The Press-Dispatch

January 13, 2021

The Press-Dispatch

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Wednesday, January 13, 2021 PIKE PUBLISHING VOLuMe 151, nuMBer 2 NEWS TIPS Phone: ���������������������812-354-8500 Email ����� editor@pressdispatch�net INSIDE Local ��������������� A1-B5 Obituaries ���������������A5 History �������������������A8 Sports �����������������A6-7 Sports ���������������A9-10 Home Life ���������� B1-10 Church ��������������B3-5 Classifieds ���������� B6-7 Legal Notices ����������B7 Opinion �������������B8-9 USPS 604-34012 $1.00 20 PaGes TWO seCTIOns Three InserTs PeTersBurG, In 47567-0068 See WINSLOW on page 2 See COUNCIL on page 2 See COVID on page 4 See REVIEW on page 4 See METERS on page 2 2020-Year in Review: September to December Corbin Dixon replaces McCandless as new Clerk-Treasurer By Andy Heuring Winslow Town Council voted 2-1 to contract with Patoka Township to provide fire protec- tion for the Town of Winslow. They also swore into office Corbin Dixon as the new clerk-trea- surer. Both actions took place during their monthly meeting Monday night. Council president Josh Popp said the coun- cil had met with Patoka and gone over the pro- posed contract line by line. He asked if the council wanted to discuss whether to con- tract with Patoka Township or if they wanted to take a vote. In the previous meeting with Patoka, Brewster said he thought $15,000 was too much for Winslow to pay and Patoka said they couldn't do it for less than $15,000. Mon- day night money was not discussed. "I have not had time to get questions re- solved that I need resolved before I can vote one way or the other on it," said Councilman Dick Brewster. "I wonder what our other options are," said Councilman Debra Lamb. "One other option is to revamp the existing fire department," said Brewster. "Do you know what that would cost? " asked Popp. "I have an idea," said Brewster. Popp and Lamb both said the board has been trying to work with the Winslow Fire Department. Brewster said, "They are in violation with every agreement between us and the fire de- partment." Popp then went over a brief history of efforts to work with the Winslow Fire Department. He said the council had two outside parties come in and evaluate the fire equipment. He said they had an agreement with the fire de- partment that they would fix the equipment to bring them into compliance. "That was a joke," said Brewster. "I even went down and tried to help them Winslow votes to use Patoka for fire protection SEPTEMBER • COVID-19 cases in Pike County topped 100 during the first week of September. • Brooke Hill, of rural Petersburg, was in- jured when a limb about 18 inches in diameter fell out of a tree, while Hill was mowing, and struck her, pinning her on the mower. She was taken to the hospital, where she was treated for head and leg injuries. Her uncle Rick Wil- lis was injured while running to help Hill. Wil- lis fell and broke several ribs. A few days lat- er, he fell in his residence and later died from head injuries in the second fall. • Debra Houchins, 63, of Stendal, died in a fire at her residence on Tuesday, September 8. Fire Chief Larry Risenbeck said a friend stopped by Houchins' residence to drop off groceries and found the trailer was filled with smoke and the walls blackened, but the fire had extinguished itself. Houchins was found in the trailer. • The Winslow Fall Festival and Light- up Parade, as well as the Blue Jean Festival in Monroe City, were both cancelled due to COVID. • Jason Hammock, 45, of 304 S. 15th St., Petersburg, was arrested on charges of bur- glary, two counts of attempted auto theft, res- idential entry, criminal trespass and public in- toxication. Juanita Walls called police saying a man was entering her house. She later told police it was Jason Hammock and he told her he had escaped from prison and police were giving him a 30 -minute head start. She said he demanded her car keys and drank two glass- es of water before fleeing on foot. A few min- utes later, police got a report of Hammock go- ing into another residence. Trenadee Hatton said she was sitting on her couch when some- one banged on her door and asked if anyone was home. Then she heard her door open and saw someone standing in her house. Hatton said she fled the house and the man believed to be Hammock followed. She said Hammock attempted to break into her mother's car, but it was locked. • Sandra Davis, of rural Petersburg, suf- fered a possible fractured arm and Joseph Davis, of rural Petersburg, suffered cuts on his face when a vehicle being driven by their grandson, Samuel Davis, 15, ran off the road and hit a tree. • The body of Vincent Green, of Gibson County, was found about 50 feet from a parked car. The car was parked on the south side of Highway 64, near the Pike-Gibson County line, beside the railroad tracks. Pike County Chief Deputy Sheriff Dallas Killian said Greene's death was believed to be a suicide. • Norm and Barb Sweet were named Lions of Year for the Winslow Lions Club. • Pike County Schools put out a plan to re- turn to in-person classes on September 25. • Pike County had seven new cases of COVID in one day on September 11. It was the most to date for one day. The total in the county was 128. • Pike County Clerk Lana Griffith an- nounced they would use mobile voting cen- ters for early voting in Winslow, Union, Spur- geon and Stendal. • Pike Central's boys' soccer pushed their win streak to five as they beat South Knox 2- 0 and won 3-1 over North Posey. • Dave Cochren and his son, Travis Co- chren, went on a 15k run to raise money for Chemo Buddies, with the mission of seeing that no one has to fight cancer alone. Travis is a cancer survivor. • Pike County Commissioners signed a contact with the Moose Lodge in Petersburg to have a COVID-19 testing site on their park- ing lot and to use a room of the Lodge for ad- ministrative purposes. • The Fall Clean-up, sponsored by the Pike County Solid Waste District, was cancelled due to COVID concerns. • Sarah Slaven Hammock, 24, of 609 N. Fifth St, Petersburg, was arrested on charges of dealing heroin, at least 