INSIDE THIS ISSUE Business & Professional ...................................................A13 Camp Times ..........................................................................A9 Classifieds ...........................................................................A12 Community Calendar .....................................................B9-11 Easter Worship....................................................................A11 Dining & Entertainment......................................................B2 Healthy Times.......................................................................B5
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FWDailyNews.com
March 22, 2013
Carnival just part of PTO mission By Garth Snow gsnow@kpcnews.net
Nonprofit parks group gets Huntertown deed By Garth Snow gsnow@kpcnews.net
The Huntertown Elementary School PTO Winter Carnival was both a school event and a community event, said Principal Joe Meyer. About 600 students buy wristbands for the celebration each year, said Kari Reith, the PTO president. Reith said donors and volunteers make it all possible. Meyer said the March 1 carnival was typical of the PTO’s involvement. “When you look at Huntertown in general, this is one of the big community nights that we have,” Meyer said. “We get a lot of people coming through the doors. It’s full. And I think that’s an important thing for a small town, to have events like this. And here at the school we’re happy to facilitate that kind of community involvement.” Reith is the mother of a Huntertown second-grader. She will also have a kindergartner in the school next year. She and other volunteers worked on the carnival for months. When the weather forced the school to close on Feb. 22, the carnival was delayed by a week. “We started in December and we started accumulating people who wanted to be on the committee,” Reith said. The PTO picked Dr. Seuss as the
Photo by Garth Snow
Kelly O’Neill helps with decorations for the Huntertown Elementary School PTO carnival. general subject for the carnival, and then students suggested a specific name. “This year’s theme was ‘Wildcat in the Hat,’ because we are the Huntertown Wildcats,” Reith said.
Parents volunteered to arrange food, decorations, the silent auction, the raffle and the games. “We get lots and lots of donaSee PTO, Page A3
Parkview built it, and they did come A year after opening regional medical center, health system is trying to keep up with demand By Rick Farrant rfarrant@fwbusiness.com
Photo by Rick Farrant
Dr. Greg Johnson, the chief medical officer at Parkview Regional Medical Center, stands in a wing of the center’s seventh floor. there were questions initially about what kind of impact the regional medical center would have on the hospital. Skeptics, though, needn’t have worried. Demand at the emergency-room department has remained strong, officials said, and last fall the hospital created an inpatient overflow space. “I think what we have
seen has far outpaced our expectations,” said Ben Miles, vice president of operations at the hospital. The reasons for the growth at each Fort Wayne facility vary, but the upshot, Johnson said delicately, is that Parkview Health’s “market share is going up.” See PARKVIEW, Page A4
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Parkview Regional Medical Center had a fiveyear growth plan when the $550-million facility off Dupont Road opened a year ago. Within about four months, it met the inpatient bed target and now officials are pondering options should demand continue to grow. “We are challenged each day to assure that we have enough beds for the demand,” said Dr. Greg Johnson, chief medical officer of the regional medical center and Parkview Hospital Randallia. “We are functioning at very close to capacity.” Closer to downtown at Randallia, the once longtime flagship of the Parkview Health system,
The Huntertown Town Council deeded the town park property to a nonprofit parks council on Monday. Friends of the Huntertown Park President Dan Holmes and Treasurer Steve Fortriede welcomed the council’s 4-0 vote, which will allow the 501(c)3 group to raise money to develop and maintain the 27.5-acre park property along Lima Road. Fortriede said the town bought the property years ago with the intention of developing a park, but the town has been unable to complete the project. Holmes told the council that individuals already have pledged $92,000 toward the project, and he is confident of more pledges and contributions in short order. “I’ve had three or four people come up in the past week and say, ‘What say I give you some money?’ ” Holmes
said. Holmes said the private agency will get to work quickly on the park, which has no trails, facilities, playground equipment or other improvements. The council at first fielded a motion to authorize the deed, and then balked at the decision after Deputy Clerk-Treasurer Janine Rudolph said agents of the State Board of Accounts had told her that it is unusual for a town to deed the park property to another party. Rudolph, and others at the meeting, said it is more common to appoint a park board to oversee the parks. When questioned by council members, town attorney Dave Hawk listed possible negatives to the proposed arrangement. He said the town does not have to pay property taxes on the property, but a private owner would pay property taxes. Hawk said a private agency might have more difficulty See PARK, Page A10