Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 3 Best General Commentary/Category 4 First place Matt Getts, The Star (Auburn) Comments: Nice personal topics. Works humor nicely into columns. Writing is crisp and clear. Second place Steve Garbacz, The Commercial Review (Portland) Great personal topics. Leads draw reader in right away. Writing succinct with great closing lines. Third place Todd Daniel Lancaster, Washington Times-Herald Comments: Hilarious. Really. Most of the time. Solid writing, good topics. Drew you in and kept you reading. Best Editorial Writer/Category 5 First place Jack Ronald, The Commercial Review (Portland) Comments: In a very competitive category, this entry showed the most leadership, clearly defining the issues involved and offering the community a way to proceed. Great talent. Second place Shea Van Hoy, The News & Tribune (Jeffersonville) Comments: By the narrowest of margins, this entry came in second. The devastating critique of the superintendent search was particularly compelling. Good job. Third place Tim Timmons, The Paper of Montgomery County (Crawfordsville) Comments: This entry offers talented commentary on local government. Loved the defense of open records in the assessor���s email affair. Keep up the good work. Best Business/Economic News Coverage/ Category 6 First place The education factor Bethany Mauger, The Courier-Times (New Castle) Comments: Provided good perspective on how two different elements of our society affect one another. Second place Madison Chemical has developed the formula Peggy Vlerebome, The Madison Courier Comments: Great story. Even though I don���t live there I was really interested. Third place Final harvest Arika Herron, Daily Reporter (Greenfield) Comments: Good use of the human element, which most of these stories lacked. Helping around the house is shocking Matt Getts The Star (Auburn) The folks are tearing out the carpet in their kitchen to have linoleum put in its place. After my mom had the upstairs bathroom painted a uterine pink, I pretty much decided to stay out of their interior-decorating decisions. Since I was around, however, I agreed to help take part in the tearing out of the carpet. They accepted my help, which says more about their judgment than the color of their upstairs lavatory. The first part of the project was to take everything out of the refrigerator and take it down to the basement refrigerator. The boy, 11, and the girl, 8, were on hand to assist. I carried stuff down, and the wee ones put it away. Everything went well until I touched the refrigerator in the basement and received an electric shock that jolted my thumb. I am no electrician, and certainly no Maytag guy, but this did not seem kosher to me. It had happened so fast that I decided I better check it again. I grabbed the handle this time, and got a jolt all the way up to my shoulder. By this time, my dear, sweet mother was the only other person in the basement. ���Mom, I think the refrigerator just shocked me,��� I told her. ���What?��� I have not said anything only once in my parents��� household in many a year, so I repeated it. ���The kids were opening and closing it before, and they didn���t say anything,��� she said. ���Touch it again.��� To my credit as a faithfully obedient son, I touched the refrigerator again, taking another jolt up through my shoulder area. ���Maybe it���s because you���re standing on the carpet with no shoes on,��� she said. ���Step back on to the cement and touch it again.��� Again, I got another shock. If only MY kids listened so well. My mother���s concern was growing in inverse proportion to the growing lack of feeling in my right arm. ���Maybe it���s because the rest of us were wearing shoes,��� she said. I shrugged. ���Do you still have your ice pack on?��� mom asked. I had hurt myself running, and indeed had an ice pack strapped to my lower back. ���Do you think that would matter?��� I asked. Now my mom is no electrician and fails the gender test to be a Maytag GUY, but when she said, ���Maybe,��� it For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� This is an expensive education Jack Ronald The Commercial Review (Portland) As educations go, this one was expensive. While it���s likely a legal battle lies ahead over the city of Portland���s liability for $870,000 in federal funds handed over to Geesaman Industries, the city is on the hook at the moment for the entire amount. There���s going to be no shortage of finger pointing over the Geesaman Industries fiasco. (And, yes, fiasco is the right word.) But one point is unarguable: The city of Portland failed to secure adequate safeguards to protect local taxpayers. No one involved looks very good at the moment. Not the city attorney, not the Hosier administration, not Geesaman Industries, and not Jay County Development Corporation. What���s important now is to set in place procedures and priorities to make sure nothing like this happens again. That���s especially true for the administration of Mayor Randy Geesaman, which is faced with cleaning up the mess while still getting its footing in office. (Once more, for the record, it needs to be noted that while the new mayor and Steve Geesaman have a family link, Randy Geesaman was not in a policymaking position during the period when the city dropped the ball. He was clerktreasurer at the time.) Keep in mind that this isn���t the first time in recent years that local government involvement with new businesses has backfired. A few years back, Economic Development Income Tax dollars were passed out like venture capital to companies like Omnicity and Community Home Improvement, without adequate security for the investment. XPLEX, while it didn���t cost the city EDIT dollars, left behind an expensive environmental headache the city must pay to resolve. And while the money that went to Geesaman Industries wasn���t from EDIT funds, it may well be EDIT that has to be tapped to pay back the federal government for a grant that failed to produce the promised jobs. So the effect is largely the same. Clearly, it���s time for a moratorium on any similar ventures until strict rules can For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� The education factor Bethany Mauger The Courier-Times (New Castle) Jobs alone can���t solve the enrollment problem at New Castle schools. A Ball State University economist said attracting a factory may not entice families to move here. They won���t bring their children to a community if they don���t think they���ll get a good education. At the same time, economic development officials can���t attract new companies if a school district���s performance is poor. Businesses won���t move to an area with a low graduation rate and few people going to college, they said. For years, research has shown a major link between Page 32 education and economic development, BSU economist Michael Hicks said. He���s seen studies proving that if communities want more people and jobs, the best thing to do is improve their schools. Roy Budd, executive director of regional economic development group EnergizeECI, can���t get companies to move to cities or towns with low graduation rates. Communities like Yorktown are growing because they have high-performing schools, he said. But the connection is still slow to catch on in many communities, and while there���s some communication between schools and county officials, Hicks says there isn���t enough. The two sides need to be in frequent contact to understand each other���s needs, he said. ���Every economic discussion ought to involve educators,��� Hicks said. The school-development connection has come to the forefront as New Castle schools face their biggest enrollment drop in years. On Friday, Supt. Steve Fisher reported a drop of 172 students, and though he said the final number could be slightly lower, it���s not enough to make a dramatic difference. The majority of students who left the district moved out of town as their parents searched for work, Fisher said. Blue River Valley and South Henry schools cited the same For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.���