The Press-Dispatch
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2020 Election Results /PressDispatch Find the overall results to the General Election on The Press-Dispatch Facebook page. Full, in-depth coverage will appear in the Nov. 11 edition. Christmas Shopping BEGINS A-6 NEWS TIPS Phone: ���������������������812-354-8500 Email ����� editor@pressdispatch�net INSIDE Local ���������������� A1-12 History �������������������A8 School ��������������������A9 Opinion ���������� A10-11 Sports �����������������B1-2 Church ��������������B3-5 Obituaries ����������� B6-8 Classifieds �����������B7-9 Legals ����������������� B8-9 East Gibson ��������B11 Home Life �������� B10-12 USPS 604-34012 Wednesday, november 4, 2020 PIKE PUBLISHING voLUme 150, nUmber 45 $1.00 24 PaGes TWo seCTIons Three InserTs PeTersbUrG, In 47567-0068 By Andy Heuring A husband and wife were arrested Mon- day night on arson charges stemming from a house trailer fire on October 19 in Winslow. Jacob Smith, 24, and his wife, Thelma "Su- sie" Smith, 37, both of 7301 N. State Rd. 57, Petersburg, were charged with arson, a lev- el 4 felony. According to a probable cause affidavit, Ti- na Stone reported a house trailer on fire at 4:50 a.m. on October 19 at 912 N. Second St. in Winslow. Firemen arrived and found the trailer, owned by Chris Heiple, was fully engulfed. Indiana Fire Marshal Matt Wells stated in his probable cause affidavit the trailer was de- stroyed. He said neighbors told him Jacob and Thelma were at the home on Sunday, Octo- ber 18, "moving a lot of stuff out of the mo- bile home." According to the probable cause affidavit, Stone said Jacob was "overheard saying he was going to leave the mobile home in worse shape than when he moved in." According to the probable cause affidavit, when Wells first with Jacob on October 19, he told Wells he didn't know about the fire until he received a message from a friend at about 9:30 a.m. Wells, on October 21, conducted another in- terview with Jacob. During that interview, ac- cording to the affidavit, Jacob told Wells he and Thelma rented the trailer from Heiple. He said at about midnight on October 4, Heiple served them with a handwritten eviction no- tice and called Thelma "vulgar names," caus- ing them to become angry with Heiple. "Jacob Smith admitted to going to the trail- er in the early morning hours on October 19, 2020, along with his wife, Thelma "Susie" Smith. Jacob Smith said that they attempted to set a fire in the closet of the east bedroom," according to the probable cause affidavit. It continued with Jacob admitting to Wells they left the mobile home and returned later to find nothing had happened. So they then "set another fire in the same closet and noth- ing happened." They returned again and then attempted to set an area rug in the kitchen on fire. This time, when they returned, the trailer was full of smoke. Jacob, in the interview, said he went into the trailer again and piled trash in the bed- room just west of the kitchen and set it on fire. "This fire did not take off. Smith and his Smiths charged after admitting to arson of mobile home See ARSON on page 2 See AIR QUALITY on page 2 See PROJECT on page 2 By Andy Heuring Pike County Commissioner got less bad news Monday morning about a road project. They were told instead of the proj- ect costing an additional $ 358,000, it was only going to cost an addition- al $ 68,265. Dylan Sievers, of RQAW engi- neering firm, told the commissioner last time he was there the increased costs could range from $ 358,000 to $ 368,000. "I wanted to start off, the last time I was hear we talked about best and worst case scenarios." He said he had since talked with the Federal Highway Administration and con- firmed they would pay 80 percent of the increased cost. "Your 20 percent will be $ 68,265. This is just an estimate. Typically, we see contractors will come in a lit- tle lower. This $51,458 would be dy- namic, so hopefully it won't be the $ 68,000 total," said Sievers. The $51,000 number is the es- timated cost of the construction. There is also a land cost of $ 83,990, of which the feds will pay 80 percent, leaving Pike County's 20 percent at $16,798. The project is the improvement of CR 350 N. to be able to handle in- dustrial traffic. Sievers said the proj- ect was sent into the Indiana Depart- ment of Transportation stating it was a road for an "industrial park." Siev- ers said someone with