Freight Coach Wooten, interviewed on TV after the game (Photo from Overnght broadcast)
Fishers Freight coach Dixie Wooten made two points in his postgame interview Saturday night from Quad City. He praised his defense in the 49-35 win over the Steamwheelers, and he made it clear that even though his team has a bye week ahead, no one will be taking the week off.
The reason is simple. The Freight (8-7) close the regular season at home against the Orlando Pirates on Sunday, July 26, 4pm at the Fishers Event Center. A win over the Pirates should guarantee the local franchise’s first playoff berth in just its second season.
Coach Wooten could just as easily have praised kicker Calum Sutherland. Sutherland booted four deuces — kickoffs through the uprights, worth two points each in the IFL — for eight points. The Freight also picked up a safety (two points and the ball back) and what the IFL calls a rouge, a single point for tackling the returner in the end zone on a kickoff. That’s 11 points from special teams and defensive pressure alone, and it was a big factor in the 14-point margin in Moline.
Every road win is a tough one in the IFL, and this was no exception. Quad City struggled early in the season but had beaten some good teams in recent weeks. Fishers knew winning this contest was a requirement to stay in the playoff picture, and the Freight delivered a convincing win.
Now, Coach Wooten and his team have about two weeks to prepare for the most important game the Freight have ever played in their short history. Win on July 26, and Fishers is in the postseason. It should be a great atmosphere.
If you want to be a part of it, tickets are available for the July 26 game, 4pm at the Fishers Event Center.
Queen Kendall Manges (seated), along with – 1st runner up- Avery Hills 2nd runner up- Rachel Deeter 3rd runner up- Charlotte Wiggins 4th runner up – Gisselle Effing (Photo from Hamilton County 4-H social media)
Fishers has a queen to cheer for at this year’s Hamilton County 4-H Fair.
Kendall Manges, a member of the Fishers Showstoppers 4-H club, was crowned the 2026 Hamilton County 4-H Fair Queen on Friday evening, July 10, at the annual queen pageant held in the Exhibition Center at the Hamilton County 4-H Fairgrounds in Noblesville.
The crown caps a steady climb for Manges, the daughter of Chris and Chandra Manges. At last year’s pageant she was named second runner-up — and this year she completed the journey to the top, following a familiar path: both the 2024 and 2025 queens had also served on the Queen’s Court the year before winning their titles.
Manges also earned a distinction few contestants can claim: she was named Miss Congeniality for the second consecutive year, an honor that reflects the respect and affection of her fellow contestants.
Pageant contestants are judged in three categories: a private interview with the judges, a professional wear competition, and an evening gown competition that includes an on-stage question.
The 2026 Queen’s Court includes first runner-up Avery Hills, second runner-up Rachel Deeter, third runner-up Charlotte Wiggins and fourth runner-up Gisselle Effing.
As queen, Manges will preside over the Hamilton County 4-H Fair, which runs July 16–20 at the fairgrounds in Noblesville, and will be eligible to represent Hamilton County at the Miss Indiana State Fair Queen pageant.
We are in the midst of summer and that means plenty of road construction. The Olio Road & Southeastern Parkway roundabout reconstruction is now underway. Be aware of lane restrictions and road closures scheduled for the coming week.
it’s another long update, but here it is, as provided by the City of Fishers:
96th Street and Cyntheanne Road – Full Closure
136th Street Widening – Southeastern Parkway to Prairie Baptist Road – follow detour route
116th and Allisonville Intersection Improvements Project – Down to one lane in all directions
Mayor Fadness speaks before the RDC (photo from city video)
It started with two neighbors talking across a fence.
Mayor Scott Fadness, making a rare appearance before the Fishers Redevelopment Commission Wednesday, July 8, said the city’s development of the Navient Building — and the Fieldhouse project rising next to it — began when his deputy mayor’s neighbor, a real estate professional working for the company, mentioned one evening that his firm was looking to renovate or expand.
