by
Fred Swift
Hamilton County Reporter
With a little more than a week before the deadline to file for school board, Noblesville still has no candidates. Never before has there apparently been so little interest. Incumbent members have not publicly expressed interest in re-election and no others have come forward to seek the two seats at stake in this fall’s election.
Most recent school candidate filings in other county school districts are David C. Martin in Hamilton Heights’ Jackson Township district, and Julie Chambers in Southeastern, District 4.
Countywide, there are only 16 candidates so far for the 18 seats up for election this year. The deadline to file is noon on Friday, Aug. 24.
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Indiana Republican Party leaders, realizing the importance of Hamilton County to their statewide election strategy, sent field director Matt Organ to the GOP Breakfast Club meeting to outline how crucial a Republican plurality may become this year.
The election’s marquee race will feature the Senate contest between Mike Braun and Democrat Joe Donnelly. Braun is scheduled to appear here in October at the annual Carmel GOP pork roast.
Donnelly will also make one or more appearances, but his schedule has not been announced.
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The county’s Civil War monument in Crownland Cemetery (for which Monument Street is named) will be rededicated in public ceremonies at 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 16.
It was first dedicated 150 years ago on July 4, 1868, and bears the names of all who enlisted in Union forces from Hamilton County. (271 of them died in the war.)
The County Historical Society is sponsoring the event which will feature members of the military, Masonic Lodge and Boy Scouts. Patriotic music is planned and a Lincoln re-enactor will be present. Ronald Wilson is coordinating the event.
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One of our Reporter readers who saw our story on the removal of relics from the Transportation Museum at Forest Park asked what happened to the dismantled Indianapolis interurban terminal that was stored at the park. The world’s largest interurban station was trucked to the park in pieces in 1968 with the intention of having it re-assembled to house the museum’s trains.
The huge structure where 500 interurban electric trains arrived daily had nine sets of tracks under roof. It was built in 1904 and served until 1941 when it was converted to a bus station.
After lying in pieces at the museum for years, the steel was sold for scrap because there was not enough money to restore it.