The Press-Dispatch
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Local ...........A1-8 Sports .........B1-7 Classifi eds .... B8-9 Church ........C1-3 School............ C4 East Gibson .... C5 Opinion .......D1-2 Home Life....D3-8 Obituaries D9-10 WHAT'S INSIDE: CONNECT WITH US: NetEdition ...pressdispatch.net/edition Facebook.....facebook.com/pressdispatch E-Mail .........news@pressdispatch.net Phone:.................. 812-354-8500 Fax: ...................... 812-354-2014 E-Mail . editor@pressdispatch.net NEWS TIPS: PIKE PUBLISHING See COMMISSIONERS on page 3 $ 1 Eight sections 90 pages Four inserts Wednesday, May 17, 2017 Volume 148 Number 20 Phone (812) 354-8500 Petersburg, IN 47567-0068 (USPS 604-34012) See ACADEMY on page 2 2017 let's explore! 56 FUN-PACKED PAGES INSIDE Fears to be Otwell Academy principal A Petersburg man escaped in- jury Monday morning after he fell asleep and ran off the road. Jeremy Gibson, 33, of Peters- burg, was driving home from work on Hwy 61 N. at 9:43 a.m. when he fell asleep and ran off the right side of the road, hitting a concrete driveway culvert. Petersburg Po- lice Chief Chuck Baumgart said Gibson's 2015 Hyundai Sonata's front right wheel hit the first cul- vert and it bounced over, pulling the car farther to the right. Its left front wheel then hit a second con- crete culvert structure. Baumgart said it appears the car went up on its front end and pivoted, coming to rest facing the opposite direc- tion. "He works third shift and was on his way home. Said he woke up when he was hitting the culvert," said Baumgart. Gibson said he hurt where the seatbelt hit him, but was unin- jured. Cheyanna Nelson said she saw the crash. She said Gibson's car hit the first culvert and bounced over it, then hit the second one and flipped around. Gibson escapes injury in Monday morning crash The deadline is Thursday, May 18 at 5 p.m. to complete the Se- nior profile questionnaire to be published in next week's edition. There are still 68 students that have not participated as of Tues- day afternoon. The following students have not filled out a profile for the 2017 Se- nior edition. Please visit https:// goo.gl/BzFr6F to fill out the ques- tionnaire. You must be logged in to your Pike Central account to participate. Kylan Arndt Bryant Baxter Cassidy Brothers Douglas Browning Nicholas Calvello-Wyatt Aaron Carlisle Elisia Ceballos Christopher Chaffin Ross Clerk Danielle Collins Thomas Culbertson Jared Day Madison Dischinger Caleb Dotterweich Eli Eck Kaleb Edwards Dylan Evans Mackenzie Evans Taylor Evans Sydney Fair Kaitlyn Foster Jordan Freeland Cheyenne Genco Kiersten Gish Ryan Guzman Sylvia Henson Abby Hillyard Brandon Hopper Austin Hughes Payton Hulfachor Kara Indorf Madison Jones Cody Kendall Paige Kluemper James Krietemeyer Jonathon Kroeger Michaela MacInnis Nicholas Manning Jacob Marchino Jared McCord Chaney McKinney Tommy McQueen Ethan Melvin Jagger Montgomery Caleb Mullins Mackenzie Nolan Mikala Nolan Colton O'Neal Jaylon Owens Alley Rich Joshua Robinson Collin Sallee Sarah Sandoval Brianna Schaller Kayla Schloemer Stefanie Sharp Torin Shover Chase Stafford Dillon Stephens Drew Welch Isabella Wells Blaze White Colton White Jayden Williams Lillian Willis Kyle Woods Trey Wornica Hannah Yager Deadline is Thursday to fill out your Senior profile Fears was Otwell Elementary principal for seven years By Ed Cahill Former Otwell Elementary School Prin- cipal Rick Fears has been hired as the di- rector for a K-5 charter school that organiz- ers are planning to open this August in the eastern Pike County community. Fears' hiring as director for Otwell Mill- er Academy – which was approved by the Friends of Otwell Elementary's Board of Directors on Monday, May 8 – was formal- ly announced during a public meeting on Monday, May 15, at the Otwell Communi- ty Center. "Mr. Rick Fears has agreed to help us out, on a short-term basis," Friends of Ot- well Elementary president Mike Houtsch said. "He likes his retirement, I think." A fter Houtch's announcement was greet- ed with applause, Fears – who was present at the meeting with his wife, Betty – joked, "I'd just like to say I hope they all clap after this first year." "I want to thank the people here tonight, and I know there's a lot of