SATURDAY August 17, 2013
Avilla Police
Commentary
Theft incident leads to drugs
Battle of the Sexes
Page A2
Colts Team still seeking answers
Page B5
Page B1
Weather A mix of sun and clouds today with a high of 80. Much warmer temps are on the way. Page A5 Kendallville, Indiana
GOOD MORNING Marching Knights featured in parade ROME CITY — The East Noble Marching Knights are among the units participating in this morning’s Chautauqua Days Festival parade through Rome City. The parade starts at 10 a.m. with a cannon firing. Festival-goers can enjoy a pancake breakfast at the Rome City American Legion from 7 to 9 a.m. At 11 a.m., Mother Drum of the Miami Nation will lead the opening ceremony in front of the Gene StrattonPorter Cabin at Wildflower Woods at the Gene StrattonPorter State Historic Site. Several activities are scheduled at the site today and Sunday.
CIA confirms Area 51 LAS VEGAS (AP) — UFO buffs and believers in alien encounters are celebrating the CIA’s clearest acknowledgement yet of the existence of Area 51, the top-secret Cold War test site that has been the subject of elaborate conspiracy theories for decades. The recently declassified documents have set the tinfoil-hat crowd abuzz, though there’s no mention in the papers of UFO crashes, black-eyed extraterrestrials or staged moon landings.
Coming Sunday Sand castles Annual sand sculpting contest gets participants digging, watering and molding on the beach at Pokagon. See some of the creations on Sunday’s C1 and C2.
Clip and Save Find $105 in coupon savings in Sunday’s newspaper.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL AP Top 25 preseason poll released at noon today kpcnews.com Sports > College Football
Info • The News Sun P.O. Box 39, 102 N. Main St. Kendallville, IN 46755 Telephone: (260) 347-0400 Fax: (260) 347-2693 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (260) 347-0400 or (800) 717-4679
Index
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Classifieds.................................B7-B8 Life..................................................... A3 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion .............................................B5 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A5 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 104 No. 226
Serving Noble & LaGrange Counties
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Architect chosen for library project BY DENNIS NARTKER dnartker@kpcmedia.com
KENDALLVILLE — MKM Architecture+Design has been chosen to lead the Kendallville Public Library’s building completion project. The library’s board of trustees this week voted to hire the Fort Wayne-based architectural firm after interviewing four firms in July. MKM partner Zach Benedict introduced himself to library staff at its quarterly meeting Thursday. The 35,000-square-foot library at 221 S. Park Ave. has about 8,500 square feet of unfinished basement space, which was left undeveloped as a cost savings. The developed part of the basement
has an art gallery and space used for various library programs and by nonprofit groups for meetings and social gatherings. The undeveloped side has no heat or air conditioning and is used by staff as a work area and for storage. The library has the money to pay for the estimated $500,000 project to develop the remaining basement space without the need for a bond and tax increase or a public funding campaign, according to library director Gregg Williamson. Finishing the basement is called for in the library’s five-year master plan. The renovation will create additional meeting and public
spaces for the library, said Jenna Anderson, the library’s marketing specialist. MKM is a leading architecture and interior design firm and was selected for its experience in working with public libraries throughout Indiana and its ability to engage the community throughout the design process. “This project is important because it allows the library to not only fully utilize its existing building, but empowers them with the space to grow the services and events they can offer the community in the future,” Benedict said in a news release. Williamson said the board simply is finishing the job it started nine years ago.
