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Vanderburgh County Arrest Warrants

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Courier Warrants

Vanderburgh County Crash Report

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CrashReport

Remembering America’s Fallen Heroes

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Remembering America’s Fallen Heroes

State Representative Wendy McNamara

This Memorial Day, let us reflect on the military members who made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting our great nation.

There are many ways we can honor their service, like visiting a veterans’ cemetery, memorial or museum, and offering support through veterans organizations. We can also take part in the annual National Moment of Remembrance. At 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day, Americans are encouraged to take a minute of silence to reflect on the freedoms our heroes fought to give us. It is also important to impart the significance of this holiday on future generations so that these service members are not forgotten.

Locally, there will be two Memorial Day events in Evansville at Locust Hill Cemetery at 10:00 a.m. and Oak Hill Cemetery at 11:00 a.m. on Monday. 

I join my fellow Hoosiers in offering gratitude for the service and sacrifice of these men and women.

The Growing Challenges Teachers Face

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The Growing Challenges Teachers Face

  • By Diana Hadley, Special to TheStatehouseFile.com

My husband just completed 51 years as a science educator at the middle school and college levels. That number plus my 47 years as a high school and college journalism/language arts teacher totals almost 100 years in education as a couple.

Photo Of Diana Hadley

Our transitions from teaching to other chapters are bittersweet. Sure, there were challenging times, but the overall experience was positive, and we will miss it. We have great memories working with our colleagues, our students and their parents, and we have stayed in contact with many of them years after they were part of our professional lives.

We are pleased when our students become teachers but troubled that their circumstances don’t provide the satisfaction we experienced. It is important to understand why many are leaving the profession sometimes just a couple of years from when they entered it. What is different?

Some describe the challenges the pandemic created when they had to provide classes through technology rather than in person. Watching my grandson’s kindergarten teacher keep a classroom of five-year-olds on task for hours each day through Zoom was amazing. She did it, but it could not have been as rewarding for her or the children as interacting in person.

Since the pandemic, teachers worry about their students’ mental wellness and lack of interpersonal skills.

In addition, attacks on education have made teachers feel they are not respected for what they do. More and more they fear that the curriculum they develop may be challenged and they may lose their jobs over the standards-based lessons they teach.

The fact that teacher salaries and benefits are not keeping up with professionals in other areas also leads them to consider other career options.

Competition between public, charter, and private schools that some claim creates better schools —though much research shows this is not the case—results in funding and accountability concerns that can create more inequality rather than eliminate it.

Professional days for teachers and field trips that inspire students are limited today. I had students consider colleges they visited and careers they saw in person thanks to field trips.

High-stakes testing provides stress and questionable benefits as more engaging lessons are scrapped to prepare for tests. My husband’s Galileo Day, a lesson during which students donated items such as watermelons and old bowling balls to drop from the roof of the school, may not have helped prepare for a standardized test, but the activity helped students understand a science lesson with enjoyable, experience-based memories.

The recent book bans may be the last straw for many teachers as they remove high-interest selections from their shelves and limit the world students can explore. Only one parent challenged a book during my 33 years at the high school level, and my yearbook, newspaper, and broadcast students reported about topics that interested them without fear of censorship as long as their coverage was accurate, responsible, and fair.

My grandmother was a teacher in a small rural school in the early 1900s. She had 44 first and second-graders in her class one year. There were few resources, but she was trusted to create lesson plans based on her expertise that would help students learn without government oversight and high-stakes testing.

Talking about the old days isn’t usually the best direction forward, but today’s teachers and students would appreciate the old days of academic freedom and the joy of learning together.

Over the past two decades, legislators who have a super majority of power but little or no experience in education have made education policy decisions that have caused the negative results above.

Many teachers have lobbied for educational issues at the Statehouse where few teachers serve as legislators. We have had requests for meetings ignored. We have met people who traveled to testify only to be told to there isn’t time to hear them. We have seen amendments added at the last minute that destroys a good bill. And we have worked for a bill for months only to see it sabotaged the last week of the session as we scan the tally sheet of legislators who had indicated their support for it.

The process can be heartbreaking.

However, as my husband and I leave the classroom and retire our red pens and lab coats, we will continue to visit the Statehouse to try to influence legislation that supports teachers and students.

Please join us.

It won’t be nearly as much fun as teaching—but every bit as important.

FOOTNOTE: Diana Hadley is a retired educator.

DeSantis, Daniels, And Fights Rather Than Solutions

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DeSantis, Daniels, And Fights Rather Than Solutions

When Mitch Daniels, then Indiana’s governor, was pondering a presidential run, he famously called for “a truce on the so-called social issues.”

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

“We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while” to focus on budget and economic issues Daniels said in a magazine profile done on him in 2010.

That comment produced a backlash from social conservatives then and gained new life again earlier this year when Daniels was considering a 2024 Senate candidacy.

U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana—a darling of former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement who now has been anointed by the GOP’s hierarchy as the party’s Senate candidate next year—chided Daniels for daring to think that, maybe just maybe, solving a problem might be preferable to starting a fight.

The uproar over Daniels’ “truce” comment seemed to demonstrate the ascendant power of social conservatives within the Republican Party. If members of the social-issues crowd could cow and then ultimately drive away a figure as formidable and contrary as Daniels—likely the most gifted conservative politician and political thinker of this era—then they held the whip hand within the GOP.

Theirs, though, may prove to be a costly dominance.

Another Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, also for a long time has been mulling a campaign for the White House. He is expected to announce his candidacy within the next few days.

DeSantis has elevated his national profile by establishing himself as perhaps the political arena’s premier conservative culture warrior. He has embraced the most draconian restrictions on reproductive rights and abortion. He has worked tirelessly to marginalize and oppress citizens—even children—who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

In service of these causes, DeSantis has sought to restrict what students can read, what teachers can teach, and what everyone can say.

He does all this, he says, to wage war against the depredations of what he calls “the woke mob.”

Strangely, “the woke mob”—whatever that is—doesn’t seem to be using the power of government to tell people how to live their lives, protect their health or even think their thoughts.

No, that’s the work of a supposed—or at least self-proclaimed—small-government conservative such as DeSantis.

As part of his holy war against everything “woke,” DeSantis also attacked The Walt Disney Company.

Disney is the largest single-site employer not just in Florida but in the entire world. More than 75,000 people work for Disney in central Florida.

That didn’t deter DeSantis.

He was upset because Disney criticized the “don’t say gay” law DeSantis championed. DeSantis vowed payback. He began stripping away tax protections Disney enjoyed and needled the huge company in various other ways, confident that he was the one in the power position.

Disney retaliated first by suing him and the state of Florida.

Then, to remind the governor and other MAGA acolytes that power does not reside exclusively in the political arena, Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive officer, announced that the company was pulling the plug on a planned $1 billion development in the Sunshine State. That development would have created at least 2,000 new jobs in Florida.

Iger suggested in his statement announcing the cancellation that he and Disney were going to look for another state to invest their money and establish livelihoods for thousands of people.

Presumably, that state will be one led by a governor more interested in solving problems than starting fights.

DeSantis’ aides have been telling political reporters that he plans to build his presidential campaign around a theme—that he wants to make America like Florida.

I’m guessing that he does not mean that he intends to chase away businesses and cost hardworking people good jobs, but who knows?

Daniels, by the way, offered, all those years ago, a rationale for suggesting a truce in America’s culture wars.

“If there were a WMD attack, death would come to straights and gays, pro-life and pro-choice,” Daniels said. “If the country goes broke, it would ruin the American dream for everyone. We are in this together. Whatever our honest disagreements on other questions, might we set them aside long enough to do some very difficult things without which we will be a different, lesser country?”

Wise words then.

Wise words now.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.

More Than 200 Free Memorial Day Observances And Events Across The Country

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More than 200 free Memorial Day observances and events will take place across the country over Memorial Day Weekend.

More Than 200 Free Memorial Day Observances And Events Across The Country

May 29, 2023

By Erik Dahlgren, Communications Specialist, Veterans Experience Office

Memorial Day is always officially designated as the last Monday in May. This year, Memorial Day is on Monday, May 29. On this day and the days leading up to it, Americans from across the country will gather at cemeteries and memorials to honor and remember the service members who gave the last full measure of devotion.

VA is hosting Memorial Day ceremonies at VA National Cemeteries and invites everyone to join Veterans and their families at these events, which will take place over Memorial Day weekend. The laying of flags and poppies and the moments of silence broken by the sounding of Taps will ensure that the sacrifices of these heroes are never forgotten. A full listing of more than 200 free ceremonies and other community Memorial Day events can be found below.

Additionally, 38 VA national cemeteries are featured at stops along the 20,000-mile relay march organized by Carry The Load.

Those who can’t attend events in person may also honor a fallen service member by leaving a tribute on the Veterans Legacy Memorial site. There you can view Veterans’ stories, decorations, and internment locations for each of the 4.5 million Veterans interred at VA national cemeteries, VA grant-funded state, territorial or tribal Veterans’ cemeteries, and certain National Park Service national cemeteries.

Also, check out this listing of year-round Veterans’ discounts with special Memorial Day discounts available at Walgreens and the National WWI Museum and Memorial.

FOOTNOTE:  We update this list often, and event information does change. Verify event details with the host organization or location if possible.

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Puerto Rico

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

May 27, 8:15 a.m. MDT – Vets Talking to Vets at the National Museum of Military Vehicles – Dubois, Wyoming

 

 Right to Life of Southwest Indiana to Host Annual Banquet 

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 Right to Life of Southwest Indiana to Host Annual Banquet 

MAY 29, 2023

Evansville, IN – Right to Life of Southwest Indiana will host its annual banquet at Old National Events Plaza on Thursday, August 10, 2023, with actor Kirk Cameron as the keynote speaker. Cameron, known for the television show Growing Pains, co-produced the film Lifemark, which premiered in the fall of 2022. The film shows the value of the life of the unborn through the adoption story of David Scotton. Scotton, now an attorney and adoption advocate, will also appear at the banquet. 

The banquet draws nearly 3,000 guests annually and serves as the organization’s primary fundraising event. These funds support programs and projects such as installing and maintaining Safe Haven Baby Boxes at local fire departments, providing thousands of diapers to local pregnancy resource centers, educating students and empowering them to make healthy life choices, and unveiling the Go Mobile Clinic, a traveling pregnancy resource center which provides free services to women seeking pregnancy care in underserved areas within Southwest Indiana. 

“Right to Life has always been pro-life and pro-woman,” says Mary Ellen Van Dyke, executive director for RTLSWIN. “With the fall of Roe v. Wade, our organization is moving to expand its reach to help moms facing unplanned pregnancies through tangible means such as the Go Mobile Clinic, support of local pregnancy centers and programs that support those who have had abortions.” 

For ticket information, call the office at 812-474-3195 or visit the website at rtlswin.org. 

An Indiana town that railroads built, then abandoned, is now just a name on a map

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An Indiana town that railroads built, then abandoned, is now just a name on a map

By Elijah Roberson, TheStatehouseFile.com

Google Maps has labeled a random, lonely field just west of Trafalgar “Anita.” But what’s Anita, and why have you never heard of it?

It may seem as if there is a community there, but all that remains now are some railroad tracks. One hundred years ago, this empty field was a bustling center of commerce and an integral part of Johnson County. But where did it all go?

Before the invention of the car, the railroad was the king of transportation. Railroad stations were the foundation of many communities because people looked to capitalize on the influx of travelers. Anita was no different.

In 1906, the now-defunct Indianapolis Southern Railway built a station just west of the small community of Trafalgar. This station would allow people in the area to catch a train to Indianapolis, a trip that would take about two-and-a-half hours. With the lack of major roads, a trip to Indy by any other method would take significantly longer.

But the station needed a name.

A girl named Anita

Ray S. Blinn, a civil engineer who had helped find an ideal location for the stop, proposed naming the station Anita after his infant daughter, Anita Blinn. It was accepted, and Anita, Indiana, was born.

His daughter, now known as Anita Blinn Wenger, later recounted the story in a 1960 letter.

“When I was a little girl in Ohio, my father … told me he had been locating a railroad in Indiana and that he had named a station stop after me,” Wegner wrote. “I grew up knowing that a town was named for me. I was very proud of it.”

From a station to a town

The station opened for business in 1906. According to Harvey Jacobs in “We Came Rejoicing: A Personal Memoir of the Years of Peace,” you could catch a train to Indianapolis twice a day—there was one at 7:25 a.m. and one at 10:22 a.m. Both were almost always on time.

People flocked to Anita, and the area became a hub for business. During the day, the village was never quiet.

David Pfeiffer, director of the Johnson County Museum of History, describes how trains would often make or break towns at the turn of the century.

“It sort of built up around this train station,” Pfeiffer said. “There’s a farming community there, there was a general store there, but it’s really about that train. … I think these different train lines periodically needed places to stop for their trains, and places kind of sprung up [around them].”

Not only did trains provide an easy way to get to Indy, but they also became important for local farmers, who could easily ship their goods to the markets in Indianapolis.

On any given day, farmers could be seen loading large metal milk containers onto a nearby train with the help of some of the railroad workers. The station also boasted a wheat elevator, which allowed for easy shipment of the grain.

Anita quickly grew from a simple station into a thriving farm community. Not only did the area become more populated with farmers and houses, but events were also held in and around the station for the locals. The most popular were dances held in the streets on summer nights, including live music and big pitch-in dinners.

Money over community

The station changed ownership in 1911. Its previous owner, the Indianapolis Southern Railway, had failed to pay interest to the Illinois Central Railroad on a bond that the Indianapolis Southern had issued.

The railroad couldn’t pay the interest, and the station was foreclosed. It was bought out by Illinois Central, a railroad behemoth that was more focused on national business than the business of a small farming community.

Things went on as normal for a while. The trains still stopped at the station, and commerce continued to flow unaffected. However, the Illinois Central did not see the value in the small station that the Indianapolis Southern Railway did.

At some point in the late 1920s, residents in the area saw a high-end, glass-enclosed train car making visits to the station: executives from the Illinois Central Railroad. This sparked rumors that the Anita station would be closed.

Fearing their biggest source of income may be ripped away, the community banded together and created a petition to prevent the Illinois Central executives from shutting down the station.

Forty to 50 people signed the petition and sent it off to the executives. The response they received back was surprising.

The executives said they had no plans on shutting down the station and added, “You can ship and receive as usual and the same number of freight trains will be available as always.” The town rejoiced. Their station was saved—or so they thought.

Despite what the executives said, they had no plans for keeping the Anita station alive for long. It simply did not bring in enough money to keep it operating as a passenger stop.

The first step towards axing the station was turning it into a flag stop. A flag stop was one at which trains did not have to stop. Trains would only stop there if someone on the platform or on the tracks flagged them down.

Nobody alerted the station that this would happen. An auditor simply arrived one day and told the station master, “I have come to check you out.” That was the only warning he received before he was fired and Anita became a flag stop.

From there, the station continued operations, but the town could see the writing on the wall. Anita’s station would not last. Now farmers had to flag down trains to ship goods, and passengers bound for Indy had to do the same thing. There was no guarantee a train would stop.

In 1936, the foreman received a notice to vacate the station. All operations at Anita Station were to cease, and the station buildings were to be abandoned, it read. With the closing of the main point of commerce in the town, Anita was quickly forgotten.

“That was really what held the area together.” Pfeiffer said, “It was a bit more isolated, and without that anchor, the community died out.”

Keeping the spirit of Anita alive

By the 1960s, there was no evidence the town even existed, but it did continue to appear on maps.

That is, until the late ’80s when Johnson County cartographer John Jackson considered removing the name from the map, as there really wasn’t anything there anyway.

Local resident William Hendley would not allow that to happen. He called Jackson to try to convince him to keep the name alive, but he upset him by calling at such a late hour.

Hendley never lived in the town during its heyday, but he had fond memories of exploring the site.

“When I was younger, I had soil maps from 1927 that showed the number of structures in Anita. I used to pace off where the buildings were and tried to map out all of the houses,” Hendley told The Daily Journal in 1989.

Hendley and numerous others who had fond memories of Anita petitioned to keep the town’s name on the map. They somehow convinced State Rep. Woody Burton to introduce a resolution to keep Anita on the state map indefinitely.

“Some of that stuff just gets blown by the wayside. But our kids need to be able to see a little bit of the past,” Burton told The Daily Journal. “It doesn’t cost anybody anything, and I think it’s a good thing,”

Not only was Anita kept on the map, but Gov. Evan Bayh also proclaimed May 12 to be Village of Anita Day. The area even got a sign, thanks to fundraising efforts by Hendley and his group.

But the marker was later stolen. A new one was erected outside of the Johnson County Courthouse but has yet to return to the location of Anita. It currently sits in storage at the Johnson County Museum of History.

The remnants of Anita

If you go to the site of Anita today, you won’t find much of anything. The railroad is still there but without the stop. It’s now operated by the Indiana Rail Road.

The station sat abandoned for years before being converted into a house and moved to Trafalgar, where it still stands today. The other buildings were torn down or moved over the years.

All that remains are a few newer houses, but there’s no indication that the site used to be a town.

While there may be nothing there now—not even a sign—the spirit of the town will live on forever because of the diligent work of those who cared about the community.

Otters close road trip with win over Capitales

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Quebec City, Quebec, Can. – The Evansville Otters used balanced hitting and a quality start from Tim Holdgrafer on their way to a 6-2 victory Sunday evening over the Quebec Capitales.

Holdgrafer led the Otters on the mound with seven innings of work, holding the Capitales to just two runs. He allowed seven hits but just one extra base hit and no walks while adding six strikeouts. He did it all with just 63 pitches on Sunday.

The San Diego native earns his third win of the season – all quality starts with at least six innings allowing three runs or less.

Evansville had a balanced offensive performance with nine hits coming from eight different batters.

The Otters scored first for the 13th consecutive game with two runs in the first. Noah Myers led off with a triple that bounced off the center field wall. Dakota Phillips brought him home on a single and Troy Viola knocked in Phillips with an RBI hit.

Quebec scratched across one in the first and another in the fourth to tie the game at 2-2.

Evansville took the lead for good in the fifth after Ethan Skender and Jacob Olson each had base hits when Kona Quiggle added a two RBI double as part of a three run inning.

The Otters extended the lead to four with one more run in the sixth. Evansville worked four walks with one scoring on an RBI sacrifice fly from Skender.

After Holdgrafer exited, the bullpen earned the final six outs at CANAC Stadium. James Krick and Jake Polancic each worked perfect innings to secure the Otters their first ever victory in Quebec City.

Jacob Olson had a two-hit day while Dakota Phillips extended his hit streak to 12 games.

Evansville finishes the road trip 3-3 with a 10-5 overall record. They are one game behind Gateway for first place in the Frontier League West.

Supporting Hoosier Veterans

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Supporting Hoosier Veterans

By State Senatoe Vaneta Becker
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