WEDNESDAY October 30, 2013
Trick-or-treat times Page A3 Complete guide to Halloween activities
Just Where They Left Off Page B1 George, Hibbert lead Pacers in opener
Weather Cloudy, rain expected late, high in the low 60s. Low tonight 55. Rain Thursday, 1-3 inches expected. Page A6
GOOD MORNING DeKalb Central seeks comments on athletic director WATERLOO — The DeKalb Central school district is seeking input to help recruit a new athletic director. At its October meeting, the DeKalb Central school board accepted DeKalb High School athletic director Ron Kock’s announcment that he will retire at the end of the 2013-2014 school year with 35 years of service. “DeKalb Central Schools recognizes the impact that our athletic and other extra-curricular programs have at our high school and in our community. It is with this understanding that we are seeking stakeholder input to assist in this recruiting effort. Community feedback is a necessary and important part of this comprehensive process,” the district said in a news release Tuesday. Community input meetings are scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 7, and Wednesday, Nov. 13, from 6-8 p.m. in the cafeteria at J.R. Watson Elementary School in Auburn.
Two charged in alleged plot at Edgerton school EDGERTON, Ohio — Two teens are facing felony charges after allegedly planning to launch an attack at an Edgerton, Ohio, school, according to news reports. The Bryan Times reports the two were taken into custody Monday and remain at the Northwest Ohio Juvenile Detention, Training & Rehabilitation Center in Stryker, Ohio. Police said three teenage boys were questioned Monday morning, then released to the custody of their parents while the investigation was turned over to Williams County Prosecutor Kirk Yosick. Shortly before 5 p.m., Yosick filed felony charges against two of the three teens questioned. Exact details of what the accused intended to do, why they wanted to do it and how close they were to getting it done have not been released, The Times reports.
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Index
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Classifieds.................................B7-B8 Life..................................................... A3 Obituaries......................................... A4 Opinion .............................................B4 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather............................................ A6 TV/Comics .......................................B6 Vol. 101 No. 299
The Auburn, Indiana
Serving DeKalb County since 1871 75 cents
kpcnews.com
Golf course going ... gone
More health woes 1.4 million learn policies canceled
BY DAVE KURTZ dkurtz@kpcmedia.com
AUBURN — Golfers are getting in their last rounds at Bridgewater West golf course this week, before its closes permanently Friday. Chuck Laurie Jr. of Auburn played 18 holes in brilliant fall sunshine Monday, then reminisced about his 65 years on the course, starting at age 7. “I never got tired of playing it. It’s different every day,” Laurie said. “It’s just such a sporty, interesting golf course. Every club in your bag, you can hit.” Laurie has seen more than two-thirds of the 90-year history of the golf course and its changes, including three different names. In the next chapter, new owners Rick James and Mark Millett intend to turn the scenic property along Cedar Creek into a private park, expected to be open to the public for hiking and cross country skiing. Laurie said the course opened around 1922 as Auburn County Club, occupying the Hodge farm at the north edge of Auburn and converting the farm house into a clubhouse. He said the club struggled financially during the Great Depression, but community leaders such as Auburn Foundry founder B.O. Fink, the Messengers of Messenger Corp. and newspaper publisher Verne Buchanan kept it afloat. Laurie’s grandmother managed the club in the 1930s and lived upstairs above the clubhouse with her son, Laurie’s father, who became one of the club’s better golfers, he said. In the early 1960s, members converted the club to a stock organization and called it Greenhurst Country Club, a name that would last for around 40 years. Bridgewater Golf Club, which opened a new course one mile to the east in the late 1990s, purchased Greenhurst in the early 2000s. It seems fitting that the course will close the day after Halloween, because when Laurie looks over the tree-lined, 18-hole layout, he envisions ghosts of past golfers. Laurie rates Stan Refner as the club’s finest player of the 1930s, followed by Charlie Welch in the 1940s and 1950s and Rieke Corp. executive Don Kelly in the 1960s and 1970s. Laurie believes Kelly holds the course record of 62.
DAVE KURTZ
Chuck Laurie Jr., left, and Herby Schwartz played one of their last rounds of golf at Bridgewater West in Auburn Monday. Laurie has played the course for 65 years. Schwartz has a member card dated 1955.
DAVE KURTZ
Herby Schwartz shows his 1955 membership card to Auburn Country Club, now know as Bridgewater West. The course will close permanently Friday morning.