people not here tonight that have had a lot to do with the school staying in Otwell, because I believe that the community of Otwell deserves a school," Fears said. "The only thing I can promise you as director, the staff that we hire and myself will work as hard as we can this first year to get this school going and make it the best school that it can be, and what the Otwell community deserves to have – a great school for elementary kids to go to." Fears had been employed by the Pike County School Corporation for 23 years – including the last seven as principal at Ot- well Elementary School –before being ter- minated by the PCSC's Board of Trustees in September 2013 after it concluded that evi- dence presented during a seven-hour-long closed hearing supported the cancellation of his contract on the grounds of "neglect of duty" and "other just and good cause." Fears "neglected his obligation to com- ply with the Pike (County) School Corpo- ration's requirements for the evaluation of teachers through the RISE Program by en- tering information unsubstantiated and of- ten incorrect data in the evaluation reports that provided the school at best question- able teacher evaluations and at worst no meaningful way to accurately evaluate and compare teachers," stated the findings-of- By Andy Heuring Highway 257 at the Pike-Da- viess County line opened Tues- day as flood waters receded for the first time in two weeks. The White River at Petersburg, while on the way down, was still at 22 feet on Tuesday. It has been above 20 feet since May 3. The Nation- al Weather Service was predict- ing it would eventually fall below floodstage last Thursday or early Friday. It crested at 25.2 feet last week, which is one of the top 20 highest crests since records have been kept on the river stage. The Patoka River at Winslow is falling quickly. It was at 16 feet on Tuesday, down from a crest of nearly 28 feet. It had been at re- cord high volume following an 11.5 inch rain that followed the riv- er through several counties two weeks ago. See photo on page A-4. Flood waters recede; Hwy. 257 opens By Andy Heuring In Monday night's county commission- ers' meeting, hunters complained about a cable being put across a county road. Dan Wehr and Mike Hochesang said they aren't sure who put the gate across the road, but it has prevented them from being able to get to food plots which their organization, Quail and Upland Game Alliance, main- tains. Wehr and Hochesang said as far as they could tell, the road was still a county road and they wanted to know if it had been vacated by the county. They said the gate was located on CR 700 E. in the Cup Creek area, about 0.9 miles from Highway 64. They said this road had previously provided access to several thou- sand acres of public ground, including both state and federally owned ground. Hoche- sang said the Indiana Department of Natu- ral Resources was interested in a large tim- ber cutting in the area, but they couldn't gain access due to the cable blocking the road. Hochesang and Wehr told the commis- sioners there was access from the other side of the property, but it went through a wetlands and the DNR couldn't cross that area. Pike County Highway Assistant Super- intendent Josh Byrd told the men he had a similar situation in another area where fed- eral land was involved. He said they con- tacted Bill McCoy, manager of the Patoka US Fish and Wildlife Refuge, and he took over the matter and the road was reopened. Commissioner Assistant Kristi Dis- chinger told the commissioners she had looked through the ordinance book that dated back to 1972 and could not find an ordinance vacating the road. County Attorney Val Fleig suggested they write a letter to the property owners on either side asking them if they closed Commissioners hear complaints about gated road City-Wide yard sale shoppers Katalyna Rayos, Kaithlyn Rayos and Haley Sullivan dig through a table of children's clothing at Darcee Hays' yard sale Saturday morning. It was one of 38 in Petersburg as part of the City-wide Yard Sale. See additional photos on page A-5. Jeremy Gibson, 33, talks with EMTs following a violent crash Monday morning on High- way 61 in Petersburg. Gibson escaped injury in the crash that happened when he fell asleep.