Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
Trine lands grant to help with new doctoral program Page A3
Weather Cloudy today, with a slight chance of rain. High 79. Low 62. Page A8 TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2013
Angola, Indiana
GOOD MORNING Two fundraising golf tournaments on tap in coming weeks ANGOLA — Two local golf tournaments are quickly approaching. • The 20th annual Angola Area Chamber of Commerce Golf Outing will be held Thursday, Aug. 15, at Zollner Golf Course at Trine University, 1215 Park Ave. Cost is $400 for a four-member team or $100 for an individual. That cost includes 18 holes of golf with a cart, beverage tickets, lunch and dinner, awards and live music. Games and prizes will be offered with poker on the green and hole-in-one games. Registration is at 11 a.m. with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start in a scramble format and dinner, awards and live music at 5:30 p.m. For more details, call 665-3512. • Cahoot’s Coffee Cafe’s eighth annual Golf Outing will be held Friday, Aug. 23, also at Zollner Golf Course. The cost is $65 per person and will feature a four-person team Florida scramble, 18 holes of golf, prizes and lunch. Registration is at 11:45 a.m., followed by a shotgun start at 1:15 p.m. Individual prizes for longest drive, closest to pin and first-, second- and third-place teams will be given. Pro Golfers Association member Jenny Lymangood, head professional and director of golf at Zollner will present a clinic at 12:30 p.m. Sponsorships for the tournament are also still available. The tournament fundraiser will benefit Cahoot’s, a nonprofit organization that provides services to at-risk youth. The entry deadline is Aug. 20 with forms at Cahoot’s, 218 W. Maumee St. For more details, call 624-2399.
Pope says he won’t judge gay priests ABOARD THE PAPAL AIRCRAFT (AP) — Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he won’t judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. READ MORE ON PAGE B5
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Index • Classified.............................................. B7-B8 Life.................................................................A6 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion ........................................................B4 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather........................................................A8 TV/Comics ..................................................B6 Vol. 156 No. 208
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Attorney: Showgirl suit’s conclusion possibly near BY MIKE MARTURELLO mmarturello@kpcmedia.com
ANGOLA — The federal lawsuit between Showgirl and the city of Angola appears headed toward a conclusion. Attorneys for Alva Butler and BBL Inc., the Fort Wayne parent company of Showgirl, and Angola have been ordered to supply motions on their behalf and eventually participate in a hearing on Oct. 25 in South Bend. In a teleconference held Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Miller ordered the
two parties to file motions then set the hearing for oral arguments on both. Angola’s attorneys are supposed to file a motion for summary judgment by Aug. 9. Butler’s attorneys are supposed to file a motion for preliminary injunction and reply to the city’s filing by Aug. 21. The city has until Sept. 9 to reply to the preliminary injunction. Other procedural deadlines on the motions have been set, then both parties will be present in the Oct. 25 hearing. “I think that at the Oct. 25
hearing the court will have an opportunity to decide a number of important issues,” said Matthew Hoffer, attorney for Butler. “There’s no doubt that this matter is coming to a head on Oct. 25. It is our hope that the court will decide these matters in a favorable way and Showgirl will be able to open and operate.” Hoffer said the motion for preliminary injunction will ask the court to prevent the city from enforcing its sexually oriented business ordinances enacted after SEE SHOWGIRL, PAGE A8
MIKE MARTURELLO
This sign appeared late last week, covering the former Slider’s Grill and Bar sign. The sign is part of the property owned by Alva Butler, Fort Wayne, who wants to site a Showgirl strip club at the former Slider’s facility.
