Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
Fremont Into Christmas Spirit Annual decorating contest coming up. Page A3
Weather Cloudy, rain expected late, high in the low 60s. Low tonight 55. Page A6 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013
Angola, Indiana
GOOD MORNING Northern Lakes hosts ‘unboolievable’ time ANGOLA — Northern Lakes Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, 516 Williams St., invites the community to the 13th annual trick-ortreat “unboolievable” event that will be held Thursday 5:30-7:30 p.m. All attendees will be greeted at the front entrance by a Witches’ Brew station and then trick-or-treating will be through haunted halls for lots of candy and prizes. The Spooky Snack Station will be offering corn dogs, hot dogs and beverages. The safe trick-or-treat is open to all children of the community. For details, call 665-9467.
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Farewell to Corner Landing BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
JIMMERSON CREEK — A longtime bait shop, convenience store and gas dock was demolished Monday to make way for progress. The Corner Landing, 394 C.R. 300W, met its demise as a new facility is being built there that will be a mini shopping plaza, as Randy Strebig described it. That building will have three storefronts. Strebig, president of Strebig Construction, Fort Wayne, and his company is doing the work. “We pulled permits for the third storefront,” he said. “This is the final part.” Strebig said it did not take his company long to demolish the A farewell message on the side of what was the structure, which had messages of longtime Corner Landing in Jimmerson Lake tells farewell painted on its exterior. SEE LANDING, PAGE A6
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
buffs feel toward the demolition. Owners are rebuilding at the site to create storefronts.
the feelings that many fishing fans and nostalgia
“No Strings Attached”
More health woes
Fire at barn forces highway closure GOSHEN (AP) — A state highway in northern Indiana was closed for several hours Tuesday as firefighters worked to extinguish a large fire at a barn used to store recycled wood for animal bedding. The fire broke out about 6:30 a.m. at Martin Animal Bedding along Indiana 119 near the Elkhart County city of Goshen, causing a large plume of smoke that could be seen from miles away. The flames were extinguished by late morning, but crews were digging into the smoldering wood pile to reach hot spots, The Elkhart Truth reported. “We had wood from skids, scrap wood and sawdust,” Elkhart Township Fire Department Chief Ryan Rheinheimer told WSBT-TV. Firefighters from 10 departments were called to the scene about 25 miles southeast of South Bend. Two nearby county roads also were temporarily closed as firefighters had to drive a couple miles to get water from city hydrants. Rheinheimer said spontaneous combustion within the wood pile was a possible cause of the fire. No one was working at the time and employees hadn’t used the facility’s grinding machine since Monday afternoon.
AMY OBERLIN
Kathy Pettys, director of the Luke 3:11 Coat Bank, stands with racks of new coats in the basement of Mount Zion United Methodist
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Church. The coats are for all ages, with coats for teenagers purchased with their tastes in mind.
Coat bank giving warmth with a lot of help from community friends BY AMY OBERLIN aoberlin@kpcmedia.com
MY COMMUNITY NEWS
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GOLDEN LAKE — Steuben County’s coat bank has met with a lot of local warmth. Administered by Mount Zion United Methodist Church, 3401 S. Golden Lake Road, the Luke 3:11 Coat Bank is now in its third year. It will hold its second distribution day on Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The final day will be Nov. 16. Any Steuben County resident of any age is eligible; but those who will be receiving coats need to be present for a fitting. Besides that, the coats are given with “no strings attached,” said coat bank director Kathy Pettys. More than 1,300 people were served last year with the help of many donors and assistants. The congregation started collecting coats in 2009 and became the county’s coat bank in 2010. New coats are purchased off season and church members refurbish donated outerwear. Also available are new hats, scarves and gloves. After attending a grant-writing class at Trine University, Pettys, the wife of Mount Zion’s pastor, the Rev. Rick Pettys, started tracking clients and the growth of the charity. It increased 26 percent from 2011 to 2012, she said. “It’s a shrinking middle class,” Pettys said. “They had been on the giving end, often.” Pettys hears stories of lost jobs, disappearing medical benefits and other diverse problems. Some of the clients make an effort to give back by helping out behind
the scenes or transporting elderly people to the church for a coat fitting. Angola United Methodist Church’s fourth graders helped sort coats recently while learning about the moral of Luke 3:11, in which John said, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” To make sure as many people as possible received coats that needed them, an email was sent out to churches, service organizations, schools, utility companies, social service agencies, law enforcement and fire departments, explaining what the coat bank provides. “The networking is working,” said Pettys. She speaks at local meetings throughout the year. “I don’t want to leave anybody out,” she said. Pettys said many have taken the Luke 3:11 tenet to heart. For example, the Stroh Church of Christ provided manual labor in moving the coats from where they are kept in the basement of the Farmers State Bank in Ashley to Mount Zion’s basement, which will be a coat bank for the next several weeks. The 101 Lakes Kiwanis, with help of a Re/Max box truck, helped with the move, along with the Helmer United Methodist Church congregation. Women In Transition residents help set up the coat bank, and get a coat in return along with coats for their children. Pettys noted “the tender stories of helping these girls” and of a woman who helped SEE COATS, PAGE A6
Toys for Tots interviews Saturday at Project Help BY AMY OBERLIN aoberlin@kpcmedia.com
ANGOLA — Toys for Tots has scheduled a second interview day for Saturday at Project Help of Steuben County, 711 E. Harcourt Road. Steuben County families who need Christmas assistance should attend interviews noon to 6 p.m. Seventy-eight families were interviewed this past Saturday. A birth certificate for each child being assisted though Toys for Tots will be required along with proof of all household income and all household expenses. A picture identification and proof of address are also needed. A bill or bank statement with one’s name on it will also be required if the address information and ID information do not match. This is the last chance to sign up for Christmas assistance at Project Help, SEE TOYS FOR TOTS, PAGE A6
WASHINGTON (AP) — Move over, website woes. Lawmakers confronted the Obama administration Tuesday with a difficult new health care problem — a wave of cancellation notices hitting individuals and small business who buy their own insurance. At the same time, the federal official closest to the website apologized for its dysfunction in new sign-ups and asserted things are getting better by the day. Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner said it’s not the administration but insurers who are responsible for cancellation letters now reaching many of the estimated 14 million people who buy individual policies. And, officials said, people who get cancellation notices will be able to find better replacement plans, in some cases for less. The Associated Press, citing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, reported in May that many carriers would opt to cancel policies this fall and issue new ones. Administratively that was seen as easier than changing existing plans to comply with the new law, which mandates coverage of more services and provides better financial protection against catastrophic illnesses. While the administration had ample warning of the cancellations, they could become another public relations debacle for President Barack Obama’s signature legislation. This problem goes to the credibility of one of the president’s earliest promises about the health care overhaul: You can keep your plan if you like it. In the spring, state insurance commissioners started giving insurers the option of canceling existing individual plans for 2014, because the coverage required under Obama’s law is significantly more robust. Some states directed insurers to issue cancellations. Large employer plans that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected. The cancellation notices are now reaching policyholders, and they’ve been complaining to their lawmakers — who were grilling Tavenner on Tuesday. “Based on what little information the administration has disclosed, it turns out that more people have received cancellation notices for their health care plans this month than have enrolled in the (health care website),” said Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. He cited a news report of 146,000 cancellations in his state alone. Up and down the dais, lawmakers chimed in with stories of constituents who had received similar notices. Republicans also offered examples of people being asked to pay more. Democrats countered by citing constituents who had been able to SEE HEALTH, PAGE A6