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SATURDAY
Hamilton SE DeKalb
December 28, 2013
Weather Partly cloudy, high 42. Tonight’s low 30. Chance of rain, high 38 Sunday. Much colder Sunday night. Page A6
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New Year’s Eve not No. 1 for alcohol GOOD MORNING Walter recovering from heart surgery FORT WAYNE — Auburn Councilman Mike Walter is recovering from triple bypass heart surgery performed Tuesday at Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne. “They expect to have me out in a few days,” Walter said Friday morning. He said he was feeling good, walking and Walter sitting up. The surgery came after Walter suffered what he described as a “cardiac event” on the morning of Dec. 18 while he was working at the Kroger store in Auburn. “I’m certainly grateful to the people who did CPR on me, for the quick and correct response of the people around me,” Walter said. “We’ve got good emergency services.” Walter, 66, is completing his 18th year as a councilman representing his district on the southwest side of Auburn. He is the lone Democrat on the seven-member Auburn Common Council.
BY AARON ORGAN aorgan@kpcmedia.com
The celebration of New Year’s Eve isn’t accompanied by as much alcohol as you might assume, local liquor store managers report. Brad “Cricket” Gay, owner of Gay’s Hops-n-Schnapps, said the much-commercialized evening of partying and partaking in spirits falls well behind other holidays when it comes to actual sales for his stores. Gay’s, with locations in Angola, Auburn, Fremont and LaGrange, reports New Year’s
Eve sales rank “by far” behind, for instance, Independence Day. The store manager at Kendallville Party Store, 120 N. Main St., echoed that, saying the holiday certainly ranks in his top 10 busiest of the year, but well behind Independence Day and even Halloween. That manager, who asked not to be identified, said sales around New Year’s Eve fell off after 2000 and have rebounded only slightly in the years since. Why? Gay said the location of his stores around the lakes make
them hot spots for sales over the summer holidays. The Kendallville Party store listed reasons such as a crackdown on drunken driving and “alcohol doesn’t hold the allure it used to.” That’s not to say it’s a dry holiday. Gay’s and the Kendallville Party Store both experience major spikes in sales on New Year’s Eve over regular business days. In preparation, each starts ordering and stocking at the SEE NEW YEAR’S, PAGE A6
Chilly for a Cause
KPC FILE PHOTO BY CHAD KLINE
A past Hamilton Polar Bear Plunge shows that swimmers willing to brave ice water can show up dressed in just about anything — from bikinis to Santa suits to Hawaiian wear. This year’s annual plunge will be held Tuesday at 2 p.m. at the
BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com
Best Movies of 2013
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Info • The Star 118 W. Ninth St. Auburn, IN 46706 Auburn: (260) 925-2611 Fax: (260) 925-2625 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (toll free) (800) 717-4679
Index
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Classifieds.................................B7-B8 Life..................................................... A5 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion ............................................. A3 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A6 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 101 No. 356
Store owner
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Benefits end for 1 million today Hamilton Lake Beach. The event is a fundraiser for the Jack Gibson Scholarship fund. Gibson was a retired educator and coach who died from cancer.
New Year’s Eve tradition supports scholarship fund
KPC movie reviewer Jenny Kobiela Mondor breaks down her favorites by category on this Sunday’s C1 and C2.
Brad ‘Cricket’ Gay
Jolt to jobless arrives
Hamilton plans plunge for Jack Coming Sunday
“The holidays are the best time to work in the stores, because everybody’s in a good mood ...”
HAMILTON — Bikini-clad men and women, Santa suits, Hawaiian wear, costumed owners with matching-dressed pets. It’s the annual Jack Gibson Polar Bear Plunge at the Hamilton Lake Beach Tuesday at 2 p.m., and just about anything goes for the fundraiser. Gibson was a longtime educator, school sports official, military veteran and member of the Hamilton Lions Club who died from cancer in 2011. Hamilton Lions President Bob Howard said the event is fun, especially for those willing to brave the harsh winter elements
and face goose bumps. “Girls wear bikinis like it’s 97 degrees in summer,” Howard said with a laugh. “Guys wear Santa suits.” Howard said much socializing takes place, as groups come to end the year on a brave note in a fun atmosphere with friends, family and neighbors. Howard said the event has been held annually since around 1990 and was started by Don Hissong. “It’s a fundraiser, and it goes to the Jack Gibson Scholarship fund. We need people to donate. People who jump in are more apt to donate,” Howard said. The scholarship is awarded at Hamilton and Garrett high schools.
Howard said one new addition to this year’s event will feature the American Legion Hamilton Post 467 Color Guard presenting the colors. Howard noted Gibson was a member of the American Legion there. “We want people to have fun, but raise money” for the scholarship fund, Howard said. Once again, the owner of Hamilton Real Estate will be generous in allowing people who take the plunge to change in its office, Howard said. Registration will start there at 1 p.m. that day. “They’ve been terrific supporters and really open” the business, he said. For more details, call 488-2357.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 1 million Americans are bracing for a harrowing, post-Christmas jolt as extended federal unemployment benefits come to a sudden halt this weekend, with potentially significant implications for the recovering U.S. economy. A tense political battle likely looms when Congress reconvenes in the new, midterm election year. For families dependent on cash assistance, the end of the federal government’s “emergency unemployment compensation” will mean some difficult belt-tightening as enrollees lose their average monthly stipend of $1,166. Jobless rates could drop, but analysts say the economy may suffer with less money for consumers to spend on everything from clothes to cars. Having let the “emergency” program expire as part of a budget deal, it’s unclear if Congress has the appetite to start it anew. An estimated 1.3 million people will be cut off when the federally funded unemployment payments end Saturday. Some 214,000 Californians will lose their payments, a figure expected to rise to more than a half-million by June, the Labor Department said.
Police file on Newtown yields chilling portrait NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut police released thousands of pages Friday from their investigation into the Newtown massacre, providing the most detailed and disturbing picture yet of the rampage and Adam Lanza’s fascination with murder, while also depicting school employees’ brave and clear-headed attempts to protect the children. Among the details: More than a dozen bodies, mostly children, were seen packed “like sardines” in a bathroom. And the horrors inside school were so terrible that when police sent in paramedics, they tried to select ones capable of handling what they were about to witness. “This will be the worst day of your life,” police Sgt. William
Cario warned one. The documents’ release marks the end of the investigation into the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead. Lanza, 20, went to the school after killing his mother, Nancy, inside their home. He committed suicide with a handgun as police arrived at the school. The paperwork, photos and videos were heavily blacked out to protect the names of children and to withhold some of the more grisly details. But the horror comes through at nearly every turn. Included in the file were photographs of the home Lanza shared with his mother. They show numerous rounds of ammunition, SEE NEWTOWN, PAGE A6
PATRICK REDMOND
Ice Festival creation Ice carver Stan Horne of Churubusco works to turn a 300-pound block of ice into a sculpture of a camel, complete with a saddle, on Friday’s first day of the annual Ice Festival in Shipshewana. The festival continues today with a 12-man ice-carving competition and an outdoor chili cook-off. Both events start at 10 a.m.
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