Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
HOLIDAY EDITION
Duck Dynasty character to make appearance at weekend car show in Auburn
Weather Cloudy, high 31. Tonight’s low 20. Friday’s high in the mid-30s. Page A11
Page A10
Angola, Indiana
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28 & 29, 2013
GOOD MORNING Fremont library to host holiday events FREMONT — The Fremont Public Library is gearing up for the holidays with free events. On Saturday, Dec. 7, library staff will be at the Fremont American Legion from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. after Santa rolls into town. Children can make a craft and a gift book. The event is sponsored by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. Afterward that day, the library will show the 91-minute long PG-rated movie, “Planes,” at 1 p.m. Free popcorn will be served. Bring blankets and pillows for comfort. A major day of activity will take place Saturday, Dec. 14 starting with a holiday movie fest from 2-4 p.m. Titles will include “The Night Before Christmas,” “Merry Madagascar,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Christmas with the Chipmunks” and more. Popcorn will be provided. Bring blankets and pillows. At 2 p.m. that day, guitarist and singer Mike Conley will perform a selection of Christmas music in his own mellow jazzy style near the fireplace. Reindeer will visit the library as part of a holiday workshop 2-4 p.m. also. Children can see live reindeer and then have fun making seasonal crafts and activities. For more details, call 495-7157 or visit fremont.lib. in.us.
More people cozy up to idea of bus travel CHICAGO — With comfy seats that have more leg room than airplanes and Wi-Fi Internet connections, more people are finding that bus travel, particularly this holiday season, suits them just fine, especially with tickets costing as little as $1. READ MORE ON PAGE A6
ONLINE CALENDAR Find out what’s going on in the area this weekend kpcnews.com
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Travelers slowed, not stopped PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A wet and blustery storm along the East Coast made driving hazardous and tangled up hundreds of flights Wednesday in the middle of the Thanksgiving travel frenzy but didn’t cause the all-out gridlock many had feared. Many travelers marveled at how orderly and anxiety-free the airports were during what is typically one of the busiest days of the year.
One big question lingered in New York: Will high winds ground Snoopy and the other giant cartoon-character balloons at the Macy’s parade today? The storm for the most part unleashed wind-driven rain along the Northeast’s heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor from Richmond, Va., to the tip of Maine. Emerging from the weather gantlet was Katie Fleisher, who
made it by car from Portsmouth, N.H., through rain and fog to Boston’s Logan Airport with little trouble and discovered to her amazement that the panicked, cranky crowds she expected were nonexistent. “We thought it would be busier here. But there’ve been no lines, and it has been really quiet all morning,” said Fleisher, whose plan was to fly to Pittsburgh. “Our flight is still on time, but
we are checking the app every couple minutes,” she said. “We are nervous, as we are traveling with two 1-year-olds, and any extra time on a plane would be horrible.” The storm was expected to heap around 6 inches of snow onto parts of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania and up to a foot in a pocket of upstate New York. On Wednesday, damaging SEE TRAVELERS, PAGE A11
Steuben home sales remain strong
Shooting For Saturday Shoppers
FROM STAFF REPORTS
MIKE MARTURELLO
Tracy Boyer, owner of Calicos & Collectibles, Angola, poses in her shop on Tuesday. Boyer will be taking part in Small Business Saturday to kick off the holiday shopping season. This
year, Boyer is marking her 25th year of offering shopping at Christmastime in downtown Angola.
Small businesses hope to lure customers into their stores BY LINDA LIPP llipp@kpcmedia.com
They won’t be open on Thanksgiving and they can’t afford to offer the kind of door-buster holiday bargains the chain stores do, but small, independent merchants are luring customers by offering joint promotions, niche products and a level of service the majors can’t match. “With us, the building of the relationship is first and foremost,” said Kristi Moeller, owner of Moe’s Bikes & More in Auburn. Moe’s is one of a number of northeast Indiana businesses
participating in Small Business Saturday on Nov. 30. This is the fourth year for the American Express Co. promotion nationwide, and the second year for Moeller. “It was not as good as we hoped it would be last year, but then it’s still fairly new. This year, it seems like people are talking more about it,” she said. Cindy Shay, owner of Peekers in Auburn, had a better experience in 2012. “It was a very busy day. It was a very good day,” she said. “It seems like it gets bigger and better every year,” agreed Tracy Boyer, owner of Calicos
& Collectibles in downtown Angola. This year, as it happens, all of Angola’s businesses also are holding their holiday open houses on Nov. 30, “so it really worked out nicely,” Boyer said. Thanksgiving weekend, the official start of the holiday sales season, can be problematic for small businesses, Boyer reflected. In her 25 years of experience in retail, shoppers are more likely to flock to the big-box stores for the bargains that small businesses can’t even begin to match, “and then we get busier the closer it gets to SEE SMALL, PAGE A11
INDIANAPOLIS — The existing home market in Indiana is showing strong signs of recovery, said the president of the Indiana Association of Realtors. The number of existing, singlefamily homes sold statewide last month increased 3.7 percent when compared with October 2012. The median sale price of those 6,318 homes is $121,000 – a 3 percent increase from the same month of last year, said the monthly Indiana Real Estate Markets Report released by the association on Tuesday. “With just two months left in the year, it’s safe to say 2013 has been remarkable for residential real estate,” said Kevin Kirkpatrick, 2013 president of the state association. “Significant gains in both sales and prices were made in many markets across the state. Consumers feel empowered by low prices and interest rates, but on the other hand, sellers are starting to have an advantage.” Locally, for the year to date through October, LaGrange and Steuben counties continue to show gains over 2012 while DeKalb and Noble counties are lagging behind. Home prices locally are mixed, with DeKalb and Noble counties showing increases and LaGrange and Steuben showing slight declines. For the year, Steuben County has seen 419 existing home sales compared to 368 for the same period in 2012, an increase of 13.9 SEE REAL ESTATE, PAGE A11
45 S. Public Square Angola, IN 46703
Recyclone returns!
Phone: (260) 665-3117 Fax: (260) 665-2322 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (800) 717-4679
Unlike the real action hero, new book doesn’t come with tights
Index • Classified...............................................C5-C6 Life.................................................................A8 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion .........................................................A5 TV.................................................................. C4 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather.....................................................A11
BY DAVE KURTZ dkurtz@kpcmedia.com
Vol. 156 No. 328
LOU ANN HOMAN
Lee Sauer of Angola has published a book marking the 25th anniversary of his Recyclone cartoon character, which inspired a live show that ran for 12 years.
GATSBY
29th Annual
Saturday, December 7, 2013 at 8:30 PM
ANGOLA — Twenty-five years ago, Lee Sauer drew his first Recyclone cartoon for KPC Media Group newspapers. Sauer, of Angola, is marking the occasion by publishing “Recyclone Returns,” a 180-page, large-format book collecting all of his cartoon panels along with amusing stories involving the imaginary superhero. Along the way, Recyclone became more than imaginary. A physical representation of
the environmental muscleman appeared at hundreds of school assemblies and other gatherings to promote recycling for a dozen years before retiring. As a new reporter for KPC in 1988, Sauer found inspiration for Recyclone when he covered a recycling group started by Karen Farlow of Auburn. She asked if he could place weekly reminders about recycling in the newspaper. “On the walk back … I thought of a bumbling superhero. I even had the name Recyclone in my SEE RECYCLONE, PAGE A11
Cameron Hospital Benefit Ball Potawatomi Inn, Pokagon State Park
Hors d’oeuvres & Cash Bar Entertainment by Trine Jass Band followed by Blammo Make reservations at www.cameronmch.com