Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
Scott Lepley’s wood carvings are like a calling card throughout Fremont
Weather High today near 47. Partly sunny and warmer on Saturday and Sunday. Page A11
Page A2 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2013
Angola, Indiana
GOOD MORNING Cahoot’s celebrates Halloween Thursday ANGOLA — Cahoot’s Coffee Cafe, 218 W. Maumee St., will celebrate Halloween Thursday with youth activities and trick-ortreating 5-7 p.m. Cahoot’s is a joint ministry between First Congregational United Church of Christ and Angola United Methodist Church that offers various youth programs.
Trick-or-treating hours set in Hudson HUDSON — Hudson’s trick-or-treating hours Thursday will be 5-7 p.m.
Marching Hornets head to semistate BY AMY OBERLIN aoberlin@kpcmedia.com
ANGOLA — The Angola High School Marching Hornets show a lot of enthusiasm as they prepare for semi-state competition Saturday. They will perform at 5:33 p.m. at Decatur Central High School in Indianapolis against 20 other bands in Open Class C. Angola performs third from last. With the 2013 show “Reaching Out” fresh in their minds, Indiana State School Music Association judges will present awards at 6:12 p.m. If Angola is among the top bands, it will advance to state finals Nov. 2 at Lucas Oil Stadium. “Reaching Out” has consistently been a judges’ favorite, extolled for difficult music and challenging choreography mixed with a well executed theme. It uses tarps featuring the reaching hands in a Michelangelo fresco, “The
Creation of Adam,” in the Sistine Chapel and music from Michael Kamen’s “The New Moon in the Old Moon’s Arms.” Senior saxophone player Sadie Miller said this has been the best of her four years in high school marching band. “It’s different from the rest because of our crazy success,” she said. This week, the musicians were still honing the music, changing a part here and there. “We’ve been very successful with that,” said drum major Darius Hillman. He said every week was almost like a new season, coming off of competitions on Saturdays with judges’ comments to perfect the performance. Despite cold, inclement weather, the band has practiced outside every morning this week with gloves and hand warmers keeping their fingers SEE HORNETS, PAGE A11
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
Members of the Angola High School band perform their show “Reaching Out” during a competition earlier this year. The Marching Hornets perform at semi-state on Saturday.
Outlets offer safe Halloween evening
Reed to lead PH
FREMONT — The Outlet Shoppes at Fremont are offering a free safe evening of Halloween fun on Thursday from 5-7 p.m. Children 12 and under accompanied by their parents may participate in trick-or-treating. “Accidents and mishaps increase dramatically when children trick-or-treat. This event gives children and parents the assurance of strolling from door to door in a safe, well lit area,” said Tammy Olds, general manager of the Outlet Shoppes in a news release.
School board selects new superintendent BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
The shelter covers about 5,500 square feet of space. It was built in the 1970s and has been added to. Also, a new garage was constructed for storage, but it is usually short of space. In addition to size, Mumby said heating, air conditioning and ventilation is poor in the current shelter. The current shelter was designed to house 60 cats and 50 dogs, but the population at times is double that. Typically, the shelter houses 100 cats at a time. Mumby said the Humane Society is looking at building a new facility that would be 10,000 square feet, or roughly double the current size. The cost of the new
BRUSHY PRAIRIE — Jeff Reed has been easing into the top job at Prairie Heights Community Schools this year and will assume the reins once Superintendent Alan Middleton retires. Reed, currently Reed assistant superintendent and principal of Prairie Heights Middle School, was named to the superintendent’s position by the Prairie Heights Board of Education on Monday. He will become superintendent July 1, 2014, when Middleton retires. Middleton has served as superintendent the last five years. Reed said he’s looking forward to being the corporation’s top administrator. ‘We’ve had a lot of changes with staff and curriculum,” he said. “We had good ISTEP scores. We’ll continue with what we’ve been doing and continue to tweak.” For the last seven years Reed has been at Prairie Heights, first as assistant principal for three years at the middle school, then four years there as principal. A Columbia City native where he and his family make their home, Reed graduated from Columbia City High School. From there, he obtained his degree in elementary education from Huntington University and his master’s degree and administrative certification from Indiana Wesleyan University. Before Prairie Heights, Reed
SEE SHELTER, PAGE A11
SEE HEIGHTS, PAGE A11
Zoeller seeks dismissal of Ritz suit INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is seeking the dismissal of the lawsuit that the state’s Democratic schools chief filed against members of the State Board of Education. Zoeller said Thursday his office must represent Superintendent Glenda Ritz in any lawsuit and he wants an out-of-court resolution. He also said he won’t take sides in the fight. Ritz alleged in a lawsuit filed earlier this week that 10 members of the state board violated Indiana’s open meetings law when they removed calculation of school grades from her Department of Education. The board members wrote in a letter last week that Ritz was dragging her feet in compiling the school grades. But Ritz’s staff have said they do not have the data yet to issue the grades.
