”
At the request of the highway department, the Starke County Council approved the spending of $135,000 for bridge inspections throughout the county. In total, 67 bridges are to be inspected, with the expense coming out of the county’s cumulative bridge fund, which can only be spent on bridges.
The bridge inspections are a necessary expense, especially when given the current state of the bridges in Starke County. Three bridges were recently closed, and three others are in danger of being reduced to one-lane to allow for repairs.
Speculators and the unrest in the Middle East continue to drive gas prices in the United States. We talked to Don Good from the Good Oil Company about the current gas price situation.
“You’d think we’d be losing some steam on this,” said Good. “It’s pretty much speculation that is driving prices. The good news is unemployment is down and the bad news is, the economy is going to heat up, petroleum is going to go up, use is going to go up so that’ll probably keep it from going down too much. As long as the Middle East is in turmoil, there’s more support there. I’m going to guess that we should see it leveling off very soon, but to be honest with you, I never thought we’d get to four dollars either.”
We’re less than two weeks away from the 2011 Primary Election, and we’re talking to the candidates running for office in the City of Knox Election.
Knox Clerk-Treasurer Jeff Houston is in his 5th year in the position. We asked Houston what he enjoys about the job.
“I enjoy working with people, and I enjoy planning for the future with the City,” said Houston. “Right now we’re working on a number of different projects including the new J.W. Hicks project. We’re working with different grants – we’re working in the park right now with a five year grant. I like interacting with the different people in the City and with utility customers. All in all, I enjoy the job altogether.”
National hiring day for McDonald’s was held yesterday. It was the intent of the business to hire 50,000 employees nationwide during the one day event.
Billy Boldt, Manager at the McDonald’s restaurant in Knox said that they received 70 applications. 47 applications were received the day of the event. while others were received online prior to the event. 11 people were hired and three others are pending. 56 interviews were conducted and part-time crew member positions were filled.
The Knox Community School Board approved an amended 2011-2012 school calendar during its Monday night meeting. The Board had asked Superintendent A.J. Gappa to work with all entities involved to push back the start of the school year. The preliminary calendar had students starting on August 10th and the Board felt that start date was too early. The amended calendar has the students beginning the next school year on August 16th with the last student day on May 24th. Spring break would be March 26th-30th with commencement on June 1st.
Looking for ways to save at the pump? Rod Dawson, instructor at the SCILL Center in Knox, says that a clean air filter can increase your gas mileage.
“This is the time of year when we’re starting to get a lot of bugs, farmers are out in the fields and we’re going to be picking up a lot of dust and dirt and those filters will start to clog up. We start restricting the amount of air that needs to be put into that engine through that air filter,” said Dawson. “When that starts to clog up, it richens the engine up because we’re not getting the air to mix in with it. We start using a little more fuel at that point in time. We’re robbing about ten percent of the air that needs to come into it which can cost us up to about fifteen percent on fuel consumption.”
Two Starke County residents were arrested today on felony charges after a traffic stop by Starke County police.
Officers recognized Heather Manns, 33, of North Judson traveling as a passenger in a vehicle and police stopped the vehicle at the intersection of Culver Road and US 35 in Knox. Officers took her into custody on a Failure to Appear warrant through Starke County and she was also wanted out of Pulaski County.
It seems the Treasurer’s office will not be getting the full-time help they’ve been requesting, after all. At the Starke County Council Meeting on April 18, the council noted that after looking at newest budget figures, they noticed that they would be short of the amount needed to transfer in order to support another full-time employee in the Treasurer’s office because some of those funds do not exist in the Treasurer’s budget.
The Commissioners agreed with the council, withdrawing their support as well because of budgetary concerns. They did not anticipate the coming year, and the Commissioners do not believe they will have the $5600 necessary to contribute that they previously believed they had. Treasurer Linda Belork was not present and could not help the Council and the Commissioners determine if the funds were available in the budget or not.
