DIVISION 3
Best News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure/Category 1
Whitney Riggs & Zach Spicer, The Tribune (Seymour)
Fire engulfs North Vernon
A massive fire that covered an entire city block in historic downtown North Vernon on Friday left three families homeless and caused two buildings to collapse.
More than a dozen area fire departments battled the blaze, which was reported to the Jennings County Sheriff’s Department at 4:48 a.m. It was brought under control around 11 a.m.
At midmorning, with the temperature at 19 degrees, firefighters were using about 2,500 gallons of water a minute to fight the blaze.
“It looks like they came close a couple times to having (the fire) under control, and then it flashed up through the roof again,” North Vernon Mayor Harold “Soup” Campbell said. “They’ve really got their hands full.”
Five firefighters were taken to the hospital for minor injuries from the impact of the building collapse, the only injuries reported.
“We think maybe, hopefully, we dodged a bullet,” Campbell said of there being no major injuries.
He said it’s unclear whether anyone was inside the buildings at the time of the fire.
The main building affected by the fire was Hatton’s Carpet and Flooring Store, 24 Fifth St. Owned by Larry Hatton, it has three levels and contains apartments in addition to the carpet business.
This is the second fire reported at that location this month.
The buildings that collapsed Friday contained two other businesses – McConnell-Finnerty law office and Pamper Parlor salon. Seymour Fire Chief Brad Lucas estimated five other buildings were damaged.
Campbell said the buildings affected by the fire are more than 100 years old.
He said the area where the fire broke out was undergoing a major façade project by Bradshaw Building Specialties of North Vernon. Work was about to begin on the streetscape, he added. A lift owned by Bradshaw being used for the project was damaged in the fire.
Work is now halted on that project at least until spring, Campbell said.
Three years ago, the city was one of three in the state awarded a project through the Indiana Stellar Communities Program. The renovation project was part of that initiative.
“We have to start next week to get somebody from the state giving us some direction, to do the assessments and see what we’ve got here,” Campbell said of the damage.
Five aerial ladder trucks were in use at one point, causing a constant light rain to sprinkle over emergency personnel and creating a plume of thick, white smoke. The smoke could be seen seven miles east of Seymour city limits.
Sidewalks, stoplights, streetlights and firefighter helmets were glazed with ice.
However, the cold didn’t hamper the water flow through the hoses, Lucas said.
He said four firefighters from Seymour were on the scene. A mutual aid agreement binds Seymour and North Vernon fire departments, but Lucas said he couldn’t recall a time in his career that he has been called over to help out.
At 2 p.m., Lucas said an investigator with the state fire marshal’s office was on scene to determine the cause of the fire.
A little more than two weeks ago, a fire struck Hatton’s building and left around 30 people without a home. North Vernon Fire Chief Rick McGill said an investigation determined the Nov. 5 fire to be accidental. No injuries were reported in that fire, which started in an apartment above the carpet store.
There also was a murder that occurred at those apartments in late October when a Dupont man, Richard A. Smith, was beaten to death by two men.
Having two fires in the same location may require city officials to look into the buildings more to make sure they are up to code, Campbell said.
“This may be a good warning,” he said. “There’s a lot of things we’ve got to address and re-look at. It’s going to take some serious looking.”
Some of those displaced are housed at privately owned or church-operated shelters, Campbell said. There used to be a city-county shelter, but it closed nearly a year ago due to lack of use.
Best News Coverage With No Deadline Pressure/Category 2
Staff, Princeton Daily Clarion
Presidential visit to Gibson County
President Barack Obama will talk about his vision for the American economy during his trip to Millennium Steel in Princeton Friday, according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
“The president is really looking forward to visiting the Midwest later this week,” Earnest said during a regional media briefing call Wednesday.
After speaking at the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago Thursday, President Obama will visit Millennium Steel, a minority-owned supplier for Toyota, in Princeton, on what happens to be Manufacturing Day.
Millennium Steel founder Henry Jackson has no previous connection to President Obama, Earnest said.
“He has a pretty compelling story and he’s a veteran of the Vietnam War. I know the president’s looking forward to meeting him,” Earnest said.
He added that Obama really values the benefit of getting to meet with workers and talk about the training they received to do their job.
“These are good middle class jobs, these are the kinds of jobs the president wants to see all over the country,” Earnest said.
The president is expected to talk about what’s been completed in the last few years, Earnest said, but not expected to announce any new policies.
He’s expected to stress “how important it is to ensure that workers have the skills for high tech jobs and high tech manufacturing, which requires more than a high school diploma,” Earnest said.
Obama is expected to make his case for the American economy, and may also speak on how the U.S. is providing leadership around the globe, whether it’s mobilizing the international community to confront Ebola, climate change, confronting Russia and that nation’s destabilizing actions in Ukraine, or building an international coalition to destroy ISIL (the Islamic State), Earnest said.
“A ‘force for good’ in the world is what presidents have been in the past,” Earnest said. “The president also believes that that legacy can only be inherited as long as the legacy is strong at home.”
The president will speak on strengthening the middle class, because he believes that if middle-class families are strong, the country will be stronger, Earnest said.
The last time Obama visited Indiana was 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession. Earnest said the president will speak on what progress he believes has been made, and make the claim that according to polls, the U.S. is now the most attractive country when it comes to the private sector.
“For years there was a lot of hand wringing about how China was the winner in those kind of polls,” Earnest said.
