After years of serving the public, Bev bids farewell

By Joseph Slacian jslacian@thepaperofwabash.com

Bev Vanderpool never applied for a job in her life.

In spite of that, she’s worked at several places, including O.J. Neighbours Elementary School and Wabash City Hall. Her working days came to an end on Friday, Feb. 24, when she officially retired as administrative assistant to Mayor Scott Long.

A lifelong Wabash resident, Vanderpool was attending International Business College in Fort Wayne when she got a job at General Tire.

“I got hired right out of college,” she told The Paper of Wabash County during a recent interview.

She left there to raise a family with her husband, Jon. As her children grew, she took a job at Daywalt Pharmacy.

“I was vice president of PTO at OJ Neighbours and we were chinking the log school house and (former principal) David Sodervick asked me, ‘Hey, do you want a job?’”

She served as secretary at Neighbours for 28 ½ years when Long approached her about working for the city.

“Mayor Long got elected around the third of November and he came to the Veteran’s Day program,” she said. “His grandson, I believe, was in the program. I had the first graders out in the hallway, and they were passing out programs. Every time someone would come in they would say Happy Veterinarians Day. I’d say, ‘no, it’s Veterans Day.’

“Mayor Long came in and I said this is our new mayor for Wabash. I helped him find a seat and went back to work. He came out of the program and started out of the door, then stopped and came back in and asked me if I had a piece of paper. He came in and asked me if I had a piece of paper. I gave it to him and he wrote a note that said would you come to work as my assistant? Well, my co-workers said my face just turned bright red. He said, call me.

“So, I called him and I said, ‘I don’t know anything about running a city.’ He said, ‘If you can run a school, you can run a city. So, after his third visit to O.J. Neighbours I came to work for him. It was the best decision I could have ever made. I told him I’m kind of retirement age, so I’ll give you four years. Cont. on Pg. 11.

The Task Force will consist of representatives and experts from area economic development and business groups, broadband service providers, elected officials, and other community leaders committed to deploying fast, reliable broadband access to all Wabash County residents and businesses.

“Today more than ever, access to high-quality broadband is critical to how we do business, communicate with our friends and family, educate our students, provide healthcare, and overall quality of life. Providing broadband service to our underserved areas will create economic development opportunities and allow our community to compete for business opportunities and be a magnet for talent,” said Commissioner Barry Eppley.

The Wabash County Broadband Task Force recently had its first meeting to discuss broadband resources and its goals/plans to close the digital divide in the community. These resources can be found on the Imagine One 85 website that serves as an information hub for residents and businesses, along with hosting the Wabash County - Farm Bureau Speed Test. The Task Force will also serve as a working group to leverage state and federal broadband grant opportunities.

“We strongly encourage residents and businesses to leverage these resources that lack broadband access. These resources include discounts on the cost of internet service and possible infrastructure improvements at unserved/underserved locations. Additionally, we ask residents and businesses to take the speed test and challenge the FCC maps to leverage state and federal broadband infrastructure funds,” said Alex Downard, who is leading the Imagine One 85’s strategic implementation efforts.