South Gibson Star-Times

Local ........ A1-12 Home Life A10-11 Sports ........B1-3 History ............B4 Church ...... B5-6 Opinion ..........B7 Legals............B8 Classifi eds .......B8 WHAT'S INSIDE: PIKE PUBLISHING Phone: .............812-753-3553 Fax: .................812-753-4251 E-Mail editor@sgstartimes.com E-Mail ..........news@sgstartimes.com Facebook ....facebook.com/sgstartimes Twitter .........twitter.com/sgstartimes NEWS TIPS: CONNECT WITH US: TWO SECTIONS 22 PAGES NO INSERTS Addams Family serves up spooky comedy LAUFENFEST 5K LOCAL A-4 SPORTS B-1 $1 TUESDAY, JUnE 19, 2018 VOLUME 64 nUMBEr 3 FOrT BrAnCH, InDIAnA 47648-0070 (USPS #205-620) SOMMERFEST WELCOMES SUMMER FUN TO HAUBSTADT See TR AIN on page 2 See EXPANSION on 3 See COUNCIL on page 3 Train derailment, propane fire sends residents from their homes By Janice Barniak and Jamey Walston SG Star-Times Editor editor@sgstartimes.com Jim Hill, a resident of McCar- ty Street, looked out his window around 7:15 p.m. Sunday, June 17 and saw flames rising. "The lights flickered and then BOOM! " Kathy Clark, a resident of Jef- ferson Ave., said the flames were higher than the trees. "Black smoke was just billowing up. I went down the street thinking it was TBIN, but it was the train track." Then the lights went out. According to Indiana State Po- lice's Public Information Officer Sgt. Robert Lambert, at approx- imately 7 p.m. Sunday, Gibson County Sheriff's Dept. and Princ- eton Police Dept. received a 911 call reporting a southbound CSX train derailment south of Alabama Street near town, where emergency responders would discover a liquid propane explosion had occurred on a train consisting of 89 loaded rail cars and nine empty tanks. Of the 89, 23 were derailed—of those five were propane tanks that sparked two active fires, still burning at 11:15 a.m. when this paper went to press sending smoke in a southern Fueled by more than 30,000 gallons of liquid propane, area residents were evacuated from their homes and businesses shuttered after a train derailment sparked a propane fire Sunday near Alabama Street in rural Princeton. Photo by Scott Walden. Council approves bond for Vuteq's new training headquarters By Janice Barniak SG Star-Times Editor editor@sgstartimes.com Gibson County Council sus- pended a second reading and ad- opted, on the first reading, a 23.5 year economic incentive bond to help cover costs associated with bringing infrastructure to the south side of U.S. 41 in Union Township, with a caveat pledge to provide up to $20,000 per year for specific programs at South Gibson Schools, depending on the tax rev- enue the facility generates, and an- other $10,000 for costs associated with administering the bond. A day after moving to Gibson County, Vuteq representative Toshi Barrada appeared before Gibson County Council to thank them for their support of the na- tional headquarters the compa- ny plans to locate in Union Town- ship as a training facility that will, if both phases continue as planned, create 400 jobs in Fort Branch. Like him, he said most of those jobs will be for people who will live locally, with only 20 -30 people at a time traveling in from other areas. Most will be local people working from the facility traveling out to train at other locations. The 2020 target employee num- ber is 200, though 10 should be hired by the end of the year, com- pany representatives said in previ- ous presentations to Gibson Coun- ty Redevelopment. While down the road from Toy- ota Motor Manufacturing of In- diana, a large client of Vuteq, the company's operation support cen- ter will be a completely separate entity, unlike its position current- ly, which is inside TMMI. Fort Branch will take on the company as a sewer customer, while water will be provided by Gibson Water. James McDon - ald, legal advisor to Gibson Coun- ty Commissioners and Gibson County Redevelopment, said that having Vuteq as a sewer custom- er will be a boon to Fort Branch, since increasing their revenue and number of customers will spread fixed costs over a larger number of clients, and will also open infra- structure on U.S. 41 that will al- low other businesses to locate in the stretch between Princeton and Fort Branch. "It's a win-win for the Town of Fort Branch, a win for Gibson Wa- Library eyes expansion toward post office, ADA compliance By Janice Barniak SG Star-Times Editor editor@sgstartimes.com Owensville Carnegie Pub- lic Library is looking to ex- pand west toward the post office and to become acces- sible to residents with dis- abilities, assuming the li- brary can find a way to fund the project, said library di- rector Margo English last week. To help, the public can fill out income surveys that come in the mail to help the library apply for an Of- fice of Community and Ru- ral A ffairs grant, as they are designed to give a ran- dom sample of residents' in- comes that will tell OCR A how much the town needs the assistance. "We need an elevator. We need more space for reading. We need to be ADA compli- ant," English said. "It's very important. We have a lot of people that come here that can't hardly get into the li- brary and come upstairs— we have some people that absolutely can't. They want to browse books like every- one else does. We're grand- fathered in, but it's absolute- ly not right. To do the best for our clients, we need to be ADA compliant. We have two bathrooms that are very small and you can't get a wheelchair in them. It's even hard to use crutches in them...it's unconscionable." The library board has evaluated needs and re- ceived permission from the park board to expand if funding the project suc- ceeds. That extra space is an asset other libraries of- ten don't have. "We need more children's space. We're desperate for tutoring space and meet- ing space," she said. "We're overflowing at times." In the future, the library will host public hearings to discuss the project, and Eng- lish said appearing at the Above: Perfect Climate Solutions had a solution for summer heat during the parade in Haubstadt on Elm Street Saturday afternoon, as they threw buckets of water and used spray guns on the crowds, some of whom were armed with their own liquid retaliation. Below: Obert Legacy Dairy had a cow-themed float touting that "winners drink milk." Below right: Speech Solutions sent cyclists, including this unicyclist, to entertain crowds in the Sommerfest Parade. Bottom left: Knights of Columbus' parade entry really floated their boat with a ship in the shape of a historic ship named Nina, playing on their Columbus name. The rowdy sail- ors yelled, "We're the Knights of Columbus," hooting and yelling to the crowd.

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