The University of Evansville’s William L. Ridgway College of Arts and Sciences Department of Music has announced the upcoming investiture of Timothy Zifer, DMA, as the holder of the University’s Oramay Cluthe Eades Distinguished Professorship in Music. The ceremony is planned for Saturday, March 2, at 1:30 p.m. in Neu Chapel.

The Oramay Cluthe Eades Distinguished Professorship in Music was established through a generous gift to UE from the Eades Foundation. Oramay Cluthe Eades and her husband, Alvin Q. Eades, were longtime supporters of the University of Evansville and benefactors of its Department of Music.

Cluthe Eades was a graduate of Combs Conservatory in Philadelphia with majors in harp and piano. She was the originator of the Cluthe School of Music in Cluthe Hall in 1924. The Cluthe School became affiliated with Evansville College in 1940. All advanced students matriculated into Evansville College and the young students remained at Cluthe Hall, which later became known as the EC Preparatory School of Music. The Cluthe School was donated to Evansville College by Cluthe Eades in 1942. The prep school moved onto campus in 1962 when Krannert Hall of Art and Music was completed.

Cluthe Eades presented a memo to the Evansville College Board of Trustees with the recommendation to create an Evansville School of Music. She offered to serve as director of the school free of charge for three years until the school was self-sufficient. Her reasoning for transitioning her private school into a civic one was that a civic school would be more permanent; it would gain the support of more people and make possible a larger, more complete school; and that by making the school known as a nonprofit educational institution, public-spirited citizens would make bequests to the school.

Cluthe Eades wanted the new school to have membership in the National Association of Schools of Music. The present faculty has been selected with that end in view and is acceptable to the National Association.

Zifer, a UE professor of music, earned his bachelor’s degree in music education from Ohio University, his master’s degree in trumpet performance from Louisiana State University, and his doctorate in trumpet performance with a minor in wind conducting from Louisiana State University.

Zifer teaches courses in applied trumpet, UE Jazz Ensembles, UE Trumpet Ensemble, jazz studies, and music management courses. He received the Dean’s Teaching Award in 2010. Zifer is the principal trumpet of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and is an active soloist and recitalist. He also serves as the principal trumpet and founding member of the Shepard Brass (UE faculty brass quintet). Most recently, Zifer recorded Robert Russell Bennett’s Rose Variations with the UE Wind Ensemble on their CD recording project.

Prior to taking over the jazz studies program, Zifer served as director of bands (1996-2008). During this time the University of Evansville wind ensemble toured over 20 states and appeared at the 2001 International Trumpet Guild Conference, competed in the 2002 International Hawaiian Music Festival, and performed at the 2006 and 2008 Indiana Music Educators Association conventions.

The UE Jazz Ensemble I has performed and competed at the prestigious Elmhurst College Jazz Festival from 2008 to the present, having received two honorable mentions, outstanding soloist award, and recognition for an original composition by a student. The UE Jazz Ensemble I has hosted numerous internationally acclaimed musicians during the past few years, including trumpeters Doc Severinsen and Allen Vizzutti, vocalists Diane Schuur and The New York Voices, and drummer Max Weinberg.

The UE Jazz Ensemble also hosts an annual Jazz Band Invitational bringing in over 13 high school and college jazz bands from across the tri-state area.

The UE Trumpet Ensemble has performed at the 2001 and 2004 International Trumpet Guild Conferences, the 2011 University of Kentucky TrumpetFest, and the 2015 Orvieto TrumpetFest in Orvieto Italy.

In 2001, Zifer served as the conference host for the International Trumpet Guild Conference on the campus of UE. The conference brought in over 800 attendees from around the world and featured recitals, lectures, exhibits, and clinics by some of the world’s leading trumpet professionals.

Marilyn Odendahl for www.theindinalawyer.com

A case involving a brownfield cleanup and a question of when a claim for recovery of costs can be brought met a skeptical Indiana Supreme Court Thursday, when the justices quizzed both sides on the meaning and implication of the state’s Environmental Legal Action statute.

The court heard oral arguments Feb. 21 to decide if it would grant transfer to Elkhart Foundry & Machine Company, Inc. v. City of Elkhart Redevelopment Commission, 20A03-1602-CT-02136.

