Riverside Cookery, located in Casino Aztar’s Riverfront Pavilion, offers the best down-home cookin’ and Southern hospitality around. Chef Nick Walls invites you to try the recently unveiled new menu featuring tasty items such as the Hot Brown, an open-faced sandwich with turkey, bacon and tomatoes, topped with a creamy cheese sauce; Shrimp Po’Boy, crispy fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato, and house-made remoulade served on a hoagie roll; Smoked BBQ Ribs, slow-smoked barbequed Cajun spiced ribs; Tuna & Macaroni Salad, Albacore tuna, peppers, onion, macaroni and lettuce with a creamy herb dressing; Classic Ham & Beans with cornbread; Crispy Southern Fiddlers served with jalapeno hushpuppies; and the mouth-watering BBQ of the Day!

Breaded Alligator, The Beale Street Sampler, Frog Legs, Chicken & Dumplings, and other guest favorites are still available as well as the choice of delicious side items including mashed potatoes and gravy, brown sugar baked beans, cheesy grits, baked mac & cheese, cole slaw, cream-style corn, and collard greens. Be sure to try the amazing Gooey Turtle Cluster or Peach Cobbler ala mode for a memorable end to your meal.

Chef Nick Walls was recently promoted to Kitchen Manager overseeing both Riverside Cookery and Max & Erma’s restaurants. The chef’s culinary history includes wheelman at Casino Aztar’s Temptations Buffet, manager of the Le Merigot Hotel kitchen, and Executive Chef for Clear Crest Pines Golf Club in Evansville, Indiana.

Click here for more information about Riverside Cookery http://www.casinoaztar.com/riverside-cookery

Evansville, IN – It is with great excitement that Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden announce a new animal species that has been added to their collection. Three Coquerel’s sifakas, a father and two sons, are now exhibited in the Zoo’s Lemur Forest. Dean, the father, was born in 2001 at the Los Angeles Zoo. His sons Sebastian and Kelyfamata were both born in 2009. Kelyfamata (meaning “small but mighty” in Malagasy) and Sebastian are easy to tell apart due to Sebastian’s shorter tail. All three sifakas came to Mesker Park Zoo from the Houston Zoo, where the two sons were born. Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden is one of only ten institutions with Coquerel’s sifaks. There are currently only about 57of these animals in the captive population in the United States.

Sifakas are a species of lemur within the Indriidae family and named after its alarm cry “shi-fak.” These interesting creatures are native to the island of Madagascar and reside in its northwest deciduous forests and can also be found in secondary growth forest. Sifaka’s International Union for Conservation of Nature classification is endangered because the population is decreasing due to habitat loss and hunting pressure. Adult sifaka are similar in coloration with thick coats of white dorsally and on their head and tail with brown and maroon ventrally and on shoulders. They also have a toothcomb for grooming similar to other lemurs. The average adult is 100 cm in length with a weight of 4 kg. This species usually lives in family groups with females being the dominant gender. One very unique characteristics of the sifaka is the way they move using vertical leaps and they can hop forward when traveling on the ground. Sifakas are herbivores, surviving in the wild on a diet that includes leaves, flowers, bark, and fruit. In captivity, a sifaka can live up to 18 years.

President Kazee will be a special guest on Inside INdiana Business in broadcasts that will air throughout the state beginning Friday and running through Sunday. He will be interviewed by program host Gerry Dick, one of the co-founders of this powerful source for Indiana business news. A list of stations and times for the weekly broadcast is available at www.insideindianabusiness.com/listings.asp?action=TV.

The president will talk about The Big Freeze tuition and career initiatives, as well as other timely topics related to the University of Evansville. Inside INdiana Business, which is headquartered in Indianapolis, delivers daily content that can be watched, heard, and read beyond the borders of Indiana – extending into Michigan, Illinois (including Chicagoland), Ohio, Kentucky, and markets around the globe. For those who miss the broadcast or cannot access it, it will be available for viewing on www.InsideINdianaBusiness.com after it airs.

Source: Evansville.edu

epd activity report September 19, 2012

Pre-Sale Tickets Now Available!

Evansville, IN – Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden is the perfect place to enjoy a safe family Halloween experience on the evenings of 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 & 28 during Old National Bank Boo at the Zoo. Trick or treat your way through the Zoo visiting candy stations and enjoying craft activities, giant inflatables, a Mad Scientist, murals, face painting, creepy critters, games, AAZAK’s Tent of Terror, and a magician. Dress up in your favorite costume and arrive anytime between 5:00 & 8:00 p.m. Take a peek at creatures of the night in the Zoo’s Nocturnal Exhibit and trek through AMAZONIA. Visitors of all ages will have a frightfully good time, leaving the Zoo with a bag full of goodies.

Tickets are available for purchase at the Zoo, on www.meskerparkzoo.com, and Old National Bank downtown, One Main Street. Tickets are $6 for Zoo members and $8 for non-Zoo members. $1 off coupons are available at all 13 Evansville area Old National Banks.

Another exciting feature at this year’s Old National Bank Boo at the Zoo is the Scarecrow Decorating Contest, Sponsored by Monsanto. Contest categories include family/individual or business/organization. Prizes include $250 cash for first place in both categories, $50 for second place in both categories, as well as prizes valuing more than $500 along with a prize pack from Monsanto. Entry forms can be downloaded on www.meskerparkzoo.com.

Zoo gates will close at 2:00 PM on each night of Boo at the Zoo and reopen at 5:00 PM for Boo at the Zoo. Special thanks to Old National Bank, Townsquare Media, Channels 7 & 25, Monsanto Company, Alcoa, Deaconess Clinic, Heritage Federal Credit Union, Prairie Farms, and PCI Skanska and Industrial Contractors Skanska. Please visit www.meskerparkzoo.com for more information.

