Story Walk Project comes to Fulton County

The Fulton County Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors and Board of Directors, in partnership with Purdue Extension and the Fulton County Leadership Academy, recently celebrated the reveal of the Story Walk Project, located within the trail at Woodlawn Health Campus.

This story walk is the first of four that will be located throughout Fulton County. Jessica Riffle, FCLA facilitator, is proud of the success of this community project spearheaded by a FCLA community group comprised of Cora Alber, Hannah Bahney, Mindy Duckett, Gina Hierlmeier and Andrea Stineback.

“Every year, the leadership academy breaks off into four or five different groups that focus on community service-oriented projects,” said Jessica Riffle. “The story walk is one of the more successful ones, I will say.”

Mindy Duckett of the Purdue Extension Office explained the walk and opportunities that it will bring to the community.

“There are 20 stations around this little pathway and each station has two pages to a book. There is also a prompt for some sort of conversation or physical activity that families can do together as they read the story,” said Duckett, wellness coordinator at Purdue Extension. “This story is also bilingual because we wanted it to be inclusive for as many families as possible. We wanted to encourage everyone to feel comfortable coming out and reading a book.”

Thanks to the Northern Indiana Community Foundation and Fulton County Public Library, there will be three additional story walk locations in Fulton County: Talma, Leiter’s Ford and Kewanna. The Fulton County Public Library will maintain the story walks and rotate periodically the books so every community can have access to each book.

13-foot sawfish spotted in northern Florida hints at a ‘slow recovery’

During a field course about sharks, scientists wanted to capture a juvenile for students to examine. So, last month, from a boat off the coast of Cedar Key, Fla., they cast a line.

When it snagged something large, Dean Grubbs, a marine ecologist at Florida State University who was co-teaching the shark class, thought they’d found a nurse shark.

But before long, the animal jerked against the fishing line, and Grubbs suspected the group was about to see something much stronger and rarer — a critically endangered smalltooth sawfish. This eerie, boneless creature looks like a shark with a chainsaw for a nose, called a rostrum.

A century ago, such a find would have hardly been shocking. Smalltooth sawfish were common across Florida waters and could even be sighted as far as Texas or North Carolina. Young sawfish sheltered in spindly mangrove roots. But throughout the 1990s, coastal development destroyed mangrove forests along Florida’s shore.

Juveniles take several years to reach reproductive maturity, making it even more difficult for their numbers to recover. By the end of the century, their population had crashed by 90%.

Now, sightings of sawfish are few and far between. Before Grubbs’ find, no one had tagged a sawfish in Cedar Key for three or four decades.

Having confirmed the identity of the massive creature, Grubbs and his students restrained the animal, which measured 13 feet long.

Scientists tagged and released the fish, which despite its sharklike appearance, is actually a type of ray. Now, they’ll follow its movements for up to 10 years, collecting data that’s crucial to conservation and recovery efforts for the species.

The recent Cedar Key tagging brings another piece of good news — the animal was a female, and it had mating scars on its sides and fins, suggesting it was breeding.

4th Annual Families Helping Families Benefit Concert

Yakym announces mobile office hours

Congressman Rudy Yakym (RIN) has announced dates, times and locations that his office will be holding mobile staff office hours in August throughout Indiana’s Second District. Mobile office hours will allow for Yakym’s staff to assist constituents with casework questions. Within the Shopping Guide’s readership area are the following:

• Argos Town Hall, 201 W. Walnut St., 11 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Aug. 16.

• Akron Town Hall, 206 W. Rochester St., 1-2:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17.

• Pulaski County CDC, 623 W. 11th St., Winamac, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 23.

• Rochester District Office, 709 Main St., 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays.

34th Annual DENVER

August 12, 2023

LOCATION: SOLID ROCK CHURCH 913 Main Street, Rochester

Doors Open At Noon

Show Starts At 2:00 p.m.

Noon