Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
Metaldyne opts to participate in Environmental Stewardship Program
Weather Cloudy with a 40 percent chance of rain today. High 89. Low 71. Page A7
Page A3 SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2013
Angola, Indiana
GOOD MORNING Rep. Pond resigns for health reasons NEW HAVEN — State Rep. Phyllis Pond, R-New Haven, announced Friday that she is resigning effective Oct. 15, due to her recent diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis. Pond, 82, has served in the Indiana House of RepresentaPond tives since 1978. Until 2012, her district included portions of southern DeKalb County Her decision to resign will set in motion a Republican caucus to choose a replacement to finish her term. “Phyllis has been a pillar of strength throughout her career as a state representative dating back to 1978,” Speaker of the House Brian Bosma said in a statement Friday. “As a former kindergarten teacher, her insight has been invaluable in all of the education policies that we have enacted throughout her tenure here.”
BY AMY OBERLIN amyo@kpcnews.net
FREMONT — Two free, family-friendly weekend bashes will be held this fall in downtown Fremont. Fremont Autumn Days are Sept. 20-21 and Oct. 25-26, sponsored by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. It is designed to get people into the downtown area to visit local businesses. The first event is built around Fremont High School’s homecoming football game. There will be a dance in the Pizza King parking lot on Friday and the
fun will continue Saturday with an ironing board race, farmer’s market, broomstick hockey and rocking chair marathon among the scheduled activities. One of the event’s organizers, Jule Gannon, said a lot of people come to watch the homecoming parade through downtown, but not many people typically stay. Fremont Autumn Days is a way to encourage homecoming to last all weekend long. The dance starts after school with Boy Scouts selling sliders, a bounce house in the parking lot at Fremont United Methodist Church and a chance to get in on
BY AMY OBERLIN aoberlin@kpcmedia.com
Milling work continued Friday on South Wayne Street after its start on Thursday. Paving is expected to start Tuesday. Other roads in Angola currently being worked on include Williams Street from Oak to Mill Streeet and Stony Ridge from Spring Hill to Redding Road. No parking is allowed on the streets until the process is completed.
Area couple follow their passion and create hand-painted Americana style furniture. See their many products and read their story on Sunday’s C1 and C2.
Clip and Save Find $93 in coupon savings in Sunday’s newspaper.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Find the latest college football news and photos kpcnews.com Sports > College Football
Contact Us • The Herald Republican 45 S. Public Square Angola, IN 46703 Phone: (260) 665-3117 Fax: (260) 665-2322 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (800) 717-4679
Index • Classified.............................................. B6-B8 Life.................................................................A6 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion .........................................................A5 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather........................................................A7 TV/Comics ..................................................B5 Vol. 156 No. 240
the cow pie drop, sponsored by the Fremont Cub Scouts. “The cheerleaders and the Eagles are going to come down after school and meet the kids,” said Gannon. “Everything will be downtown by the Pizza King or at the Methodist Church on Friday night.” The time of the parade has not yet been determined. Saturday, Sept. 21, will start out with a breakfast by the Fremont American Legion Auxiliary and activities that will last throughout the afternoon. The ironing board race — using mobile contraptions built
with ironing boards, ridden by one person and pushed by the other — will start around 11 a.m. At 2 p.m. is broomstick hockey outside Fremont Fire Department. The lineup is the fire department against the Bull Pen, Corner Pocket against the hardware store and the American Legion versus the Moose. “Bring lawn chairs and coolers and sit and watch all evening,” Gannon encouraged. For those who like more sedentary challenges, there is a rocking chair marathon at King’s Furniture and Bedding. SEE FREMONT, PAGE A7
Man convicted of forgery by jury
Bumpy drive
Making Americana
75 cents
Fremont plans Autumn Days
AMY OBERLIN
Coming Sunday
kpcnews.com
ANGOLA — A Steuben County jury convicted an Angola man of two counts of forgery Thursday in Steuben Superior Court. John Christopher Reynolds, 35, was found guilty of forging the owner’s signature on two checks. The Reynolds checks were taken from a residence in Pleasant Lake in April 2012. Steuben County Sheriff’s Detectives spent 15 months investigating the case, said a news release from the sheriff’s department. The criminal charges were filed July 19, 2012 and Reynolds was informed of the charges against him by certified mail. He failed to appear for an initial hearing last August and was arrested on a warrant in November. He spent around 19 days in Steuben County Jail before posting a $10,000 bond.
Public defender Benjamin Nordmann represented Reynolds in the trial and Steuben County Prosecutor Michael Hess presented the state’s case. “The bank was very helpful because of the technology they have,” said Steuben County Sheriff’s Detective Shari Dean. Some of the evidence in the case included identification provided by Reynolds at an Angola bank when he cashed the checks on two separate occasions. Each was cashed for $600. Reynolds knew the victims, said Dean, and took the checks while in their home. After being found guilty on both charges Thursday, Reynolds was remanded to the Steuben County Jail pending sentencing. He faces up to eight years in prison for each Class C felony count. Reynolds, who then had a Hartford City address, pleaded guilty to check deception in Steuben Superior Court in March 2004, convicted of a Class A misdemeanor and sentenced to one year, suspended.
Syrians steel themselves for U.S. strike WASHINGTON (AP) — Edging toward a punitive strike against Syria, President Barack Obama said Friday he is weighing “limited and narrow” action as the administration bluntly accused Bashar Assad’s government of launching a chemical weapons attack that killed at least 1,429 people — far more than previous estimates — including more than 400 children. No “boots on the ground,” Obama said, seeking to reassure Americans weary after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. With France as his only major
public ally, Obama told reporters he has a strong preference for multilateral action. He added, “Frankly, part of the challenge we end up with here is a lot of people think something should be done but nobody wants to do it.” Halfway around the world, U.S. warships were in place in the Mediterranean Sea armed. They carried cruise missiles, long a first-line weapon of choice for presidents because they can find a target hundreds of miles distant without need of air cover or troops on the ground. In what appeared increasingly
like the pre-attack endgame, U.N. personnel dispatched to Syria carried out a fourth and final day of inspection as they sought to determine precisely what happened in last week’s attack. The international contingent arranged to depart today and head to laboratories in Europe with the samples they have collected. Video said to be taken at the scene shows victims writhing in pain, twitching and exhibiting other symptoms associated with exposure to nerve agents. The videos distributed by activists to support their claims of a
chemical attack were consistent with Associated Press reporting of shelling in the suburbs of Damascus at the time, though it was not known if the victims had died from a poisonous gas attack. The Syrian government said administration claims were “flagrant lies” akin to faulty Bush administration assertions before the Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. A Foreign Ministry statement read on state TV said that “under the pretext of protecting the Syrian people, SEE SYRIA, PAGE A7
Bard’s famed play resonates behind bars CHICAGO (AP) — Act I, Scene 1: Four actors in well-worn coveralls and baseball caps take the stage at the county jail. They’re here to tell a tale of love, friendship, jealousy and betrayal. It’s the stuff of Shakespearean tragedy. The names and themes haven’t changed over the centuries, but the language has a modern beat: “Othello never knew, He was getting schemed on by a member of his crew.” This is “Othello: The Remix,” the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s hip-hop version of the tragedy about a valiant Moor deceived by the villainous Iago into mistakenly believing his wife has been unfaithful. After Othello smothers his beloved Desdemona, he discovers she has been true to him and he kills himself. That’s how Shakespeare told the story 400 years ago. This modern version — performed this week for about 450 Cook County jail inmates — is a rhyming, rapping, poetic homage to the Bard. It has singing and dancing.
AP
Wearing wigs, rappers perform a hip hop adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello, titled “Othello: The Remix” at the Cook County Jail in Chicago on Tuesday.
Comic touches. Men playing women. Sexual talk. References to Eddie Murphy and James Brown. A throbbing beat, courtesy of an onstage DJ. And a contemporary plot: MC Othello is a self-made rap star turned music mogul (think
Jay-Z) who decides to promote Cassio, a middleof-the-road rapper, by releasing his next album. That infuriates the edgy rapper, Iago, who vows revenge. “This is why I hate the Moor,” he fumes. “He never lets me get my foot in the SEE PLAY, PAGE A7