INDIANAPOLIS – What follows is a “letter to the editor” in response to a story the Evansville Courier ran today (Sept. 19, 2012) concerning the Indiana Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline.
Dear Editor:
It never seems to fail.
Confronted with concerns about the effectiveness of a hotline that fails to address the needs of abused and neglected children, officials with the state’s Department of Child Services (DCS) respond by throwing around some big numbers.
More than 14,000 calls received in August. An average of 544 per weekday and nearly 200 on Saturdays or Sundays.
Fans of bureaucracy must be thrilled. Look at those numbers! Boy, just think of all the reports that are filed as a result. What a bunch of paperwork, huh?
This, of course, is part of the problem with the DCS and the administration that spawned it.
Set aside the large numbers of calls, and the underlying events that provoked them. We all should be shocked that abuse and neglect of our youngest and most innocent Hoosiers continues at such a high volume.
What is more important is what is being done with these calls. That is where the failure has occurred, and that is what has led to the ongoing investigation of DCS by a legislative study committee.
When the changes to the child welfare system were made in Indiana, the administration chose a direction that satisfied the needs of bureaucrats, but failed Hoosier children.
In response to continuing challenges of dealing with poor and inadequate computer systems, instead of just instituting better technology, the administration broke the system into pieces.
The administration wanted standardized forms for employees answering the abuse and neglect calls coming in. Instead of educating locals, the state hired people to staff a new call center in downtown Indianapolis.
Why do so many of us think this is the wrong direction?
Call centers can be very stressful work environments. An employer told me that it takes a special person to work in that kind of environment: isolated, sitting with head phones on eight hours every work day listening to complaints. Add to that the immediacy of making decisions that abuse and neglect call workers must make with every call and you have an even higher potential of stress on the job and eventual high turnover.
The philosophy of one call center for child abuse and neglect calls just doesn’t work.
A second criticism is that call center workers, despite their training, have little to no experience in the field. If a neighbor calls in a report suspecting that a child is being beaten, that call will not be immediately sent to local officials for assessment. More than likely, the call will be stored away. The local office eventually may review the call and find that it needs to be assessed, but the immediacy of the incident is lost.
Indianapolis workers don’t have relationships in this area. I have heard from professionals that their calls aren’t honored. One public defender in another county said that, of the 10 calls she has made on children she is personally aware of, only 1 call was investigated.
Call center workers should be the most experienced, best trained employees.
What should happen?
Instead of continually trying to justify a failed system, the administration should fess up, pick up the pieces of the puzzle and change direction.
I think a hybrid system of call centers closer to home would answer both criticisms of call centers. Rotate workers in and out. If there aren’t enough employees, eliminate the jobs in Indianapolis and bring them home.
Or bring in an independent contractor to evaluate how to answer the administration’s need for better record keeping and maintain a system that is cost effective and meets the needs of those Hoosiers who use it.
And stop thinking that big numbers automatically mean success. They don’t.
Sincerely,

Gail Riecken
State Representative
Indiana House District 77

Fellow EBA Members:

As the local judicial campaigns continue to grow closer, I wanted to take the opportunity to reach out to my fellow members of the Evansville Bar Association and introduce myself both as a candidate and as an individual. For those of you whom I have not already met, my name is Barry Blackard and I’m currently involved in a race to replace a current Superior Court Judge, Brett Niemeier.

I am a 32 year old native of Evansville, a graduate of Central High School, Indiana University, and the John Marshall School of Law. I began my legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Judge Carl Heldt of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court. For the past 6 years, I have served as an attorney in the Vanderburgh County Public Defender Agency handling hundreds of felony criminal cases in both the Circuit and Superior Courts, including matters in the Juvenile Division. My wife Kristyn and I have two boys with a daughter to arrive after the first of the year.

The Vanderburgh Superior Court Juvenile – Probate division needs a change in leadership. The Court is not user friendly to attorneys or the general public. Since taking office in 2001, Mr. Niemeier has had an opportunity to address the longtime inefficiencies of this Court, but has chosen to do nothing. Just last week, all Paternity (JP) matters, which account for approximately 1/3 of Mr. Niemeier’s case load, were transferred to another division due to growing backlogs. Whatever the excuse, that is unacceptable. When elected, the Juvenile – Probate division of the Superior Court will no longer be just the Juvenile Delinquency/CHINS Court as it seems currently. Delinquency and CHINS matters will no longer be preferred over you and your client’s Estate matters.

As Judge, the following changes will take effect immediately: The Court will no longer micromanage your law practice Eliminate threatening mail correspondence from the Clerk and from the Court which can both embarrass the attorney and panic the client. The Court will strive to honor an attorney’s busy schedule and greatly reduce the time spent in court Group cases together with common litigants Reduce unnecessary “Progress Dates” The Court will finally conform with the filing procedures of the other Superior Court divisions Allow counsel to file mark and stamp Agreed Entries Allow your clerical staff and runners to initiate lawsuits Restore Due Process in CHINS matters The Court will no longer faithfully follow all DCS/CASA recommendations and will allow you to argue your client’s case on the merits The Court will work in partnership with the various committees and all members of the EBA to improve how the Court functions.

As a candidate challenging an incumbent judge, I would appreciate any feedback that you as EBA members and as practitioners have regarding the above proposes changes to the Juvenile – Probate division.

I hope that I can earn your support.

Barry Blackard

Candidate for Superior Court Judge