Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
HOLIDAY EDITION
FIST awards Wish Grants to several Steuben County teachers
Weather Cloudy, partly sunny, high of 21. Chance of snow on Christmas Day. Page A8 Angola, Indiana
GOOD MORNING FIST spreads holiday happiness at party ANGOLA — During December, members of Forever Improving Steuben County Together, the youth arm of the Steuben County Community Foundation, held its annual Head Start Christmas party. FIST members went to Fremont’s Head Start. There, FIST members wrapped presents with preschool-aged children, played games and sang Christmas songs. The FIST members also went to Brockville Commons, Fremont and sang Christmas carols to the residents there. FIST also approved a $500 grant for Cops for Kids to purchase coats for children throughout the county.
Fremont trash schedule altered FREMONT — Trash pickup in Fremont will be on Friday and recycling pickup will be on Saturday — both are moved back one day due to the Christmas Day Holiday. The same will be true for next week and New Year’s Day. Trash pickup will be Friday, Jan. 3. There is no recycling pick up during the first week of January because pickup is the second and fourth Friday of each month.
No paper published for Christmas Day This newspaper will not publish an edition on Christmas Day, so that our employees may enjoy the holiday. We will resume publication with our Thursday, Dec. 26, edition.
Ohio man sentenced to 100 years in molesting case MUNCIE (AP) — An Ohio man convicted of child molesting a 6-month-old girl, infecting her with a sexually transmitted disease, has been sentenced to 100 years in prison. Delaware Circuit Judge Kimberly Dowling told 25-year-old Bryan Michael Strickler of Streetsboro, Ohio, during the sentencing Monday that his case represented “the worst of the worst” crimes, the state’s standard for imposition of a maximum sentence.
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Index • Classified.............................................. B6-B8 Life.................................................................A4 Obituaries.....................................................A3 Opinion ........................................................B4 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather.....................................................A10 TV/Comics ..................................................B5 Vol. 156 No. 353
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TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24 & 25, 2013
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Charities make season bright This year the bureau expected to serve a few less families than in previous recent years, Yoder said. As of Dec. 16, the bureau had helped 400 families in the 11 days it had operated since Dec. 2. While the number of people seeking assistance has dropped slightly, the needs of the bureau remained great. “The Lord has really blessed us,” Yoder said. Donations of money allow the bureau to
BY KATHRYN BASSETT kbassett@kpcmedia.com
The generosity of others is allowing northeast Indiana organizations to spread blessings this holiday season. “Everybody has really pitched in and helped with the needs,” said Richard Yoder, board chairman of the LaGrange County Christmas Bureau, a holiday charity operated by the Clothes and Food Basket of LaGrange County.
purchase food from Community Harvest for 19 cents a pound. “It gives us the buying power,” Yoder said of monetary donations. He said he has been sharing this information with various groups and organizations and they seem to be responding. This season the bureau has purchased 250 turkeys to distribute to families. Yoder said the bureau also provides toys, which families appreciate at this time of year.
Warm Holiday Outreach
SEE CHARITIES, PAGE A8
Ice to stick around
Lakeland veterans remembered at Christmas BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
ANGOLA — Veterans at Lakeland Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation were given patriotic lap blankets and cookies Monday for Christmas. Some were deeply moved by the gesture. Members of the Fremont American Legion Post 257 Women’s Auxiliary and Fremont American Legion Post 257 Commander John Custer remembered their fellow veterans. Auxiliary member Deb Stroh made red, white and blue lap blankets that were distributed with cookies with other members, Lori Masters, treasurer; Bobbye Champion, president; and Sondra Ferguson. “I think we do it because we want to recognize the veterans of Steuben County,” Ferguson said. Veterans or family members honored included: Paul Eble, U.S. Army Signal Corps; Jim Clouse, U.S. Air Force; Paul Marich, U.S. Navy; Estel Shoup, U.S. Navy; and Bernard Behnke, U.S. Army. Pat Michael, a 50-year auxiliary member, was honored for her husband’s service. “It makes them feel like they matter and that they’re singled out,” said Rhonda Rockeneaugh, Lakeland activities director. As the blankets and cookies were handed out, veterans visited with the auxiliary and Custer. Shoup touched his blanket and said it meant a great deal simply “to be recognized.” Others like Clouse said there are no better colors than red, white and blue, as he admired his blanket. “You all brought tears to my eyes,” Marich, a Navy veteran, said, while touching the red, white and blue flags. “That’s what I fought for.” Custer said the act of remembering veterans and their service is always moving and important. “Seeing the looks on their faces is worth it,” Custer said. Behnke said he served in World War II in the Army in northern Africa. “Well, for heaven’s sake,” he smiled, kissing the hand of Stroh, the blanket’s maker. “This is beautiful.”
