THURSDAY December 19, 2013
Piled High Page A7 Auburn street crews battle mounds of snow
Railroader Road Win Page B1 Garrett boys win at Bellmont
Weather Mostly cloudy, rain possible, high 40. Tonight’s low 35. Warmer, high 45 with rain Friday. Page A7
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Deal passes Senate
Celebrating 100 years
GOOD MORNING Used iPads sell out quickly at school GARRETT — GarrettKeyser-Butler Schools sold out a limited number of retired Apple iPads in 45 minutes when it offered them to the public at $65 apiece. The sale was scheduled to begin Wednesday morning and original plans called for it to continue today. School officials said a line of buyers began to form before 7 a.m. Wednesday. Tickets were handed to those in line, and by 7:45 a.m., the supply was depleted and potential buyers were turned away. The first-generation, 16 GB iPads and power supplies were sold as-is with no warranties. The devices were not capable of updating to the latest operating system and were not eligible for the school’s Bring Your Own Apple Device program due to application issues.
Georgia woman shares giant jackpot ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia woman who bought just one ticket and used family birthdays and lucky No. 7 to choose her numbers was one of two winners of the $636 million Mega Millions jackpot, the second-largest in U.S. history. Lottery officials in Georgia identified the winner as Ira Curry, of Stone Mountain, which is east of Atlanta. Curry will take a lump sum of $123 million after taxes, Georgia Lottery chief executive Debbie Alford said. “She has not decided how she’ll spend those winnings,” Alford said at a news conference Curry did not attend. The other winning ticket was sold at a gift shop in San Jose, Calif. Curry was driving to work Wednesday when an announcer on the radio talked about the mega ball being No. 7. Curry knew that was her mega ball number, so she called her daughter to check the numbers. “Between joyful tears and laughter on the daughter’s part, she relayed to her mother that her mother had won the lottery,” Alford said.
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Index
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Classifieds.................................B6-B7 Life..................................................... A6 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion ............................................. A5 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A7 TV/Comics .......................................B5 Vol. 101 No. 348
Across-the-board cuts scaled back in bipartisan bill OCTAVIA LEHMAN
Waterloo Grant Township Public Library celebrates its centennial this year. The library will break ground on its expansion project Dec. 29
at 3 p.m. The statue at right, “Break Time,” was dedicated in honor of Bessie Dunn, the librarian from 1959-1992.
Waterloo to break ground on $1.6 million library expansion BY OCTAVIA LEHMAN olehman@kpcmedia.com
WATERLOO — The Waterloo Grant Township Public Library will break ground on its $1.6 million expansion project Dec. 29, capping the beginning of a long-envisioned project. “It’s been a long haul,” said library director Linda Dunn. The library staff, library board and Waterloo community have invested nearly two years of raising funds for the expansion project. “We’ve been very patient,” Dunn added. Library board President Darryl Whittington will Linda Dunn give a short talk outside at 3 p.m., followed by refreshments inside the library. Visitors can view designs for the new space and talk with the library staff and board about the project. The new addition will include meeting rooms for the public, a teen center, updated children’s area and renovation of the existing structure. The first expansion project was completed in 1989, before Dunn joined the Waterloo library in 1992. The renovation doubled the library’s size and cost $400,000. That same year, the library added
its first computer. The staff have another milestone to celebrate: the library building’s centennial. A committee of Waterloo residents formed a library board in 1912 and opened a small library in the upper room of a business owned by J.A. Denison at the northeast corner of Railroad and Wayne streets. Bertha Knott served as the first librarian and opened the doors Nov. 20, 1912, with 200 books on the shelves, donated by citizens of Grant Township and Waterloo. The town’s desire for a library building finally was realized in 1913, when the Carnegie Corp. gave the Knott library board $6,000 to erect a free, public library building for the city of Waterloo. On May 14, 1913, the library board purchased two lots from Joseph and Carrie Showalter for $600, and by Aug. 14, the building’s foundation was well under way. In a speech on Sept. 4, 1913, Mrs. C.H. Brooks, a Waterloo High School school board member, noted that citizens of Waterloo rejoiced when the neighboring city (Auburn) came
“Instead of a benefactor, Waterloo possessed a band of citizens who ... had a vision, which included among other things a library for Waterloo.” Mrs. C.H. Brooks In 1913 speech
