News from south of the river

Today Alliance Bank hosted a meet and greet ice cream social for Kyla Chapman, a Rensselaer native whose goal is to be on the US Olympic Triathlon Team in 2016. Kyla ran track and cross country at RCHS and I watched her for many of her meets because my son was a year ahead of her in school and also ran track and cross country. I believe she holds the RCHS record for the woman's 3200 run.

 To make the team, Kyla must accumulate points by running in various sanctioned races. Next week she will be running in a triathlon in Bloomington, Illinois. To learn more about her, go to her website at kylachapman.com.

If you have heard band sounds coming from SJC, it is probably the Tri-County High School band camp.

There was a cement pour at the future Farm Credit building. Bricks are on the site, so I expect the exterior to be finished in the near future. It seems that whenever I go by, early morning or evening, there are men working. They even work on Saturdays.

 I heard rumors a while back that Gibault was no longer interested in operating the Jasper County Youth Center because it did not fit with its overall mission. Gibault took over the Youth Center in 2007 when it had serious financial problems. They will not renew their lease on the building and later this summer will exit Jasper County. Several community leaders are interested in finding someone else who would be willing to take over the center, which has about 75 children enrolled in day care. Right now church groups are subject to more lenient regulation than others in running day care, so they are the logical target group as potential providers. (A few years ago CDC Resources shut its day care center PlayScape because it could not operate it without a loss, turning it over the to the Tri County Bible Church, which has renamed the center to Treasure Keepers. Saint Augustine, Saint Lukes, and the First Presbyterian Church all have or have had programs from pre-school children, and there may be others as well. There is a good reason that the churches run these programs.)