Contact Us • The Herald Republican 45 S. Public Square Angola, IN 46703 Phone: (260) 665-3117 Fax: (260) 665-2322 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (800) 717-4679
Index • Classified.............................................. B5-B8 Life.................................................................A8 Obituaries.....................................................A6 Opinion .........................................................A7 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather.....................................................A11 TV/Comics ..................................................B4 Vol. 156 No. 294
75 cents
kpcnews.com
MIKE MARTURELLO
The Steuben County Humane Society’s board of directors is hoping to expand its facility on C.R. 200W near Crooked Lake. The Humane Society has a lease with Steuben County on county-owned land and hopes to remain at the same location, but in a new building. Humane Society animal shelter assistant manager Kasey
Champion, from left, holds a pair of kittens while employees Wendy Lortie and Travis Smith work on cleaning outdoor dog pens at the facility. Pictured in Champion’s arms are cats Thomas and Andrew. In the pen with Lortie is Pisces, a dog taken in by the shelter.
Humane Society plans for future BY MIKE MARTURELLO mmarturello@kpcmedia.com
CROOKED LAKE — Steuben County Humane Society officials are not going to wait around to deal with its future needs at the shelter it operates in the heart of lakes country. The Humane Society is starting to lay the ground work now to possibly build a new shelter and extend its lease with Steuben County government. The Humane Society’s lease with the county doesn’t expire for another 12 years, but officials want to secure the organization’s future at its current location on C.R. 200W, nestled between the Steuben County Highway Depart-
ment and the former Steuben County Rest Home. “In a perfect world, we’d like to stay we’re at,” said Steve Mumby, Snow Lake, president of the Humane Society board. Staying put would include building a new facility, Mumby said before the Steuben County Commissioners on Monday. “We need to build for the future, not just fix what we have now,” Mumby said. He likened the project to that which is taking place at Cameron Memorial Community Hospital. The hospital is building a new facility because it is much more cost effective than remodeling its existing structure.
Healthcare.gov failures surface in hearing WASHINGTON (AP) — The leading contractors on the Obama administration’s troubled health insurance website told Congress Thursday that the government failed to thoroughly test the complicated system before it went live. Executives of CGI Federal, which built the federal HealthCare. gov website serving 36 states, and QSSI, which designed the part that helps verify applicants’ income and other personal details, testified under oath before the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. The contractors said they each tested their own components independently but that the Health and Human Services department was responsible for testing the
whole system from end to end. That kind of testing didn’t happen until the last couple of weeks before the system’s Oct. 1 launch. It quickly crashed once consumers tried to use it. Representing QSSI, Andrew Slavitt told the committee that ideally, end-to-end testing should have occurred well before the launch, with enough time to correct flaws. How much time? “Months would be nice,” said Slavitt. “We would have loved to have months,” concurred CGI vice president Cheryl Campbell. The administration’s determination to go live on Oct. 1 despite
qualms about testing quickly became a focus of the hearing, which turned sharply partisan at times. Republicans, still committed to repealing Obama’s health care law, approached the questioning with a prosecutorial tone, leading New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone to call the whole exercise a “monkey court.” The contractors did say the problems can and are being fixed on a daily basis, and they expressed confidence that uninsured Americans would have coverage by Jan. 1, when the law’s benefits take effect, though they would not be held to a timetable. The hearing comes as President
Barack Obama’s allies are starting to fret about the political fallout. Democrats had hoped to run for re-election next year on the benefits of the health care law for millions of uninsured Americans. Instead, computer problems are keeping many consumers from signing up through new online markets. One House Democrat says the president needs to “man up” and fire somebody, while others are calling for signup deadlines to be extended and a reconsideration of the penalties individuals will face next year if they remain uninsured. Rep. Richard Nolan, D-Minn., told The Associated Press the computer fiasco has “damaged the SEE HEALTH CARE, PAGE A11