MONDAY December 2, 2013
Christmas
Speed Kills
NBA, NFL
Ligonier, Albion plan holiday events
Actor dies in car accident
Indianapolis teams post wins
Page A2 & A3
Page A4
Page B1
Weather Cloudy skies with a 20 percent chance of precipitation. High of 38. Low of 29. Page A6
Kendallville, Indiana
Serving Noble & LaGrange Counties
kpcnews.com
Is the worst over? Officials say
GOOD MORNING Indiana Christmas tree buyers urged to go green MUNCIE (AP) — Environmental officials and activists want Indiana residents to go green this Christmas. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is urging Hoosiers to help the environment and the economy by buying Indianagrown Christmas trees this year instead of artificial ones. Indiana tree farms grow a wide variety of trees, though some — such as the popular Fraser fir — don’t grow well in the state. Most of those trees are brought in from places like Michigan or North Carolina, where soil conditions and temperatures are more conducive to their growth. That shouldn’t prevent people from checking out real trees instead of artificial ones, IDEM spokesman Dan Goldblatt said. “Unlike artificial trees, which are usually made of petroleum-based products and smell the same way a plastic shoe horn smells, a real Christmas tree can fill your home with fresh air and can be recycled,” Goldblatt told The Star Press. “Even after you cut the tree down and put it in your house, it continues to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen as long as it has a fresh water supply to keep it alive.” The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups share his view, saying artificial trees typically made of metal and polyvinyl chloride aren’t biodegradable and often wind up in landfills after six to nine years. Real trees can be recycled into mulch or used as habitats for wildlife during the winter. “A lot of people, when they’re done with their tree, they put them outdoors on their property,” said Bob Beavers of Branch Ranch, a Christmas tree farm in Yorktown. “They’re a great home for birds to have a warm place to live in the winter.” Artificial trees are popular because they don’t drop needles on the floor or leave sap on people’s hands. They also appeal to people worried about how cutting down trees affects the environment.
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Index
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Classifieds........................................B7 Life..................................................... A5 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion .............................................B4 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A6 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 104 No. 331
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Joe Peters of Angola conducts a community choir during a rehearsal of Handel’s “Messiah” at the Furth Annex in Angola on Nov. 17. The choir, made up of approximately 60 people from six Steuben County church choirs, and singers
throughout the tri-state area, along with a 15-piece orchestra from the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, will perform “Messiah” at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church at 7 p.m. Sunday. The concert is free.
Classical connection For Joe Peters, ‘Messiah’ is something personal BY MIKE MARTURELLO mmarturello@kpcmedia.com
ANGOLA — For three years, Joe Peters has immersed himself in the study and production of Handel’s “Messiah.” Peters, 27, of Angola, will conduct the third holiday production of “Messiah” at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, Angola, starting at 7 p.m. Sunday. The production will feature a choir of about 60 members, accompanied by a 15-piece orchestra from the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra. Leading the charge will be Peters, who holds a master’s degree from the Jacob School of Music at Indiana University. “The first year when we got together, we had our directors’ meeting and it was already into October, and we decided that well, it was probably a little too late to start it, so why don’t we just have a meeting of all the people that are interested and see how it goes?” Peter said. The meeting morphed into a rehearsal, and a production was born. “The first year we did it, I arranged the accompaniment for it myself for two trumpets, two trombones, organ and timpani,” Peters said. He called on some IU friends to play.
NEIGHBORS STEUBEN
COUNTY
“After that, we decided the best way to fill out the sound,” Peters said, “I thought we needed to get an orchestra.” He didn’t envision having enough time to put together a local orchestra and have rehearsals for those musicians, too, so the Philharmonic was brought in, with the cost covered by sponsors. “They are fantastic. Of course, they show up. They know the piece,” Peters said. It starts in early October with rehearsals, ending with the dress rehearsal — the only time the chorus rehearses with the Philharmonic. For about 1 hour, 40 minutes, this classical English-language oratorio that tells the story of the birth, life and resurrection of Jesus will be presented to a standingroom-only crowd, if past performances are any guide. For Peters, it is the culmination of 11 months of study and preparation for the work that, in its entirety, runs about 2 1/2 hours. “There’s nothing else like it here. I don’t think Angola is
Video at kpcnews.com Joe Peters talks more about the upcoming performance of “Messiah” in video at kpcnews.com that includes clips from a recent rehearsal. Scan the QR code to watch it on your tablet or smartphone.
