More pictures and meetings

Chamber luncheon at the Ritz

The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce held its August luncheon at the Ritz Theater. Nancy Klockhow, the owner of the Theater, gave a brief history of the theater, which has had several owners since it was built in 1928. Covid and the construction of the Brick Streets Project have both hurt her business, so she is only showing movies on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She had tales of ghosts in the theater and there is a long video on Youtube of ghost hunters visiting the Ritz.

Judy Kanne gave a report of the local Historical Society's application to get a State historical marker honoring Charles Halleck. He was born in DeMotte and DeMotte is the proposed site for the marker. Paul Norwine and several of his KV students did some of the research work included in the application. Halleck was born in 1900 so next year will be his 125 birthday and perhaps that may help the application chances of being accepted. It is one of 34 applications for a historical marker.

Do you know where historical markers are in Jasper County? There are three in Rensselaer. The answer is here.

After the talks, we were allowed to go into the space behind the screen where the original stage still exists. The theater was built to accommodate vaudeville acts.

Along the walls of the theater are painted murals of famous movie scenes. I had not realized that they were painted rather than photographs.

Ribbon cutting for The Clinic of Family Medicine

After the Chamber lunch, most of the people attending walked over to the new location of the Clinic of Family Medicine for a ribbon cutting.

The hallway in the building is decorated with copies of pictures from the Jasper County Historical Society and the people attending were quite fascinated with them. I do not know anything about this business.

Percy Horton was the son of the dentist who had an office upstairs in what is now the Yallaly Building. Percy was an accomplished musician.

And I also do not know anything about the Clark Brothers Livery Stable.

Myers art exhibit

The current exhibit at the Fendig Gallery features the art of Doris Myers (1921-2023). She was a prolific artist, working with many media. The exhibit runs until September 10.

Myers' most common subjects seem to be landscapes of various sorts and flowers. 

This exhibit is rather unusual because many and perhaps most of the work on display is for sale. The yellow dot on the picture above indicates it is for sale. People buying the works can take them when they leave the gallery, so the number of works on display will decline as the exhibit goes on.

Myers tried many different styles, such as this painting that simulates a mosaic.

The painting below is one that was not for sale.

The red dot on the tag for this picture indicates it was purchased, probably during the opening for PAC members only.

The hands are sculpted from clay, which was then fired.

Some of the flower pieces for sale.

In addition to the many paintings that were framed and hung, there were bins of paintings and prints that were unframed. All were for sale.

Myers was also a very talented potter.

The gallery hours are Tuesday, noon to 4:00; Thursday 2:00 to 6:00, and Saturday noon to 2:00. 

Other pictures

Last week I saw a truck carrying away some of the support beams for the bleachers being removed from the SJC football field.

The last set of bleachers removed were those in which the SJC band sat. Here is a good picture of that work starting. Below is how the site appeared when the bleachers were removed. They may have been scrapped because some of the bleachers were deteriorating and the College was unable to find anyone who wanted them.

On Tuesday workers were digging up piles of dirt where the main section of bleachers had been. They were removing the underground cement that supported the bleachers.

Also on Tuesday workers were removing the sidewalk from the old location of Dollar Tree.

A few hours later a cement truck arrived to pour new sidewalks. I hope this is a sign that something new will be going into that store.

Work continues on replacing the bricks on Van Rensselaer. Bricks are now south and east of the main door to City Hall. Note the new light fixture on the corner of Van Rensselaer and Harrison.

The dirt that was placed in the bump-outs is sprouting vegetation. Weeds grow fast.

Part of the sidewalk on the northeast side of Filson Park was poured on Tuesday.

Finally, here is the air conditioner at Blacker Fields that was mentioned at the Park Board meeting as being too close to the building and too close to its enclosure.

Odds and ends

From the Facebook page of local author Shannon Anderson:

I've been keeping a secret! 

I'm finally allowed to share that I was a contestant on the new TV game show, Lucky 13! It was so crazy to be on stage trying to answer questions with Shaquille O'Neal and Gina Rodriguez beside me. So much fun! Be sure to watch on August 22nd at 9:00pm EST! 

(I'm not allowed to reveal anything about the show or how I did.)

From the Legals in the August 8, 2024 issue of the Rensselaer Republican (p B7):

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is planning to undertake the I-65 Wolcott NB and SB Rest Area Project, funded in part by the Federal Highway Administration  (FHWA). The project is located on I-65 in White County, Indiana, approximately 1.2 miles west of US 231.

Under the preferred alternative, the proposed project would demolish the existing Wolcott NB and SB facilities and parking lots, decommission the on-site wastewater treatment plant, remove ramp lighting, and restore the site by grading with soil and vegetation cover to maintain the existing drainage pattern. Neither rest area will be reconstructed. 

This information was available for some time, but this was the first time I noticed it.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Tourism Commission meeting on Tuesday morning did not have a quorum so it could discuss items but not vote on them. Remington (either Town or MainStreet) is interested in new signage to attract visitors and wanted to know if the Commission was interested enough for a formal submission. The members there thought that they should submit. There was an application from the Knights of Columbus for a "Blue Light" project that would publicize the importance of first responders. The members wondered what the tourism impact would be. 

The strategic plan has been completed and will at some point be on the Discover-Jasper-County website. A new mural website is being prepared and will be part of the Discover-Jasper-County website. The Tourism office has drone footage of the water-tower mural and that also will be on their website. The Touch of Dutch festival had great weather and record crowds.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Airport Authority Board had an executive session scheduled for 5:30 on Tuesday evening. a Board of Finance meeting at 5:45, and a regular meeting at 6:00.. I had considered attending in person but was tired, so opted to attend via Zoom. Executive sessions, which often discuss personnel performance, are closed to the public, so I logged in at 5:45 and waited. They must have had a lengthy discussion of personnel because the Finance meeting did not start until almost 6:00.

The Finance meeting discussed the tradeoff between liquidity and return. If one wants a higher return, usually one must lose liquidity. So they discussed with their financial advisor how much to have in a money-market account and how much to put in various maturities of T-bills or T-notes. The Airport has a substantial amount of financial assets and because they are a government entity, they are limited in how they can invest those assets. All of this is complicated right now because the Country has an inverted yield curve and most prognosticators expect interest rates to fall in the year ahead.

 The regular meeting opened with an update on the master plan that is being prepared by consultants and that is being approved chapter by chapter by the FAA. This plan is needed for future funding from the FAA. The Airport would like to acquire land to its west for an east-west runway and would like to exchange that land for land it owns along SR 114 that could be valuable for future commercial development. There is a possibility that such an exchange may be arranged. There were discussions of insurance and maintenance for the rental plane as well as Airport minutiae that goes with the day-to-day operations. The Airport manager would like to renovate the bathrooms in the terminal building. The Board approved a pay raise for the assistant manager, probably a result from the executive session. The helicopter rides in July largely flopped because of weather but the biplane rides did very well. 

There are seven students enrolled in the airport class for this semester, three from RCHS, 3 from KV, and 1 from SN. This past summer the Airport had four interns; next year it will hire only one. The Board discussed the budget for next year and considered two options; they voted to approve option 2. They ended the meeting with a discussion of switching cell-phone providers for the Airport.