A story woven in fabric BY KATE STOLTZFUS kstoltzfus@kpcnews.net
ROME CITY — It’s not just an interest in town history that led Caroline Shull North to make a quilt in honor of Gene StrattonPorter. North, who owns Caroline’s Cottage Cottons, a quilt fabric shop in Rome City, made a quilt to represent the late author and naturalist, whose 150th birthday is being celebrated with a festival this weekend. But North’s connections are of a deeper history: one woven into her family heritage. North’s ancestors lived in the Rome City area at the same time as Stratton-Porter, one of Indiana’s celebrated authors. Stratton-Porter wrote more than 20 books and was known for her focus on the natural world. North has proof, through stories and artifacts, that members of her family knew Stratton-Porter as more than just a novelist. “Gene was connected to both sides of my family, but no one knows how they got to know each other,” North said. “Our family was always interested in horticulture, gardening and flowers — that may have been the connection.” Regardless of how her family was acquainted with StrattonPorter, there is no doubt they were friends, she said. On her mother’s side, North heard stories of her grandmother, Mae Schermerhorn, going wildflower-hunting with StrattonPorter. “They were looking for fringed gentian flowers,” North said. “Somehow, they both got poison ivy so bad their eyes swelled shut.” North’s great-grandfather on her father’s side, Charles Shull, invited Stratton-Porter for family dinners. He received a gift from Stratton-Porter when she left for California in 1918: a copy of her book “Laddie: A True Blue Story” which North has today, complete with what she said is a “flirtatious” dedication. During Stratton-Porter’s time away, Shull, who “looked like Tom Selleck,” was fatally wounded in a hunting accident in the woods across from his home. While he lay dying in a downstairs
“These internal improvements are necessary to better fulfill our pledge to the community to provide information, education, recreation and technology,” he said. A 100-seat theater with stage, a teens-only area with a kitchen, a quiet adult reading area and a Friends of the Library storage and sales area are among staff suggestions for the project. Other architectural firms interviewed were Design Collaborative, Kelty Tapp Design and Moake Park Group. The renovation is expected to be completed by next summer in preparation for the library’s centennial celebration.
Rx drug war State takes aim at abuse of prescriptions
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana debuted its latest effort to combat its climbing prescription drug abuse rate — a website detailing the symptoms exhibited by people hooked on pills — as state officials warned Friday that the epidemic is one of the greatest threats to the state’s children and young adults. Attorney General Greg Zoeller, who announced the new website at the Indiana State Fair, called it a “one-stop shop” for information on the symptoms of KATE STOTLZFUS abuse, such as sudden secrecy Caroline Shull North holds up the quilt she made in honor of Gene or withdrawal from friends and Stratton-Porter, as well as a book dedicated to North’s grandfather relatives. Such information can help Indiana residents determine if by Stratton-Porter. someone close to them is abusing room, North’s father, Charles, was quilt. She created the quilt in 2011, painkillers, anti-anxiety medicawhen she participated in a “Quilt born upstairs. tions or other prescription drugs Shop Hop” event with other stores and act to get them help, he said. “When Gene came back from in local counties. It was her idea California, she met my dad,” Prescription drugs were blamed for each shop to create something North said. “She said to him, ‘I for 718 overdose deaths in Indiana that would represent its town hope you have the same spark in in 2011, a nearly 10 percent — and who better to represent your eyes that Charles did.’” She increase from 2010’s 654 deaths. Rome City, North said, than Gene added, “We don’t know anything, Zoeller said the U.S. Centers Stratton-Porter? but who knows, there may have for Disease Control and PrevenThe quilt is pieced with been a little something between tion declared two years ago green fabric blocks and aptly them.” that prescription drug overdose named “Swamp Angel,” after The family connection deaths have become a national Stratton-Porter’s nickname. continued with North’s mother, epidemic and Indiana is part of that North did not design the blocks Jeannette Shull, who never knew disturbing trend. herself, but created the pattern the author personally. She was “When they claim it’s an for the quilt, using earth-tones — a gardener at the Gene Strattonepidemic that’s not just an burgundy, green and gold — and Porter State Historical Site for 15 adjective, that’s an alarm system flowers to represent Stratton-Poryears. that says we’ve now reached a ter’s love of nature. North made her own conneccertain crisis stage and people have tion with the Gene Stratton-Porter SEE QUILT, PAGE A5 to take immediate steps,” he said.
Barber pole still spins in spite of retirement BY BOB BRALEY bbraley@kpcmedia.com
AVILLA — In an era when the community barber shop is fading from existence in many communities, Avilla’s is continuing. Steve Workman, who has been cutting hair at Steve’s Barber Shop since 1981, has retired from barbering following a stroke in 2012. In some places, that’s meant a barber shop would close, but not in Avilla. Joe Silva of Garrett has opened the Hoosier Barber Shop in the same storefront, continuing a tradition dating back decades. Steve Workman has lived in
Avilla since he was 2 years old, Steve’s wife, Becky Workman, said. Steve said he always wanted to be a barber. He attended the Indiana Barber College in Indianapolis in 1963, his wife said. “He cut hair in Fort Wayne when he first got out of barber school,” she said. That continued until he was drafted into the military in 1966 and served until 1968. On Steve Workman’s return from service, he went back to same shop in Fort Wayne and worked there until 1972, when SEE BARBER, PAGE A5
BOB BRALEY
Joe Silva, left, is now cutting hair in the former Steve’s Barber Shop in downtown Avilla. Silva is renting the business from retired barber Steve Workman.