“It’s a little bit of luck that we happen to be living next to that guy,” Fadness said, adding that it’s sometimes better to be lucky than good.
That backyard conversation grew into what the mayor called the region’s most significant office transaction in years.
“Landing the largest office deal in the last decade in central Indiana took a degree of creativity and a little bit of risk taking,” Fadness told the commission. “The Navient Building is about half the size of the Chase Tower downtown (Indianapolis) in office space. It was about 30% or 40% occupied, and the people who were in that space, the tenants, were probably on their last leg, a number of them trying to sublease and things of that nature. Worst case scenario, the city would sit with a 400,000 square foot office building empty.”
“We really worked diligently with Buckingham to come up with a kind of master development for that south end,” he said. “There’s a lot of moving pieces in this.”
Closing on the building is set for this week, with tenants moving in and out. Buckingham Companies will serve as master developer for the south end of the district. The firm is handling the multifamily development, helped the city secure the Navient Building and flip it to an owner-occupied tenant, and will deliver a turnkey Fieldhouse the mayor hopes will open no later than early 2028.
To hit that date, Fadness said, “we need to be building this thing yesterday.” The items before the commission Wednesday were designed to keep the process moving. A professional services agreement allows the developer to enter into contracts for early-order items such as steel, putting the city in line for construction. Once permanent financing is in place and the lease is signed, the developer would be reimbursed for those expenses.
The city will ultimately own the Fieldhouse under what Fadness described as a “rent-to-own” arrangement, with a turnkey lease — currently being negotiated — in the interim. The developer would be responsible for certain major infrastructure aspects of the building. General fund dollars will pay for the facility, and Indy Ignite will operate it.
Fadness framed the Fieldhouse as a way to smooth out the seasonal rhythms of the district anchored by the Fishers Event Center, which he called a catalyst for restaurants, hotels and development. The arena is busy through fall, winter and spring, he said, but sits relatively quiet for five to six months over the summer.
The Fieldhouse could fill that gap with tournaments, summer camps and other activities, feeding an ecosystem that already includes 40 restaurants committed to the district and nearly 500 hotel rooms.
The mayor closed by thanking commission members for their support and willingness to take on what he called some pretty creative projects — projects that, in this case, trace back to a lucky conversation over a fence row.
The luxury hotel planned for the site of the canceled Chicken N Pickle project in Fishers District will carry Hilton’s boutique Curio Collection brand and is now expected to cost $70 million or less, according to a report by Mickey Shuey of the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Fishers-based BW Development plans the five-story, 125-room hotel on a 1.52-acre parcel south of USA Parkway, between the firm’s two-building retail project under construction and the Fishers Event Center. When Mayor Scott Fadness announced the hotel in February, it was pitched as a $75 million, unbranded project replacing Chicken N Pickle, which scrapped its Fishers plans in late 2025 after missing the city’s development timeline.
BW Development originally planned to use Hilton’s contemporary Tempo brand but switched to the higher-end Curio Collection last month, IBJ reported. BW co-owner and Chief Growth Officer Troy Woodruff said design modifications brought the expected cost to between $60 million and $70 million.
“The Curio gives us a lot more flexibility, and it operates within the framework and the quality of the type of hotel we’re wanting to build,” Woodruff told IBJ, noting that few comparable hotels exist in Hamilton County or Indianapolis.
The Curio Collection includes more than 200 properties in 47 countries, with 120 more in Hilton’s pipeline. Curio hotels are individually designed and typically command higher room rates than Tempo properties.
Woodruff expects demand from teams and partners tied to TWG Motorsports’ Cadillac Formula One program, as well as executives visiting JD Sports, which announced in June it will move its North American headquarters to the nearby former Navient property on USA Parkway.
The project is working through city approvals, though it was pulled from the July 1 Fishers Planned Use Development Committee agenda to give the developer time to fine-tune costs. Completion is still expected by mid to late 2028. BW has the site under contract from the city, contingent on approvals and financing.