The Retired Senior Volunteer Program’s Community Center of Caring food pantry has seen high demand this holiday season, as well as throughout the rest of the year. By Dec. 17 the pantry had served 317 families and 1,270 individuals in DeKalb County during the month. Of those, 19 families and 79 individuals were new to the pantry, said RSVP
JENNIFER DECKER
U.S. Army Signal Corp veteran Paul Eble, left, thanks Fremont American Legion Post 257 Commander John Custer and members of the Fremont American Legion Post 257 Women’s Auxiliary for a patriotic lap blanket and cookies Monday.
JENNIFER DECKER
U.S. Navy veteran Paul Marich, right, is moved to tears upon being presented with a patriotic lap blanket and cookies by Fremont American Legion Post 257 Commander John Custer, left. Custer and members of the Fremont American Legion Post 257 Women’s Auxiliary remembered veterans at Lakeland Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Monday with the Christmas gifts.
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Parts of the country socked by a wild weekend storm will be covered with ice through Christmas and beyond thanks to a steady diet of freezing rain and cold temperatures. The first full day of winter Sunday brought a mix including balmy temperatures along the Mid-Atlantic, snow in the Midwest and ice, snow and flooding in the Great Lakes, and utilities warned that some people who lost electricity could remain in the dark through Wednesday. More than 390,000 homes and businesses were without power Monday in Michigan, upstate New York and northern New England, down from Sunday’s peak of more than a half million. The bulk were in Michigan, where more than 297,000 customers remained without power Monday. The state’s largest utilities said it will be days before most of those get their electricity back because of the difficulty of working around ice-broken lines. In Maine, the number of people without power spiked to more than 68,000. A medical clinic in Bangor lost power, forcing walk-in patients to seek other options. “It’s certainly not going away,” Margaret Curtis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said Monday of the precipitation and cold. “In fact, we don’t have very many areas where we’re expecting temperatures to rise above freezing.” That means untreated roads and sidewalks from the upper Midwest to northern New England will remain a slippery, dangerous mess as people head out for last-minute shopping or holiday travel. Parts of interior Maine were expected to get another quarter to half-inch of ice Monday. At least nine deaths in the U.S. were blamed on the storm, including five people killed in flooding in Kentucky and a woman who died after a tornado with winds of 130 mph struck in Arkansas. Authorities reduced the speed limit along a 107-mile stretch of the Maine Turnpike from Kittery to Augusta as freezing rain continued to fall Monday morning and temperatures hovered around SEE ICE, PAGE A8
Insurance shoppers given one additional day CHICAGO (AP) — Anticipating heavy traffic on the government’s health care website, the Obama administration effectively extended Monday’s deadline for signing up for insurance by a day, giving Americans in 36 states more time to select a plan. The grace period — which runs through today — was the latest in a series of pushed-back deadlines and delays that have marked the rollout of the health care law. But federal officials urged buyers not to procrastinate. “You should not wait until tomorrow. If you are aiming to get coverage Jan. 1, you should try to
sign up today,” said Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the federal agency in charge of the overhaul. Bataille said the grace period was being offered to accommodate people from different time zones and to deal with any technical problems that might result from a last-minute rush of applicants. The HealthCare.gov site had a disastrous, glitch-prone debut in October, but the government reported on Twitter that it was running smoothly Monday morning. It had no immediate estimates of how many people visited the site. Monday had been the deadline
for Americans in the 36 states served by the federal website to sign up if they wanted coverage upon the start of the new year. The remaining states operate their own online marketplaces, and some of them have also extended their deadlines slightly. The extra day will add incrementally to the already daunting administrative problems for insurance companies, such as inaccuracies on applications, said health care industry consultant Robert Laszewski. “Insurers would like to have two to three weeks to process applications. Now they’re going to
have a week, less one more day,” he said. “When the day is done, it doesn’t help.” President Barack Obama himself signed up for health insurance through the Washington marketplace over the weekend — a purely symbolic move since he will continue to get health care through the military as commander in chief. The White House said he enrolled to show support for the marketplaces, and he chose a less-expensive “bronze” plan. Obama said on Friday that more than 1 million Americans SEE SHOPPERS, PAGE A8