10 grams, a level 2 felony, and dealing methamphetamine, a lev- el 5 felony. • Petersburg considers closing City Hall to the public due to COVID concerns. • Pike Central junior Quinlan Teague won the seven-team South Knox Invitational cross country meet in a time of 20 :36. She beat sec- ond place by five seconds. Xavier Weisman won the girls' middle school race in a time of 11:37, beating Castle's Heidi Giannin by 10 seconds. • Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb moved the state to Stage 5 of their Back on Track Plan as the positivity rates state-wide dropped to 3.9 percent. Pike County had its biggest COVID numbers so far, as there were 11 new cases on September 26. The total number of cases climbed to 169. • Frieda Bolin, of Winslow, was awarded the 2020 Golden Hoosier Award by St. Gov. Suzanne Crouch for her service to the state. OCTOBER • Edward Fox, 64, was arrested on a war- rant for the murder of his estranged wife, Sha- ron Fox. He was charged with murder, a lev- el 1 felony, and two counts of burglary. One of the burglary charges was a level 1 felony and Eddy Drew takes an old meter from Billy Nixon and hands him a new meter. Nix- on and Drew work for the City of Petersburg and are installing new water meters. The new meters have a transmitter on them that sends out the water usage data. Nixon said they can read the meter from a vehicle in the street instead of having to get out and open the meter well. New meters can be read remotely from City Hall By Andy Heuring Petersburg is in the process of replacing all 1,400 water meters on the city water system. The new meters have transmitters on them that will send out a signal that can be picked up by city employees driving by them. This speeds up meter reading by keeping the work- ers from having to go to each meter, open the meter well and manually read the meters. The current meters had a similar function. The new meters will take it to a new level. Eventually, Petersburg will have an antenna installed that will pick up the transmissions from the meters and they can be read from City Hall. The meters are able to send the me- ter reading, as well as the current flow rate, which will allow water leaks to be detected quickly. Petersburg is replacing the meters because about two years ago, the transmitters on the current meters had a life expectancy of 10 to 14 years. They are now about 15 years old. Most of them have failed. Consequently, city workers are having to read them manually. Crews started replacing the meters last year. "We are getting real close to 1,000," said City Services Manager Ross Elmore. He said, at last week's City Council meeting, crews were going to push to get as many meters in- stalled as they can in the next few weeks. Billy Nixon said one crew can install 10 to 12 meters a day "if everything goes right." He said often the meter well is damaged or full of dirt and they have to make repairs to it to put the new meters in, which slows them down. At the same time Nixon and Eddy Drew are City water meters being replaced By Andy Heuring Pike County Councilmen were told the county's Economic Development Income Tax fund was more than an- ticipated. They also approved an addi- tional appropriation for $ 332,000 for paving, reorganized and made numer- ous appointments during their month- ly Tuesday morning meeting. Auditor Judy Gumbel gave the council a spreadsheet on EDIT funds. Councilmen feared the balance would be gravely affected by COVID and a large number of people losing their jobs. It is a local income tax, conse- quently when incomes drop, the rev- enue it has drops. Pike County's un- employment was four percent prior to the pandemic. Then it jumped to 15 percent, but now has returned to 3.9 percent. Pike County Economic Develop- ment Corporation Executive direc- tor Ashley Willis said, in Pike Coun- ty, many of the top wage earner jobs were not affected as adversely as in other areas of the state and country. So the income tax was not affected as severely as first feared. Gumbel's spreadsheet shows Pike County started the year with a begin- ning balance of $ 3.28 million and is projected to receive $1.33 million in revenue. Already obligated expens- es include $178,894 for non-highway budget; $104,000 for Pike County's 20 percent match for the CR 300 N. re- hab project; $16,795 for the county's match on the CR 350 N. rehab project; and $150,000 to purchase a new high- County council reorganizes, makes appointments Pike County Health Nurse Amy Gladish gives Al Foust a COVID-19 vaccine. Foust was the first person registered for the vaccine in Pike County for those 80 and older. Gladish said Pike County's Health Dept. is giving the Moderna vaccine. By Andy Heuring COVID vaccines are here. The first vaccines to the general population were given starting at 1 p.m. Tuesday by the Pike County Health Depart- ment. People 80 years of age or older were allowed to start registering online and by phone on Friday. Pike County Health Nurse Amy Gladish said Pike County is scheduled through the next cou- ple of weeks on vaccine appointments. She said the county got 100 vaccines, but they expect to have that supply replenished. On Tuesday, they were scheduled to vaccinate 30 people. The state's system is scheduling the appointments every 10 minutes. Anyone 80 or older can go online at ourshot.in- .gov and sign up for the shots. It only takes about five minutes to get through the process once you get in the queue of the state's system. On Friday morning, the system was overloaded, as it was the first day to register. It was often taking several tries before getting into the waiting room and then being told there was a 50 -minute or longer wait until you were redirected. People registering at 11 a.m. on Friday were schedule for January 21. Al Foust, who was officially the first person to be registered for the vaccine in Pike County, said he got online Thursday night before the system was supposed to be up and running on Friday. Those not wanting to deal with online registration can First COVID vaccines given Tuesday

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