Plans call for a rooftop bar and pool, 14,000 square feet of ballroom and event space, a cafe and patio, and at least 20,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space with at least four restaurants. BW is also spending $33 million on 30,000 square feet of upscale retail and restaurant space next door as part of The Crossing expansion.
The Crossing is part of the $750 million, 123-acre Fishers District developed by Indianapolis-based Thompson Thrift Development. BW sister company Build BW is the general contractor, with Indianapolis-based Ratio as building and landscape architect.
This summary is based on original reporting by Mickey Shuey for the Indianapolis Business Journal. You can read the entire story on the IBJ Web site at this link. You will need an online subscription to access this story. As I have written many times before, subscribe to your local media! That is the only way to keep local journalism alive.
With the resignation of Principal Brian Behrman, Fishers Elementary School has a leadership vacancy just weeks before classes resume August 5.
The Hamilton Southeastern School Board has scheduled a 7:30am meeting Thursday, July 16, to vote on a recommendation from district administrators naming a new principal for the school. The published agenda does not disclose who administrators will recommend.
Members of the public may address the board by signing up at the meeting before the session begins. Comments will be limited to the lone agenda item — approval of the new principal.
The board accepted Behrman’s resignation at its July 8 session. If the appointment is approved Thursday, the incoming principal will have less than three weeks to prepare before students return.
This week’s Fridays with Larry podcast focuses on one of the biggest changes in college athletics in decades — Name, Image and Likeness, better known as NIL.
I begin the podcast with commentary on how NIL has reshaped college sports by allowing student-athletes to profit from their personal brands while opening new opportunities for businesses to partner with them.
My guest this week is Erik Braden, CEO of Fishers-based Braden Business Systems. He discusses why his company chose to become involved in NIL partnerships, first with former Purdue basketball standout Braden Smith and now with Indiana University football players Josh Hoover and Fishers High School grad Khobie Martin.
Braden also explains how the company’s NIL program has gone beyond marketing by partnering with Gleaners Food Bank, combining charitable giving with student-athlete appearances to help address food insecurity in Indiana.
The podcast concludes with a lighter story from California, where Disneyland celebrated a major milestone by welcoming its one-billionth guest.
Fridays With Larry is sponsored by Citizens State Bank.
You can listen to this week’s edition of Fridays with Larry using this video link, this audio link, or the links below.
I try hard to get the numbers right when writing about public money in any context—and particularly when it comes to public school finances.
Wednesday night’s Hamilton Southeastern School Board meeting generated a lot of news, and in covering it I wrote one sentence that requires a correction. I want the record to be straight.
Here is the sentence from the original story, written the same night as the meeting:
“CFO Tim Brown received board approval for a one-time $6.7 million fund transfer, permitted for one year only by state lawmakers, to alleviate the initial impact of the new Homestead Credit for property taxpayers.”
CFO Brown did cite a $6.7 million figure to the board, but that number reflects the impact of what is described as the property tax “circuit breaker”—including the effect of the up-to-$300 credit on property taxes enacted by state lawmakers. The actual transfer, made as a one-time opportunity under state law, was $2.6 million from the debt service fund to the operations fund. That move is allowed in 2026 only.
In other words, the $6.7 million describes the financial pressure the district faces, while the $2.6 million is the amount actually moved between funds to help absorb it.
Under Indiana law, a school district’s operations fund pays for such things as capital projects, transportation costs, school bus replacement and certain overhead expenditures. The debt service fund, by contrast, is used to repay borrowing such as bonds—so shifting money out of it and into operations is the kind of step the legislature permitted only for this one year.
I attempted to summarize a fairly complex situation in a single sentence and did not tell the whole story. Now you have it.
My latest podcast features a panel from Fishers Fire and Emergency Services: Fire Chief Ky Ragsdale, Communications Director Ashley Heckly and Todd Rielage, who heads recruitment and training for the department.
