Students in 1^st and 2^nd grades will enthusiastically help launch the 2019 Don’s Claytons Coat-A-Kid campaign on October 29^that 8:15 a.m. at Delaware Elementary School in Evansville, Indiana. And making his debut at the event will be the newly revamped Ace Purple, official mascot for the University of Evansville. In past years, kick-off locations for Coat-A-Kid have included Fairlawn, Glenwood Leadership Academy, Caze, Harwood, Lincoln, Culver, and many other schools. At each Coat-A-Kid kickoff, 95-110 students have received winter coats.

Since its implementation at the local level, the Coat-A-Kid initiative has distributed over 150,000 coats throughout the community. Bryan Schmitt, President of Don’s Claytons DCI Fine DryCleaning, is committed to annually providing a winter coat for every child who needs one. Each year, from October through December, community members are invited to bring gently used and new coats to any Don’s Claytons location. The coats are cleaned, if needed, and distributed to area infants, children, and teens via the Salvation Army, Evansville Christian Life Center, and in Boonville, at Hope Central.

Bryan Schmitt notes nearly 5000 coats were donated to the 2018 Coat-A-Kid campaign.

Renowned physicist Melba Phillips, alumnae of Oakland City College, will be honored Friday, Nov. 1, with a historical marker on the campus of Oakland City University.     

 Dr. Phillips had established her credentials as a master teacher and scientist. She helped organize the founding of the Federation of American Scientists in 1945. She was the first woman to be president of the American Association of Physics Teachers in 1966. Last year, the American Physical Society gave her its Joseph Burton Forum Award for her education work and for being “a model of a principled scientist.”

  She was one of the first doctoral students of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the effort to build the first atomic bomb. In 1935, they published an explanation for the unexpected behavior of accelerated nuclei of “heavy hydrogen” atoms, which became known as the Oppenheimer-Phillips effect. 

  Jobs were scarce for academics during the Depression and scarcer for women working in science, so Dr. Phillips held a series of temporary jobs before she landed her first permanent position at Brooklyn College in 1938. 

During the McCarthy era, Dr. Phillips was teaching at Brooklyn College in 1952, with a part-time position at the Columbia University Radiation Laboratory. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s internal security subcommittee, which was investigating some of her friends and colleagues, summoned her to testify. She appeared but refused to answer the subcommittee’s questions.

 After her 1952 firing and five years of unemployment, she wrote two textbooks, “Principles of Physical Science” (1957), with Francis Bonner, and “Classical Electricity and Magnetism” (1955), with W.K.H. Panofsky, which is still used in undergraduate and graduate physics classes. She also edited books on the history of physics. she became associate director of a teacher-training institute at Washington University in St. Louis. She joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1962 and worked there until her retirement 10 years later. Under her influence, the university began teaching physical science courses to non-science majors. 

 

The open-enrollment period for Medicare coverage in 2020 is Oct. 15, 2019, to Dec. 7, 2019. Attorney General Curtis Hill is warning Hoosiers to take precautions in order to avoid becoming victims of Medicare-related scams.

Here are a few tips to avoid scams this open-enrollment season:

• Government agencies will rarely, if ever, call you. If they do, it will be after they send you a letter – or to return a call you made to them.
• Anyone who tries to sell you Medicare insurance while claiming to be an “official Medicare agent” is a scammer. There are no Medicare sales representatives.
• Be vigilant for mailers that appear to be government communications but are actually advertisements for private companies. These documents sometimes will have a disclaimer, but the disclaimer will be in tiny font. Read carefully!
• The Medicare prescription drug plan (also known as Part D) is voluntary. Ignore anyone who calls saying you must join their prescription plan or you will lose your Medicare coverage.
• Never give anyone who unexpectedly calls or approaches you information such as your Medicare, bank account, credit card or Social Security number. Scammers can use your information, steal your identity, get credit in your name, and take your money. Anyone who tells you that you must provide personal information to keep your coverage is a scammer.
• Don’t trust caller ID. Scammers use technology to hide their real numbers and instead show numbers that seem legitimate. So if the caller ID shows a 202 area code or says “government” or “Washington DC,” don’t take that at face value. It could be anyone calling from anywhere.