INDOT inter- preted it as a road to a public park. Consequently, they required it to have wide pull-offs, which greatly in- creased the price of the project. The original design requirement by IN- DOT called for eight-foot wide paved sidings. Sievers said RQAW then met with INDOT and got that reduced when they explained the purpose of the road. The new plan called for that to be reduced to one-foot wide paved sidings. He said another savings on the project was to do a V-shaped ditch, which greatly reduced the amount of earthwork. However, he said, because of poor soils in the area of the road, INDOT required it be built thicker than planned. Sievers asked the commissioners if they were going to accept the ad- ditional expenses. Commissioner president Mark Flint asked if the county would have to have the $17,000 for land procure- ment in place quickly. Sievers said they hoped to be cutting checks for the property in January, so it would be needed quickly. Sievers said he didn't know if they had to have the whole amount in place when it went to bid. He said they might only need to have com- mitted to provide the money at the time the project goes to bid. Pike County Highway Dept. office manager Melanie Britton said she was told by INDOT that Pike Coun- ty had to have the money in place when the project went to bid. County learns cost overrun will be much less than first estimated Early deadlines for Veterans Day edition The Press-Dispatch will have early deadlines for the Nov. 11 edition. The deadline for church notes is 5 p.m. on Friday, advertising, classifieds and news content is 10 a.m. on Mon- day, Nov. 9. Local readers can expect to receive their papers in the mail a day early on Tuesday, Nov. 10. The EPA announced last week that Wash- ington Township in Pike County is now in at- tainment of federal air quality rules governing sulfur dioxide. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5 Administrator Kurt Thiede and the Indiana Department of Environmental Man- agement (IDEM) announced at the Pike Coun- ty Courthouse in Petersburg their proposal to formally redesignate the Southwest Indiana ar- ea to attainment of the most recent federal air quality standard for sulfur dioxide. Analyses of air monitoring and modeling data show that air concentrations of sulfur dioxide in the area meet the National Ambient Air Quality Stan- dard (NA AQS) for sulfur dioxide. "EPA's partnership with the State of Indiana has resulted in cleaner, healthier air in the Hoo- sier state," said Thiede. "This Administration has prioritized these efforts, with an under- standing that a healthy environment is a pre- cursor to a healthy economy. In addition to hav- ing cleaner air, once the Southwest Indiana is redesignated, local businesses will face fewer air permitting restrictions, which paves the way for the infrastructure investment and economic development that help create jobs." "This proposed redesignation shows the great strides we continue to make in improving Indiana's air quality," said IDEM Commission- er Bruno Pigott. "Because of our strong part- nership with EPA, more Hoosiers are breath- ing cleaner air than ever before." EPA worked collaboratively with IDEM to de- velop strategies for attaining the sulfur dioxide standard in the Southwest Indiana area, which consists of Veale Township in Daviess Coun- ty and Washington Township in Pike County. "The Southwest Indiana area sulfur dioxide concentrations have decreased substantially due to improvements in flue gas desulfuriza- tion control equipment installed at the India- napolis Power and Light Petersburg Generat- ing Station to meet recently approved emission limits, along with the permanent closure of the County now meets EPA air standards for sulfur dioxide Christmas in the Park going up Volunteers Larry Haycraft, John Burns and Chuck Froehle load displays onto a wagon before they put them into place in Hornady Park. The Boy Scouts had volunteered to help on Saturday. Burns said they have had good help this year. He said on Friday they had about eight volunteers. Christmas in the Park opens on Thanksgiving night and runs through Christmas. Trunk-or-treat fun Lilly Willis drops candy into the bags of Brylee and Kohen Eastham during the First Baptist Church's trunk-or-treat event on Saturday. The church had about 500 kids come through the more than block-long line of trunk-or-treaters. See additional photos on page A-4