We began with one of the department’s most visible summer traditions, the cul-de-sac drills. Fire crews bring their trucks into Fishers neighborhoods, hook up the hoses and let kids (and more than a few adults) cool off in the spray. Chief Ragsdale describes it as “a little bit more than sprinklers” — a chance for firefighters to connect with residents on a good day rather than their worst day. Drills run Mondays and Fridays at 7pm through the end of July, with eight more scheduled this month. Anyone can stop by a drill in any neighborhood.
With summer in full swing, the chief also shared his water safety concerns, and they may not be what you expect. While Geist Reservoir gets the attention, Ragsdale says neighborhood retention ponds worry him most — murky water, sudden drop-offs and no lifeguards. The department teaches water safety to every second grader in Fishers public and private schools, and urges families to designate a “water watcher” whenever kids are in the pool. We also talked about the department’s dive teams, based at Stations 91 and 92, and how mutual aid works on Geist, where Hamilton, Marion and Hancock counties meet.
Fresh off the Spark!Fishers festival and the July 4th fireworks, we reviewed how the department plans for big public events, plus fireworks safety at home: keep them on your own property, soak spent fireworks in water overnight before they go in the garbage can, and consider glow sticks instead of sparklers for the little ones.
Mark your calendar for the department’s annual Safety Day, coming to the Fishers Farmers Market at the Municipal Complex on Saturday, August 22. As of our recording, 46 vendors had signed up, along with fire trucks to tour, a safety trailer where kids can practice calling 911, and a school bus for teaching kitchen and sleep safety.
Todd Rielage detailed a record recruiting cycle. By casting a wider net online, the department drew more than 1,000 interest forms and nearly 600 completed applications — up from the typical 250-300 — with applicants from as far away as California, Florida and Washington, D.C. We closed with the growing demand for EMS runs, a fourth ambulance on the way, and how the department now supports the mental health of its own firefighters through peer support.
The LarryInFishers podcast series is sponsored by Citizens State Bank.
You can hear the full conversation at this link, or the link below.
Indy Fuel mascot Nitro joins Sean Hallett, President of the Indy Fuel & Fishers Freight, before the HSE School Board
Hallett Sports & Entertainment, the family-owned company behind the Indy Fuel hockey team and the Fishers Freight indoor football franchise, has pledged at least $100,000 per year to the Hamilton Southeastern Education Foundation (HSEF) for the next ten years — a commitment of at least $1 million to support classrooms across Hamilton Southeastern Schools.
The pledge comes from Sean Hallett, president of both the Fuel and the Freight, who recently joined the HSEF board of directors. Hallett told the HSE School Board Wednesday that once he saw firsthand the work the foundation does in local classrooms — funding teacher grants, student scholarships, and innovative learning projects throughout the district — he and his family’s sports enterprise decided to make a long-term investment in that mission.
Founded in 2001, HSEF has invested more than $4 million in programs supporting the students and staff of Hamilton Southeastern Schools. In the 2025-26 school year alone, the foundation funded 45 classroom grant projects totaling nearly $110,000. The Hallett pledge, at a minimum, would roughly double the foundation’s recent annual grant capacity.
The money will be raised through designated games for each of Hallett’s two teams — two Fuel games and two Freight games each season. In addition, the Fuel have ten Sunday home games on the 2026-27 schedule, and fans who purchase through a dedicated link can buy a ten-game Sunday package for $199, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the foundation.
Hallett emphasized that the $100,000 annual figure is a floor, not a ceiling. If the games and ticket packages raise more, all of it goes to HSEF.
The commitment deepens an already substantial relationship between the Hallett family and Fishers. Hallett Sports & Entertainment was instrumental in making the Fishers Event Center a reality — the 7,500-seat arena that opened in late 2024 as the anchor of the Fishers District development. Both the Fuel, who moved from Indianapolis, and the Freight, an expansion team of the Indoor Football League that began play in 2025, call the venue home.
For a foundation that touches every school building in the district, a guaranteed $100,000 a year for a decade is transformative — and if Fishers fans fill those Sunday seats, it could be considerably more.
