Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
Carvings add art to Commons Park in Angola
Weather A few clouds expected today. High 76. Low 53. Sunny Wednesday. Page A6
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2013
Angola, Indiana
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Lake George Marina set to sail again BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
Inside today
LAKE GEORGE — Dan Smith and his efforts to re-open Lake George Marina were buoyed after the Steuben County Board of Zoning Appeals granted him a special exception Monday. The special exception — passed unanimously — was for a marina/boat ramp and came with a positive recommendation by the Steuben County Plan Commission
last week. The property is at 15 LN 130B, just off of Old U.S. 27. The Plan Commission determined Smith’s proposed special exception won’t have a negative impact on Steuben County’s comprehensive plan. Smith, an Angola businessman and car lot owner, proposes a full-service marina at the site. “The marina is defined for boat storage, dock space, fuel, to service and sell boats and
for storage,” Smith said. “Our intentions are to clean the marina up and strictly run a marina. The buildings were built for a marina and really should remain operating as a marina.” Smith said he wants to operate the marina year round with shorter hours in the winter. Business hours will likely be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and shortened hours for Sunday. The business formerly
This year’s Chautauqua Days festival in Rome City will celebrate the 150th birthday of famed author Gene Stratton-Porter. Read more about the local author’s life and the events scheduled in today’s insert.
Holder goes after mandatory federal drug sentences
Marching Hornets preview Saturday ANGOLA — The Angola High School Marching Hornets will do a preview of their 2013 show on Saturday at 5 p.m. on the west side of the high school at the band tower. The free performance includes an ice cream social.
Drunken motorist assaults neighbor
Youngsters blamed for playground fire SOUTH BEND (AP) — Investigators believe a group of 5- and 6-year-olds started a fire that destroyed playground equipment at a South Bend elementary school, police said Monday. Officers located the 5- and 6-year-old brothers and a 5-year-old neighbor soon after Saturday’s fire at Harrison Primary Center and they admitted to starting the fire, city police Capt. Phil Trent told WSBT-TV.
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Index • Classified.............................................. B6-B8 Life.................................................................A5 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion ........................................................B4 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather........................................................A6 TV/Comics ..................................................B5 Vol. 156 No. 222
SEE MARINA, PAGE A6
Major shift
GOOD MORNING
FISHERS (AP) — A central Indiana motorist who assaulted a 67-year-old neighbor who had told him to slow down has been charged with drunken driving and battery. The victim told Fishers police that he was watering his lawn Sunday when he yelled at the motorist to slow down. Officers say the driver stopped and backed his car into the victim’s driveway, got out and pushed the 67-year-old man to the ground twice. The victim’s wife heard the commotion and called 911. Police stopped 32-year-old Joel Zeller nearby. Officers say Zeller had a blood-alcohol content of 0.17 percent and was jailed in Hamilton County Jail. The victim didn’t require medical attention.
operated as a marina for decades, before it closed and the property became run down, requiring a Plan Commission building code cleanup. Smith told the Plan Commission he was going to invest more than $500,000 in the marina property. In doing so, he has started clean up efforts with paint, electrical upgrades and brush removal. In addition, he’s also working
PHOTOS BY TYLER MOORE
Star gazing at Pokagon Intermittent clouds passed overhead at Pokagon State Park’s Star Spectacular, but that didn’t stop some 200 spectators from enjoying one of the most active annual meteor showers, the Perseid meteor shower, late Saturday and early Sunday. The Star Spectacular, hosted by Pokagon’s Interpretive Naturalist Service and led by interpreter Fred Wooley, included astronomers from the Hillsdale (Mich.) Astronomical Society and the Fort Wayne Astronomical Society, all outfitted with telescopes to observe celestial objects and educate participants. In addition to the telescopes, there were also star charts, and naked-eye observation where different summertime constellations were pointed out. Numerous shooting stars from the meteor shower were observed. It is speculated that the best was yet to come, in the pre-dawn hours early today. In the photo at the top, Perseid activity and star trails are shown in a 38-minute exposure looking
northeast near the Civilian Conservation Corps Shelter at Pokagon. Intermittent clouds hindered viewing conditions but multiple shooting stars were still visible. Above, Gene Stringer of the Fort Wayne Astronomical Society stands next to his Schmidt Cassegrain telescope.
Stringer was one of several astronomers at the event who provided attendees with the opportunity to look at deep sky objects, including the Hercules Star Cluster, the Wild Duck Star Cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy, through some high-powered equipment.
Dr. Eberhart calls it a career of treating all sorts of creatures BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
ANGOLA — Dr. William “W.D.” Eberhart opened his Angola veterinary practice 52 years ago and since then, he’s caused quite a few wagging tails, hisses, moos, whinnies and snarls. Eberhart, 78, is retiring from serving as one of the longest practicing veterinarians in the area at All Paws & Claws Veterinary Clinic, Angola. His career began after he graduated from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich., in 1961. A Lake James boy, Eberhart did not grow up on a farm. He’s also not sure why he chose veterinary medicine as a vocation. “My father was Dr. Lester Lyman Eberhart and was a physician, but I didn’t like that,” the younger Eberhart said. Growing up at Lake James, it was natural for Eberhart to return to Steuben County to establish his practice. “The first few years, it was a ma and pa practice,” he said, adding it was common to go on farm calls. Naturally, over his more than five-decade career, Eberhart encountered change. “There were a multitude of changes. Dogs and cats are more valuable,” he said, and pet owners are willing to spend more money on animal care, compared to the days when “people used to take them home and shoot them.” Eberhart said he remembers most of his animal SEE EBERHART, PAGE A6
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
Dr. William “WD” Eberhart will retire from veterinary medicine on Aug. 24. He has practiced in Angola for 52 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major shift Monday in federal sentencing policies, targeting long mandatory terms that he said have flooded the nation’s prisons with low-level drug offenders and diverted Holder crime-fighting dollars that could be far better spent. If Holder’s policies are implemented aggressively, they could mark one of the most significant changes in the way the federal criminal justice system handles drug cases since the government declared a war on drugs in the 1980s As a first step, Holder has instructed federal prosecutors to stop charging many nonviolent drug defendants with offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences. His next step will be working with a bipartisan group in Congress to give judges greater discretion in sentencing. “We will start by fundamentally rethinking the notion of mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes,” Holder told the American Bar Association in San Francisco. There are currently more SEE HOLDER, PAGE A6
Florida resort sinks CLERMONT, Fla. (AP) — As glass broke, the ground shook and lights went out, vacationers evacuated a central Florida resort building before a sinkhole caused a section of the structure to partially collapse early Monday. About 30 percent of the three-story structure collapsed around 3 a.m., Lake County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Tony Cuellar said. The building — which had housed 105 visitors — was stable by midafternoon, said Paul Caldwell, the development’s president. Two adjacent buildings, which each have 24 units, were evacuated as a precaution. Caldwell said the resort underwent geological testing when it was built about 15 years ago, showing the ground to be stable, and that there were no signs before Sunday that a sinkhole was developing. He said all affected guests had been given other rooms and some guests — many of whom had to leave their wallets, purses and other belongings behind in the quick evacuation — had been given cash advances. Resort workers were working to do “whatever we need to do to make it right,” Caldwell said. Technicians were on the scene SEE SINKS, PAGE A6