McCarty honored as hero Sheriff’s group fetes deputy shot at in case BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
A low grade also can detract from a neighborhood and drive homebuyers elsewhere. Bennett, who now is reworking Florida’s grading system as that state’s education commissioner, reviewed the emails Monday morning and denied that DeHaan’s school received special treatment. He said discovering that the charter would receive a low grade raised broader concerns with grades for other “combined” schools — those that included multiple grade levels — across the state. “There was not a secret about this,” he said. “This wasn’t just to give Christel House an A. It was to make sure the system was right to make sure the system was face valid.” However, the emails clearly
ANGOLA — Veteran Steuben County Sheriff’s Deputy Rich McCarty survived being shot at numerous time during an altercation surrounding a high-profile murder case and was honored for his professionalism Saturday. McCarty received the 2013 Indiana Sheriff’s Association County Police Officer/Deputy McCarty of the Year Award from the Indiana Sheriff’s Association. The award was presented at the association’s annual conference president’s dinner in Indianapolis. McCarty — who was surrounded by family — received the award through Steuben County Sheriff Tim Troyer, who addressed the audience of approximately 450. “As sheriff, I am amazed at the evil our deputies face every day and they do so un-waivered,” Troyer said. “I am very thankful. Thankful that Deputy McCarty is OK and thankful that Deputy McCarty is one of the many keepers of the peace in Steuben County.” McCarty was cited for his work early June 3, 2012, when he was investigating the eventual murder of 40-year-old Brent Dombroski of Angola. Zao Garth Burrell, 25, who shot at McCarty, was found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to 105 years in prison in early April. In a pursuit of Burrell and others involved in the case, McCarty was shot at numerous times. His police vehicle was hit once by a shot that was clearly aimed at the deputy. When assistance arrived and the investigation began, one shot was located directly into the top radiator portion of McCarty’s patrol vehicle. It was only a few inches below where McCarty was seated. Troyer said McCarty never returned fire and was not injured. “I am nominating Deputy McCarty for the Indiana Sheriffs Association County Police Officer/Deputy of the year award for his professional response that did not waiver during this highly stressful encounter. Deputy
SEE GRADE, PAGE A8
SEE MCCARTY, PAGE A8
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
Vermont Settlement celebrates Emma Allen, left, and Emily McCrea ride in the Vermont Settlement Days festival parade
on Saturday morning. The two were riding in the Orland Youth Softball float.
Grade of donor’s school changed INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Former Indiana and current Florida schools chief Tony Bennett built his national star by promising to hold “failing” schools accountable. But when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, Bennett’s education team frantically overhauled his signature “A-F” school grading system to improve the school’s marks. Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan’s school received an “A,” despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a “C.” “They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability
work,” Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence’s chief lobbyist. The emails, which also show Bennett discussed with staff the legality Bennett of changing just DeHaan’s grade, raise unsettling questions about the validity of a grading system that has broad implications. Indiana uses the A-F grades to determine which schools get taken over by the state and whether students seeking state-funded vouchers to attend private school need to first spend a year in public school. They also help determine how much state funding schools receive.
ISTEP glitch impact reportedly is minimal BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AND STAFF REPORTS
INDIANAPOLIS — An outside review of glitches that disrupted Indiana’s online standardize testing this spring concludes those problems had no measurable negative impact on students’ scores, even though they affected at least one-sixth of the students who took the test. The report released Monday shows contractor CTB/McGrawHill reported nearly 80,000 students in grades three through
eight had at least one part of their test interrupted when server glitches kicked them offline. That’s about 16 percent of all students who took the test. Attempts were made to reach all local school leaders for comment. Hamilton Schools Superintendent Jon Willman questioned the validity of the ISTEP testing due to the glitches. He said he would like to see more safeguards put into place to avoid this year’s testing issues from occurring again.
“Time will tell. I don’t know if I trust the validity of the test,” Willman said, adding the test caused much upsetting of the school routine. “It’s a high stakes test (tied to) teacher evaluations. Kids read that nervousness and the stress level is through the roof.” The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment found the statewide impact of the glitches on student scores wasn’t measurable. SEE ISTEP, PAGE A8
ISTEP Interruptions Percentage of students interrupted during ISTEP testing this spring: 25-35 % — East Noble 15-25 % — DeKalb Central, Westview 5-15 % — Central Noble, DeKalb Eastern, Garrett-Keyser-Butler, MSD Steuben County, Prairie Heights, West Noble 0-5 % — Fremont, Hamilton, Lakeland, Smith-Green SOURCE: INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION