EVANSVILLE, Ind. – With summer workouts on the horizon, University of Evansville Head Men’s Basketball Coach David Ragland has announced the signing of Gui Tesch. The 6-foot-9 forward will be a freshman for the Purple Aces in 2023-24.
“We would love to welcome our final piece of the 2023-24 roster, Gul Tesch.  Gui is a very talented player that’s even a better person,†Ragland explained.  “He has proven to succeed here in the states over the past 4 years both academically and athletically.  Gui will add to our roster more height, skill and shooting which were all necessary characteristics our staff sought after during the spring recruiting cycle.â€
Tesch spent his senior season playing at the IMG Academy following his time at North Broward Prep. Over the course of his high school career, Tesch averaged 14.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. His junior season at North Broward saw him finish with an average of 16 points and 5 boards.
“Gui shoots the ball from beyond the arch well with range.  He can also handle the ball and make decisions that best suit the team.  Gui has competed and been successful with and against some of the best players in the world,†Ragland added.  “He not only has an extremely high-level skillset but also a work ethic that matches.  Our staff looks forward to working with Gui to expand his game and our fans will love watching him evolve over the next 4 years.â€
The native of Brazil represented his country in the 2022 FIBA Americas Championship in Mexico. He led his team with a 23-point, 11-rebound performance against the Dominican Republic while recording 8 points and 5 rebounds over the course of the tournament. Tesch is set to represent Brazil once again in June when he will take part in the FIBA U19 World Cup. Running from June 24 through July 2, the tournament will be held in Debrecen, Hungary.
He also participated in the U18 South American Championship where he recorded an average of 10.6 points and 4.2 caroms per game.
FOOTNOTE: Â EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT information was provided by the EPD and posted by the City-County-County Observer without opinion, bias, or editing.
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.Â
I join my fellow Hoosiers in offering gratitude for the service and sacrifice of these men and women.
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.
“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.â€
Strangely, “the woke mobâ€â€”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?â€
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.
Memorial Day observances and events across the country
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.
 Right to Life of Southwest Indiana to Host Annual BanquetÂ
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.Â
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.Â
“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.â€Â
For ticket information, call the office at 812-474-3195 or visit the website at rtlswin.org.Â