exposed enough to music like ‘Messiah,’” he said. Talk about “Messiah,” and you know it is very special if not spiritual to Peters. He believes for George Frideric Handel to have created the work in just over three weeks speaks of divine intervention. He hopes people will be moved by the voices and music on display Sunday. “I think what you take away from ‘Messiah’ is totally personal,” Peters said. Peters is proud to have been able to collaborate with a number of local people to put together a choir from six local churches, Trine University and a few people from outside Steuben County. Peters started conducting when he was in high school after developing an interest in music SEE MESSIAH, PAGE A6
WASHINGTON (AP) — The worst of the online glitches, crashes and delays may be over for the problem-plagued government health care website, the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday. But that doesn’t mean HealthCare.gov is ready for a clean bill of health. Officials acknowledged more work remains on the website that included hundreds of software bugs, inadequate equipment and inefficient management for its national debut two months ago. Federal workers and private contractors have undertaken an intense reworking of the system, but the White House’s chief troubleshooter cautioned some users could still encounter trouble. “The bottom line — HealthCare.gov on December 1st is night and day from where it was on October 1st,” Jeff Zients told reporters. More than 50,000 people can log on to the website at one time and more than 800,000 people will be able to shop for insurance coverage each day, the government estimated in a report released Sunday. If true, it’s a dramatic improvement from the system’s first weeks, when frustrated buyers watched their computer screen freeze, the website crash and error messages multiply. The figures — which could not be independently verified — suggest millions of Americans could turn to their laptops to shop for and buy insurance policies by the Dec. 23 deadline. “There’s not really any way to verify from the outside that the vast majority of people who want to enroll can now do so, but we’ll find out at least anecdotally over the coming days if the system can handle the traffic and provide a smooth experience for people SEE WORST, PAGE A6
Train derailment kills 4, hurts more than 60 NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City commuter train rounding a riverside curve derailed Sunday, killing four people and injuring more than 60 in a crash that threw passengers from the toppling cars and left a snaking chain of twisted wreckage just inches from the water. Some of the roughly 150 passengers on the early morning Metro-North train from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan were jolted from sleep around 7:20 a.m. to screams and the frightening sensation of their compartment rolling over on a bend in the Bronx where the Hudson and Harlem rivers meet. When the motion stopped, four or five of the seven cars had lurched off the rails. It was the latest accident in a troubled year for the nation’s second-biggest commuter railroad, which had never experienced a passenger death in an accident in its 31-year-history. “Four people lost their lives today in the holiday season, right after Thanksgiving,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference. Eleven of the injured were believed to be critically injured and another six seriously hurt, according to the Fire Department. The train operator was among the injured, Cuomo said. The governor said the track did not appear to be faulty, leaving speed as a possible culprit for the crash. But he noted that the National Transportation Safety
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board inspect a derailed Metro North commuter train where it almost fell into the Harlem River Sunday in the Bronx borough of New York. The
Board would determine what happened. The Federal Railroad Administration was also sending 10 investigators to the scene. Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Thomas F. Prendergast said investigators would look at numerous factors, including the train, the track and signal system, the operators and speed.
Metro-North train derailed on a curved section of track early Sunday, coming to rest just inches from the water.
The speed limit on the curve is 30 mph, compared with 70 mph in the area approaching it, MTA spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. The train’s data recorders should be able to tell how fast it was traveling, she said. One passenger, Frank Tatulli, told WABC-TV that the train appeared to be going “a lot faster” than usual as it approached the
AP
sharp curve near the Spuyten Duyvil station, which takes its name from a Dutch word for a local waterway, sometimes translated as “Devil’s whirlpool.” The train was about half full at the time of the crash, rail officials said, with some passengers likely heading to the city for holiday shopping. SEE DERAILMENT, PAGE A6