WEDNESDAY August 28, 2013
New Look For Big Train Page B2 School board approves fresh logo
Back To Basic Football Page B1 Colts hope retro style brings title
Weather Chance of rain today with high of 88. Tonight’s low 65. Sunny Thursday and Friday. Page A6
GOOD MORNING Firefighters will ‘fill boot’ for MDA AUBURN — The Auburn Fire Department will collect money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association in its annual “Fill the Boot” campaign this week. Firefighters will be at the intersection of West Seventh Street and Touring Drive: • today from 9 a.m. to noon; • Thursday from 5-8 p.m.; and • Friday from 1-4 p.m.
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TV adds shine at Auctions America NBC Sports covering three days BY DAVE KURTZ dkurtz@kpcmedia.com
AUBURN — With three days of national TV coverage, Auctions America is gearing up to put on a good show this weekend with its annual collector car auction. The NBC Sports Network will carry the action live on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as auctioneers take bids on some 1,200 collectible vehicles. TV coverage is scheduled for Thursday from 8 p.m. to midnight, Friday 8-10 p.m. and Saturday 12:30-4 p.m., according to the
network’s website. “It adds a fun element to the sale. It makes it fun for people to be part of live TV. I think it will help grow Auburn — both spring and fall,” said Keith Koscak, auction manager for the giant sale at Auburn Auction Park. “It’s the best offering we’ve had in Auburn, both dollar-wise and in quality,” Koscak said about the lineup for this weekend’s sale. “One of the greatest things about this event is the diversity in the cars that are here. There’s
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
This 1930 Duesenberg Model J Murphy Convertible Coupe is expected to bring the highest bids in the Auctions America collector car sale this weekend at Auburn Auction Park. The SEE AUCTION, PAGE A6 auction company estimates its price at up to $1.6 million.
Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival
West targets Syria
Farmland value up even after drought WEST LAFAYETTE (AP) — The worst drought in nearly a quarter century didn’t stop Indiana farmland values from continuing to grow in 2012, a Purdue University study released Tuesday shows. High net farm income, low interest rates and high farmland demand with supply combined to increase land values upward by 14.7 percent to 19.1 percent, depending on productivity, according to the study. Farmland rental rates rose by about 10 percent. The drought sent corn and soybean prices soaring to all-time highs, the study said. Combined with crop insurance indemnities, that meant better-than-expected farm incomes. High-productivity land values jumped by 19.1 percent to $9,177 per acre, the study said. Average-productivity land increased 17.1 percent to $7,446 per acre, and poor-productivity land was up by 14.7 percent to $5,750 per acre. Cash rents for high-productivity land increased by 10.9 percent or $29 per acre. Rent for averagequality land was up by 10.1 percent, or $21 per acre, and rent for poor-quality land was up 9.4 percent, or $15 per acre. Land values, cash rents and farmland productivity were estimated for the study by surveying Indiana rural appraisers, agricultural loan officers, Farm Service Agency personnel, farm managers and farmers, Purdue said.
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Index
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Classifieds.................................B7-B8 Life..................................................... A5 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion .............................................B4 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A6 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 101 No. 237
Pressure building for military action
said. It had been decades since the plane last flew as a crop duster in Oregon. Allison’s Stearman began life as a trainer for World War II pilots. It was built as a standardized version to be used by either branch of service and was shipped in silver, ready to be painted in an Army or Navy color scheme “Mine did go to the Army Air Corps. However, I decided to restore it as it would have been when it left Boeing,” Allison said. Rebuilding the plane took eight years of searching for authentic parts and installing them. When Allison first flew the Stearman in September 2012, he said, he
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Momentum appeared to build Tuesday for Western military action against Syria, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position for a strike, while the government in Damascus vowed to use all possible measures to repel it. The prospect of a dramatic U.S.-led intervention into Syria’s civil war stemmed from the West’s assertion — still not endorsed by U.N. inspectors — that President Bashar Assad’s government was responsible for an alleged chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus on Aug. 21 that the group Doctors Without Borders says killed 355 people. Assad denies the claim. The Arab League also threw its weight behind calls for punitive action, blaming the Syrian government for the attack and calling for those responsible to be brought to justice. British Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament to hold an emergency vote Thursday on his country’s response. It is unlikely that any international military action would begin before then. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said U.S. military forces stand ready to strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order, and French President Francois Hollande said France was “ready to punish those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents.” Obama is weighing a response focused narrowly on punishing Assad for violating international agreements that ban the use of chemical weapons. Officials said the goal was not to drive Assad from power or impact the broader trajectory of Syria’s bloody civil war, now in its third year. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday the West should be under no illusion that bombing Syrian military targets would help end the violence in Syria, an ally of Moscow, and he pointed to the volatile situations in Iraq and Libya that he said resulted from foreign military intervention. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said his country would use “all means available” to defend itself. “We have the means to defend
SEE PLANE, PAGE A6
SEE SYRIA, PAGE A6
DAVE KURTZ
Phil Allison of Auburn restored this 1944 Stearman biplane that appears on the poster
for the 2013 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival, alongside a 1936 Auburn automobile.
THE PLANE ON THE POSTER Restored 1944 Stearman has connection to classic cars BY DAVE KURTZ dkurtz@kpcmedia.com
AUBURN — Just like every year, the 2013 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival poster features a classic car. This year, however, the Auburn automobile on the poster shares top billing with a vintage airplane. The 1936 Auburn car and 1944 Stearman flying machine have a lot in common — and not just that they live under the same roof. Poster artist John Souder selected fellow Auburn resident Rick James’ all-black Auburn as this year’s model for his artwork celebrating the festival’s Year of the Auburn. James keeps the car in a hangar at the DeKalb County Airport, alongside a business jet owned by his company, Metal Technologies. When Souder visited the hangar to photograph the “I literally car, he spotted the silver hauled it home Stearman biplane owned in a horse trailer.” by Metal Technologies’ pilot, Phil Allison. Souder saw the possibilities of a design featuring the car, the airplane and an image Phil Allison of the old Auburn Airport, Owns 1944 Stearman founded by former Auburn Automobile Co. president E.L. Cord. Allison would love to see an even greater recognition of the connections between Auburn Automobile Co. and aviation, he said Tuesday. E.L. Cord’s holding company owned Auburn Automobile and his aviation enterprises, Stinson Aircraft, Vultee Aircraft and American Airways — the forerunner of American Airlines. Most significantly, it owned Lycoming Engines, which built engines used in both the poster car and the airplane. Allison’s plane features a 9-cylinder Lycoming engine with 680 cubic inches of displacement, developing 225 horsepower. Allison said he always wanted a Stearman, and finally he found his as a “basket case” in Mount Pleasant, Mich., in 2004. “I literally hauled it home in a horse trailer,” he
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DAVE KURTZ
Phil Allison’s 1944 Stearman biplane was a trainer for military pilots in World War II, who learned to fly with a stick control.