The club’s pros included Jack Sanders in the 1940s and 1950s. Sanders later would become mayor of Auburn from 1976-1983. Laurie’s golfing partner Monday, Herby Schwartz of Auburn, remembers serving as a caddie for pro golfer Ed “Porky” Oliver, who played an exhibition at the course in 1955. Oliver had finished second in the Masters tournament in 1953. Golfing legend Walter Hagen also shot an exhibition round at the course, Laurie said. Marilyn Smith, a founding member of the women’s professional tour, once went nine holes against Sanders. Like Laurie and Schwartz, Auburn native and author Mark Shaw learned golf by caddying at the Auburn course. Shaw, who now lives in California, won a conference championship at Greenhurst while playing for Auburn High School and earned
“Greenhurst always had a kind of ambience to it. You really could feel the game of golf there.” Mark Shaw Former Purdue golfer
• a golf scholarship to Purdue University. “I’ve seen some of the great golf courses in the world,” said Shaw, who has written a biography of course designer Pete Dye. “Greenhurst always had a kind of ambience to it. You really could feel the game of golf there.” SEE GOLF, PAGE A6
WASHINGTON (AP) — Move over, website woes. Lawmakers confronted the Obama administration Tuesday with a difficult new health care problem — a wave of cancellation notices hitting individuals and small business who buy their own insurance. At the same time, the federal official closest to the website apologized for its dysfunction in new sign-ups and asserted things are getting better by the day. Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner said it’s not the administration but insurers who are responsible for cancellation letters now reaching many of the estimated 14 million people who buy individual policies. And, officials said, people who get cancellation notices will be able to find better replacement plans, in some cases for less. The Associated Press, citing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, reported in May that many carriers would opt to cancel policies this fall and issue new ones. Administratively that was seen as easier than changing existing plans to comply with the new law, which mandates coverage of more services and provides better financial protection against catastrophic illnesses. While the administration had ample warning of the cancellations, they could become another public relations debacle for President Barack Obama’s signature legislation. This problem goes to the credibility of one of the president’s earliest promises about the health care overhaul: You can keep your plan if you like it. In the spring, state insurance commissioners started giving insurers the option of canceling existing individual plans for 2014, because the coverage required under Obama’s law is significantly more robust. Some states directed insurers to issue cancellations. Large employer plans that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected. The cancellation notices are now reaching policyholders, and they’ve been complaining to their lawmakers — who were grilling Tavenner on Tuesday. “Based on what little information the administration has disclosed, it turns out that more people have received cancellation notices for their health care plans this month than have enrolled in the (health care website),” said Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. He cited a news SEE HEALTH, PAGE A6
Garrett school board passes anti-bullying rules BY SUE CARPENTER scarpenter@kpcmedia.com
GARRETT — The GarrettKeyser-Butler school board Monday introduced and passed on first reading an anti-bullying policy for the corporation. The policy describes bullying as aggressive behaviors that involve unwanted actions that are repeated over time and involve an imbalance of power. The definition includes: • overt, unwanted, repeated acts or gestures, including verbal or written communications or images transmitted in any manner including digitally or electronically; • physical acts committed, aggression or other behaviors committed by a student or group of students against another with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate, intimidate or harm the targeted student and create a
hostile school environment, such as fear of harm to the targeted student or student’s property; • substantially interfering with a targeted student’s physical or mental health; and • interfering with a targeted student’s academic performance or with a targeted student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities and privileges provided by the school. The policy includes provisions for investigations of bullying, reporting bullying to a teacher or staff member, timetables for reporting to parents on the reported incidents involving their children, a process for discipline for teachers and staff for failure to comply with the rule and procedures for follow-up services for the victim and the bully. In other business, the board approved: • the 2014 school budget;
• a superintendent employment contract; • a Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act resolution; • Dennis Stockdale, Tonya Weaver, Matt Smith, Lucas Fielden and Kristi Surfus to attend the AASA National Conference on Education in Nashville, Tenn. from Feb. 13-15, 2014; • a Martin Riley Architects-Engineers proposal for roof consulting services for the J.E Ober Elementary School and the old section of the high school; • a 2013-2014 Title I and 2013-2014 NESP grant awards, for $22,118 and $3,362, respectively; • an FFA National Convention field trip in Louisville, Ky., from Wednesday through Saturday of this week; and • a proposal offering a criminal justice course at Garrett High School. Superintendent Dennis
Stockdale said the school is checking with various agencies to provide services for the vocational course.
Personnel hired The board hired several coaches during Monday’s meeting. Middle school coaches include Alan Bobalik and Kyle Branscum as sixth-grade boys basketball coaches; Jason Richards as seventh-grade boys basketball coach; Matt DeWitt as eighthgrade boys basketball coach; Shane Branscum and Chase Hall as boys basketball volunteer coaches; Doug Weaver and Kevin Casselman as seventh-grade girls basketball coaches; Bud Owen as girls basketball volunteer coach; and Nick Kraus as wrestling coach. High school coaches approved SEE GARRETT, PAGE A6