• into possession of its beautiful Eckhart Public Library. “We remember offering our congratulations to an Auburn lady and wishing that Waterloo might one day have a library,” Brooks said. The woman Brooks congratulated replied and said that “Waterloo has no Mr. Eckhart,” referring to philanthropist Charles Eckhart, who donated the money to build Auburn’s library. “Instead of a benefactor, Waterloo possessed a band of citizens who, without the encouragement and inspiration afforded by an Eckhart fortune, had a vision, which included among other things a library for Waterloo,” Brooks said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation Wednesday scaling back across-the-board cuts on programs ranging from the Pentagon to the national park system, adding a late dusting of bipartisanship to a year more likely to be remembered for a partial government shutdown and near-perpetual gridlock. Obama’s signature was assured on the measure, which lawmakers in both parties and at opposite ends of the Capitol said they hoped would curb budget brinkmanship and prevent more shutdowns in the near future. “It’s a good first step away from the shortsighted, crisis-driven decision-making that has only served to act as a drag on our economy,” he said of the measure in a statement issued after the vote. And yet, he quickly added, “there is much more work to do to ensure our economy works for every working American.” The legislation passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on a vote of 64-36, six days after clearing the Republican-run House by a similarly bipartisan margin of 332-94. The product of intensive year-end talks, the measure met the short-term political needs of Republicans, Democrats and the White House. As a result, there was no suspense about the outcome of the vote in the Senate — only about fallout in the 2014 elections and, more immediately, its impact on future congressional disputes over spending and the nation’s debt limit. “I’m tired of the gridlock and the American people that I talk to, especially from Arkansas, are tired of it as well,” said Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat who supported the bill yet will have to defend his vote in next year’s campaign for a new term. His likely Republican rival, Rep. Tom Cotton, voted against the measure last week when it cleared the House. SEE DEAL, PAGE A7
Eastside staging ‘A Civil War Story’ BY JEFF JONES jjones@kpcmedia.com
BUTLER — Eastside High School will present “A Civil War Story” tonight, Friday and Saturday in the school’s dinner theater. Written and directed by Eastside drama teacher Tim Albert, the show was created using the framework of letters about Union and Confederate soldiers and their families. It is set in a community along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border — the Mason-Dixon line — that became a cultural boundary between North and South and states supporting and opposing slavery. In the town portrayed in “A Civil War Story,” friends and even family members took up arms on opposite sides of the cause. A general store sold merchandise to both sides. “Bill,” a Union soldier portrayed by Jacob Coats, and “Dan,” a Confederate soldier portrayed by Joe Wilson are from the same town, but find themselves on opposing sides of the fight.
“They get lost and meet in the middle of the night in the woods on Christmas Eve,” Albert explains. Neither wants to shoot or surrender to the other; they agree to lay down their arms and sit by a campfire until they can find their way back to their respective camps. As the story evolves, both soldiers are wounded in battle. Bill writes a letter to his wife that he kept the honor of his family name by fighting. Both soldiers are thought to have died, but manage to find their way home when the war ends. “Nobody was immune to the divisions of the Civil War,” Albert explained. “Mary Todd Lincoln had six close relatives who fought for the South, and three of them died in battle.” Letters from prisoners and families are woven into the story. “In the letters, soldiers wrote about disease, including what they called ‘camp disease,’ which many soldiers died of,” Albert said. Songs came from various
JEFF JONES
Bill (Jacob Coats) tells his wife Sarah (Sarah Strong) of his intentions to join the Union army during a scene from Eastside High School’s production of “A Civil War Story.” Three shows will be presented in the school’s dinner theater.
war-related shows, and a back screen is used to depict battle scenes and historical images. The cast includes Coats, Wilson, Brittany Baker, C.J. Carpenter, Lindsey Halliburton, Kyle Hamilton, Shila Hartley, Lauren Koch, Collin Langford, Doug Lortie, David McCallister, Gabrielle Reed, Jessica Simmons,
Sarah Strong, Rebeccah Teller, Collin Weingartner, Taylor Wojciechowski, Tyler Woods and John VanDyke, Albert as Abraham Lincoln and Eastside alumnus Aaron Surface as a slave. Curtain times are tonight at 7 and Saturday and Sunday at 6:30 p.m.