There is a genuine revival of American manufacturing due to the skills of American workers in those manufacturing plants, Earnest said.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will greet Obama upon his arrival at Tri- State Aero in Evansville at 1 p.m. Friday, before the president travels to Millennium Steel.
Best Ongoing News Coverage/Category 3
Jessica Williams, The News-Banner (Bluffton)
Owen Collins: Toddler’s body found
Three people are in custody after what police believe to be the body of 3-year-old Owen Collins was discovered Sunday evening in a wooded area outside of Bluffton.
Zachary S. Barnes, 30, Bluffton is charged with one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a Level 1 felony, and one count of abuse of a corpse, a Level 6 felony.
Breanna J. Arnold, 21, Bluffton, is charged with one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a Level 1 felony. Arnold is the boy’s mother, and she was reportedly in a relationship with Barnes.
A 16-year-old male from Marion is currently being held at a juvenile detention facility, facing one count of abuse of a corpse, a Level 6 felony. No bond was set for Barnes and Arnold.
The child was reported missing Sunday from the 500 block of Normandy Drive in Mobile Manor on Bluffton’s east side.
It is unknown when or how the boy died, and the investigation is ongoing.
“An autopsy is scheduled and positive identification will be determined by the Wells County Coroner’s Office,” according to a press release issued by the Bluffton Police Department.
After the people who were last with the boy at the Normandy Drive residence were questioned, police went to a wooded area in Liberty Township, about a mile east of the Wells/ Huntington county line.
Once the scene was processed Sunday night, the body was transported to St. Joseph Hospital, where the autopsy will be conducted.
At the Normandy Drive residence Sunday, just feet from a small bike, stroller and scooter, yellow police tape sealed off the patio Sunday as neighbors milled about.
Just north of the mobile home, a dive team surveyed the nearby pond, looking for any signs of the 3-year-old.
Officers were told he was last seen at about 8 p.m. Saturday evening. They were called to the residence to check on the occupants at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, according to a separate press release issued early Sunday evening by the BPD.
Owen was not found inside, nor during a search of the area. Units of both the Bluffton Police and Fire departments went door-to-door in the mobile home park searching for the child.
Bluffton police officers look on as a bloodhound checks for the scent of Owen Collins mid-afternoon Sunday.
Many hands assisted in the initial, several-hour search for the boy.
The area around the frozen Beeler Pond at the mobile home park was also searched. Conservation officers of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and firefighters of the Bluffton Fire Department went out on the frozen pond, but found nothing.
A bloodhound and cadaver dog from the Indiana Search and Response/Indiana DHS District 3
Search and Rescue Task Force also searched the scene Sunday but did not hit on the boy’s scent.
Concerned neighbors at the mobile home park also swept the area, each reporting to the police that they hadn’t found any trace of the child, either.
Assisting at the scene were members of the Wells County Sheriff’s Office, Ossian Police Department, Indiana State Police, Indiana Excise Police, and Wells County EMS.
Best General Commentary/Category 4
Matt Getts, The Star (Kendallville)
Lamenting Solomon
The 14-year-old boy was at one end of the table doing his homework at the library. The 11-year-old girl was at the other end doing hers.
Keep in mind that the library had maybe eight empty tables. Being rudimentary pack animals by nature, they had chosen to sit together. There is strength in numbers apparently, even if the number is only two.
Big mistake.
When I approached, they were arguing vehemently – the only way they know how to argue. There are no quiet disagreements, no matter how banal the topic – neither side willing to give an inch.
For one to outright concede to the other? Inconceivable.
When I was first a dad, I thought the golden era of parenting would occur when the kids could begin to talk, thus being able to explain for themselves why they were crying.
In subsequent stages, I thought the golden era would occur:
• when the children were out of diapers.
• when they finally went to school.
• when they could finally dress themselves without me having to wrestle them into their clothes, and the most current one…
• when they were old enough to logically reason with them.
Sigh. The golden age of parenting remains elusive.
The boy and the girl are capable of reason. Just not with each other.
My main role as their father, consequently, has become arbiter of disputes.
I am not the loving counselor. Nor am I the gentle teacher or guide through life.
I am King Solomon – without the God-given wisdom.
Some of these high-brow arguments have revolved around topics such as:
• who got to tell the grandparents someone went to the bathroom in the pool, thus closing it for the afternoon.
• who touched my ear first.
• which is inherently better as a utensil – a spoon or fork.
My yelling does not immediately stop these arguments. When I was a lad, when my dad told me to “stop,” that’s what I did. When I say “stop,” that’s when my dear, sweet children start the name-calling and I start looking for something to repeatedly pound my head against.
Before either child is willing to stop the argument, a winner must be declared.
In the library incident, the solution was for one of the children to move to another table. I had to choose which child had to pack up his or her books and walk maybe 10 feet to a nearby table.
By definition, this requires I take a side. This makes me Solomon in one child’s eyes and Judas in the other’s.
On this day, for no better reason than whim – the basis of most of my decisions, parental in nature or not – I told the girl she had to move.
The girl begrudgingly did as she was told, muttering at her brother (I hope it was her brother, anyway) as she did so.
For the next hour, she refused to even look at me.
Had I made her brother move, he would have given me similar treatment.
Sometimes, being Solomon isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
Best Editorial Writer/Category 5
Ray Cooney, The Commercial Review (Portland)
Straight ticket bill deserves a vote
In an era often marred by senseless legislation (allowing guns on school property) and ethical issues (former superintendent of public instruction Tony Bennett, Rep. Eric Turner), it’s nice to see a lawmaker propose a measure firmly grounded in logic.