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A Good Year At The Cinema A look at the best movies of 2013 Page C1
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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2013
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A Family Heals
Donor gives Bears tickets, limo ride to cancer patient FROM STAFF REPORTS
GARRETT — A Garrett man who is battling cancer will get his wish fulfilled when he attends today’s football game between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago. An anonymous donor gave four tickets to Steve Sprague and will send a limousine to take Sprague and three guests to the game. “It’s really nice that this man came forward and gave us this trip,” said Steve Sprague’s wife, Jane. She said the donor is not a local resident, but likes to do nice things for people. Sprague, 65, has had “a pretty rough time of it,” Jane Sprague said. She mentioned on Facebook that he would like to attend today’s Bears-Packers game. “He’s been a Bears fan most of his life,” but Steve Sprague has never seen a game at Soldier Field, the Bears’ home stadium, Jane Sprague said. When the anonymous donor contacted Jane Sprague, he told her he could do even better than providing tickets. “He said he would give him a limo ride to the game and a suite at the field, and we would be inside so he wouldn’t be out in the cold,” Jane Sprague. Jane Sprague will join her husband on the trip, along with Steve Sprague’s brother and sister-in-law. A longtime resident of Garrett, Steve Sprague owns a shop that repairs small engines and lawn mowers. Jane Sprague operates a hair and tanning salon.
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Index • Classified.............................................. D4-D5 Life................................................................ C1 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion .........................................................A6 Business ......................................................B5 Sports.................................................... B1-B4 Weather.......................................................B5 Vol. 156 No. 357
Hope Addis won the th Noble County 4-H Fair poultry show exhibition class with her grand champion bantam in July. On Aug. 4, Add dis suffered a tr traumatic brain injury from whiich she is still reco overing.
RAISING
HOPE
FILE PHOTO BY KATE
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Albion girl recovering from traumatic brain injury BY BOB BRALEY bbraley@kpcmedia.com
KENDALLVILLE — An old saying goes, “Where there is life, there is hope.” For her family, Hope Addis’ ongoing recovery from a traumatic brain injury Aug. 4 has been at painful, Doctors times but ultimately have told the a reminder that there is Addises Hope hope in God so long as should be able there is life, said Hope’s to come most father, Tim Addis. of the way “There’ve been tough back to where times and there’ve she was before been tears,” Addis the accident. Tim said. “We’re going to get through this. I just trust in the Lord, and he’s leading us.” Until Aug. 4, Hope, now 12 but 11 at the time, was an active, healthy rural Albion farm girl and Central Noble Middle School student. She had shown the grand champion in the exhibition class for poultry at the Noble County 4-H Fair in July, along with the reserve grand champion rabbit. Hope also competed in the 4-H Horse & Pony Show at the fair. She loved horses, her father said, adding, “She rode two or three hours every day.” Hope even volunteered at Dusty Dreams in Noble County, which works helping children and youth with traumatic brain injuries recover
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PHOTO CONTRIBUTED
Hope Addis and her mother, Diane Addis, visit the Indianapolis Zoo during Hope’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury earlier this year. Hope now has returned home to rural Albion.
through riding horses. On Aug. 4, Hope was riding at the family’s Jefferson Township farm. Tim had heard her yell at the horse because it was bouncing. At about 2:30 p.m., Tim’s wife, Diane, came home and asked where Hope was, he
recalled. He answered, “Hope’s out back riding.” Diane went out back and found Hope lying on the ground face down, Tim said. Diane screamed. Tim and the couple’s son, Bryson, ran out to see what had happened. SEE HOPE, PAGE A8
Newtown shooter remains an enigma ASSOCIATED PRESS
Adam Lanza was fascinated with chimpanzees because of their capacity for empathy, but could show little or none himself. He could write stories that struck horror into a teacher’s heart, then turn around and craft a poem so beautiful it moved listeners to tears. As a kid growing up in Connecticut, he rode bikes, played baseball and saxophone, and kept hamsters. As a man, he taped black garbage bags over his bedroom windows, retreating into a world of violent video games, guns and statistics on mass murder. Despite the release Friday by Connecticut state police of thousands of pages of interviews, photographs and writings, the man who gunned down 20 first-graders and six adults at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, remains an enigma. Some of the most tantalizing evidence of the inner workings of the 20-year-old Newtown man’s brain appears to be contained in writings that the police chose not to release. An eight-page document titled simply, “me,” is described in a police inventory as “detailing relationships, ideal companion, culture, voting, personal beliefs, describes doctors touching children as rape.” Another, named “tomorrow,” apparently contains details about the author’s “desires, list of the benefits of being thin and negative connotations associated with being overweight, list of goals …” What the files do show is a deeply troubled young man, living with a single mother who was either unable or unwilling to accept the depths of his illness. The picture most people have of Adam Lanza is the skeletal, blank face from photographs released by police following the massacre. Childhood photos show a smiling boy who could look into a camera, but signs of trouble — if not violence — emerged early. In his preteen years, Lanza SEE NEWTOWN, PAGE A8
Mayors worry tax proposal cuts too deep BY JOEL ELLIOTT jelliott@kpcmedia.com
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s plan to eliminate the business personal property tax would severely impair the ability of local city governments to deliver basic services, area mayors and policy analysts say. If the General Assembly approves cutting the business personal property tax — which is levied on businesses’ equipment and other tangible property, but not real estate — communities will see personnel cuts to schools, police and fire departments, according to John Ketzenberger, president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute. In 2012, the tax generated $962 million in revenue throughout the state, constituting between 15 percent and 20 percent, on average, of municipal budgets, said Ketzenberger, an Auburn native. “There’s no question that it would be felt by local governments,” he said. “Many of them wouldn’t be able to perform the
services they provide. And don’t forget, it also affects schools.” Supporters of eliminating the tax, such as the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and the Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana, believe such action would improve Indiana’s business climate and make it more competitive with other states that don’t have a similar tax. But mayors in northeast Indiana called the proposal unrealistic and said it would require major cuts to the services they provide. “It sounds like a good headline, but the problem is that it really would affect a lot of municipalities,” said Angola Mayor Richard Hickman, a Democrat. “For us, that would be 20 percent of our revenue, and that would be crippling to our abilities to provide the services that people expect here.” Auburn Mayor Norman Yoder, a Republican, said the resulting loss of revenue would be “devastating.” The majority of Auburn’s tax dollars go to basic services, such as fire and police
protection and road paving. “It’s a great political statement,” Yoder said. “I would love to manage a city without having to tax anybody, but Hickman it takes a certain amount of revenue, and generally, I think the local people hold us accountable. “It’s pretty obvious to any of the mayors you talk to, virtually everybody relies Yoder on property tax, from schools to townships to libraries to county government,” Yoder said. “It will be devastating to some of the services we provide unless we provide some sort of replacement. Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry, a Democrat, expressed skepticism about the tax-cut proposal. SEE MAYORS, PAGE A8
“It sounds like a good headline, but the problem is that it really would affect a lot of municipalities.” Richard Hickman Mayor of Angola
• “It will be devastating to some of the services we provide unless we provide some sort of replacement.” Norman Yoder Mayor of Auburn
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