At issue is a long debate over the statute of limitations for bringing a claim under the ELA. Indiana Code section 34-11-2-7 established a six-year limit, but an amendment that created I.C. 34-11-2-11.5 has been seen as providing a 10-year statute of limitations.

The city of Elkhart Redevelopment Commission filed a lawsuit in 2016 against the Elkhart Foundry & Machine Co., Inc., for cleaning up the foundry’s former industrial site. Contaminants found on the 6.8 acres include arsenic, lead and chromium. Also, lead, fluoranthene and pyrene was found to be impacting the sediment of the nearby Elkhart River.

However, Elkhart Foundry argued the lawsuit was time-barred. It asserted the city had six years to file a claim from 2007, when it first learned of the contamination. The city countered that subsection 11.5 creates a 10-year statute of limitations that is triggered when the cleanup costs are incurred.

The Elkhart Superior Court agreed with the city, and the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed.

Before the Supreme Court, attorney Erik Mroz, representing the foundry, said the Court of Appeals decision leads to an absurd result of a statute of limitations that essentially limits nothing.

“When I learn I have an actual fileable claim, I have 6 years to file that lawsuit, and when I file that lawsuit, the court just looks back 10 years,” said Mroz, partner at Drewry Simmons Vornehm LLP in Carmel. “My point is, without a hard and fast deadline to file the lawsuit, we don’t have a statute of limitations under the ELA. And if the Indiana Legislature did not want there to be a statute of limitations under the ELA, they could have just said so.”

Justice Mark Massa jumped in and asked why, if subsection 11.5 is not a statute of limitations, did the Legislature include it under the heading of statute of limitations? Joining that line of questioning, Chief Justice Loretta Rush pushed Mroz on the ELA versus the Underground Storage Tank Act. She cited Pflanz v. Foster, 888 N.E.2d 756 (Ind. 2008), and asked why the General Assembly would have one statute of limitations – here, 10 years – for cost recovery claims under the UST and a different one for the ELA.

Mroz responded, “It is our position that the plain and ordinary meaning of (subsection) 11.5 indicates that the Legislature did not abrogate the six-year statute of limitations for property damage claims.”

Justice Geoffrey Slaughter tested Elkhart’s argument, sparring with attorney Brent Huber before he even formally introduced himself to the court. He argued the ELA provision is unlike the others in the chapter in that it does not talk about when the claim accrues and when the lawsuit must be brought.

Huber, partner at Ice Miller LLP, maintained the ELA is action for contribution. The statute of limitations begins running when costs are incurred, not when the contamination was first known. Just knowing about the contamination does not trigger to statute of limitations’ clock.

Slaughter said, “My quibble with you is that those aren’t the words that the Legislature used, and I guess that prompts the question, ‘What is it that qualifies as law?’”

Huber responded, “I would submit that it is the words in the statute.”

Slaughter punched back, “But the words don’t help you here.”

Huber replied, “The courts have also recognized that you can consider the titles and the headings and the location of the statute, certainly the timing of the statute. If you look at all of those things, it’s quite clear that this was intended to be a statute of limitations.”

Slaughter reiterated, “The question for us is, ‘Does the intention matter or do the words matter?’”

Huber argued, “It would have no effect whatsoever if it was not a statute of limitations.”

Slaughter countered, “Well, no. it would have effect. It would simply be treated as (Mroz) suggests that there’s a 10-year lookback for these costs that your client is seeking to recover. It’s either subject to a six-year statute of limitations because as we said in (Cooper Indus. LLC v. City of South Bend, 899, N.E.2d 1274 (Ind. 2009)), it’s a claim about property damage. Or, even if you think the Legislature was repealing that part of Cooper too, then there’s a 10-year catch-all statute of limitations. It’s not as though there’s no statute of limitations.”

Huber responded, “In that situation, your honor, subsection (c) of 11.5 would have no meaning whatsoever because it clearly gives the plaintiff the right to recover 10 years’ worth of cost, and you simply cannot incur recoverable costs without knowing about the contamination.”