Aviation Career Day and assisted living

The second annual Aviation Career Day took place at the Jasper County Airport on Friday. There were about 1000 students from area schools plus a few others who stopped in to see what was happening. Below students from West Central are lined up to hear a presentation about various careers and were entertained by a medical helicopter landing.

 The station about aircraft maintenance (there is a maintenance shop at Jasper County Airport that services local planes and planes coming in from nearby states) had a plane built in 1946. To the students that must seem like an eternity ago, but for us older folks it does not seem quite so old.

 Students from Rensselaer mostly sat still as they heard a presentation about aircraft safety. Many did not seem dressed appropriately for the chilly morning.

 Purdue brought a plane and had presenters talk a bit about the science of flight.

There was a blackhawk helicopter that I did not get a picture of because I had to give directions to a class that was lost. The final station was called "general aviation" and had a crop duster, the basket of a hot air balloon, and other displays.

 One of those other displays had drones used by the sheriff's department. The large one took the pictures of the Kankakee River flooding that was widely shared earlier this year.

When asked how many days of school were left, the kids all knew the answer.

A lot of progress was made on street paving this past week. On Friday afternoon the crew was rolling the stretch of Angelica next to the Carnegie Center. I will probably learn at Monday's City Council meeting how much work is left. There is also work being done along Sparling, where sidewalks will be replaced of installed.

On Thursday the Rensselaer BZA approved the conditional use application submitted by Jasper County Senior Living, LLC to construct a 44-unit assisted-living facility north of Royal Oak Restaurant. The Board asked lots of questions. The company has a purchase agreement with SJC for the lots that they need. When fully occupied it will employ 20-25 people, some of them CNAs. The cost of construction will be about $5 million and it will be stick-built.  It will have the same design as others that the company has or is building. The company hired a consultant that specializes in estimating the demand for this type of housing and they said that there was a demand for about 80 units in Rensselaer. There will be three styles of units, studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom. The monthly cost of each when fully utilizing all services will be about $2500 for the studio, $3500 for the one-bedroom, and $4500 for the two-bedroom. Full service includes all meals, housekeeping, and laundry, among other things. About one half of the units will be capable of having two residents, so the total capacity of the facility will be about 60, at which point the dining room will be full. Very few of the residents at similar facilities in Attica or Linton have autos, which surprised some Board members. (See the previous post for more info.)

I have heard that NITCO is moving their office to the former Blockbuster building on South College. Martin's Restaurant has a new coat of paint and I have heard rumors that changes will be happening there.
There are still some large tree trunks that have not been cleared away. Maybe it was too big for the crew on clean-up week.