Two truly great men were lost in recent days and I would like to write just a bit about each one.  One was from politics, the other from baseball.  One I had the honor of meeting, the other I admired from afar.

First, let’s talk about John Dingell.  He was a congressman from an area of Michigan not far from Detroit and served in the House longer than anyone else.  He was elected to the seat after his father retired, and now Mr. Dingell’s wife holds that seat.

Everyone who knew John Dingell loved him, even his political foes.  That is rare in a place like Capitol Hill.

I had the honor of meeting Congressman Dingell during a news conference with a local member of the House, Phil Sharp.  Both men took a special interest in all things energy.  I was working for a regional radio network at that time (the early 1980s) and waited for my chance to interview John Dingell.

As I was waiting, another member of the press corps told an awful, off-color joke and John Dingell smiled, did a half-hearted laugh and quickly turned to me.  I spent only a few minutes with John Dingell, but I couldn’t help but like him.

The second man we recently lost was Frank Robinson.  I listened to Cincinnati Reds radio broadcasts regularly during the early and mid 1960s.  In those days, only a few baseball games were available on television.

One of my favorite Reds players was Frank Robinson.  I still have memories of my best friend Jack Mitchell and I listening to every Reds game we could get on our transistor radios (cutting edge technology at that time).

My Dad announced we were taking a family vacation in the summer of 1965, and we were all going to a Reds game as part of the trip.  I was beyond excited.  I got a special treat when I discovered the the Reds were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers and the starting pitcher would be one of the greatest left-handers in the history of the game – Sandy Koufax.

What I remember most was what happened in the bottom of the first inning.  Frank Robinson hit a towering home run over the scoreboard in left center field at the old Crosley Field, off the great Sandy Koufax.  The Dodger starter only lasted to the fifth inning and the Reds won the game on a 2-out ninth inning home run by Leo Cardenas.

But the memory embedded in my mind is that Frank Robinson home run –  it was something to see.

During the following off-season, in one of the worst trades in baseball history, the Reds traded Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles.  Robinson tore-up the American League with his play and the Reds were relegated to second-tier status until the Big Red Machine came along in the 1970s.

Once his playing days were over, Frank Robinson became the first African American manager in Major League Baseball.

I have fond memories of John Dingell and Frank Robinson.  Both left a strong legacy in their chosen professions.  May their souls rest in peace

Fishers City Councilman Todd Zimmerman explained how Scott Fadness began talking to him about a mental health initiative the night election returns showed Fadness would become Fishers first mayor in November, 2014.  The mayor began laying the groundwork for the Fishers Mental Health Initiative before he took office as mayor, while he was the Fishers Town Manager.

Since 2014, Scott Fadness has been working on moving forward withe the initiative.  He provided updates from the police & fire departments, the local schools and the city’s efforts to publicize the initiative.  Fadness gave the quarterly update on the initiative to a packed crowd at Fishers City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

The mayor described recent statistics that show suicide rates are down throughout the world over the past 20-30 years, with a few exceptions.  The United States is an exception, which shows in increase.  In Indiana, we rate very low in the mental health condition of residents and available assistance to address those mental health conditions, according to Fadness.

Initiatives now before state lawmakers in this legislative session were highlighted by the mayor.

“We also find ourselves in a time of economic disruption,” said Fadness. “We see rural America changing.  We see suicide rates among farmers going up.”

It is up to government to find systems and get them into place to help those suffering as a result of the very big changes, the mayor explained.

Mental health has become more of a public issue in recent years.  Even Lady Gaga is on board.  But Fishers has been on board for many years, and the journey continues.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness told me in a recent podcast interview that he is focusing on job creation in 2019, and a firm has announced today it is moving its tech jobs to Fishers.

Formstack, a software firm, will move its staff to the third floor of the Four Day Ray Building in the downtown Fishers Nickel Plate District.

“The City of Fishers shares the same spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation we hold dearly at Formstack,” said Chris Byers, CEO of Formstack in a news release. “Our move to Fishers is a reinvestment and recommitment to the growing tech ecosystem in central Indiana.”

Formstack was founded by Ade Olonoh in February 2006 to provide users with a online data capture services. Since 2006, Formstack has grown.  Led by CEO Chris Byers since 2010, Formstack has launched dozens of new products and has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. by Inc. Magazine.  Formstack is a perennial Best Places to Work in Indiana honoree and Indianapolis Business Journal Fast 25 company.

“Our efforts to bring top-tier companies like Formstack to Fishers have been key to becoming one of the best places to live in America,” said Mayor Scott Fadness. “We recognize the impact Formstack has on the SaaS community, and we’re proud that they’ve decided to relocate to Fishers.” (SaaS is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.)

Formstack acquired Toronto-based QuickTapSurvey in 2018 and Fast Forms in 2017.

This is the third consecutive year the City of Fishers is honoring volunteers in the local community.  If you are a volunteer in Fishers for any organization, the city is inviting you to dinner on Tuesday, February 26th, 6pm, at the Forum Credit Union Conference Center, for the City of Service Awards.

Volunteers from around the community will be honored.  Former Hamilton Southeastern School Board member John DeLucia will handle the duties as master of ceremonies.

The dinner is free, you only need to register, and may do so at this link.

For more information on the City of Service Awards, I recorded a podcast with John DeLucia and Dan Domsic from the Parks and Recreation Department…you can listen to that podcast at this link.

We now know all the candidates for the upcoming May 7th Republican primary city election in Fishers.  Some Democrats have filed, but there are only primary races on the GOP side.

There are many contests I will be writing about in the coming weeks before election day, and plan to invite candidates in all contested races to record a podcast.  However, in this article, I want to highlight two people running in this year’s municipal election…one is a Republican and one is a Democrat.

First, the Republican.  All three incumbent city council members at large – Rich Block, Cecilia Coble and Todd Zimmerman – are running for re-election.  A new face has emerged to challenge these three – Gurinder Singh.

Mr. Singh heads up a political action committee formed by those practicing the Sikh religious faith in Indiana.  As a person at the top of a political organization, he knows something about Indiana politics.  Mr. Singh also knows something about running a political campaign, and based on what I know about him, Gurinder Singh plans to work hard at campaigning for office.

Bottom line, Gurinder Singh will be a candidate to be reckoned with in this Republican primary election.

Then, there is the Democrat.  She is Jocelyn Vare.  I first became acquainted with Ms. Vare in her volunteer work with arts organizations in the area.  She owns a firm in Fishers, Propeller Marketing.   Each year, her company donates resources to a local non-profit group at no charge to get their marketing strategy started.

Jocelyn Vare brings her talents and know-how to communicate her messages in the campaign.  That will prove very useful in her fall general election contest for city council at-large.  She owns her own business and will be able to take the time she needs to campaign.

Bottom line, she will be a candidate that can make some noise in this year’s election.

This is not to denigrate any of the other candidates, but these two people bring something different to the table in elections coming up this year.  It is worth keeping an eye on both of them.

I do not write about Carmel often because my blog is mostly focused on Fishers.  However, I want to write about a particular issue because a friend of mine is part of the story, and I want this to be a lesson to anyone formulating any chicanery in our Fishers city election.

The February 9th edition of the Hamilton County Reporter (full disclosure:  I have a news gathering partnership with the Reporter) has a front page story about something that has happened in connection with the upcoming Carmel city election.

Based on the story in the Reporter, Carmel City Council candidate Adam Aasen held a campaign event that was attended by Mayor Jim Brainaird.  Candidate Aasen penned a thank you note to the mayor for attending that event, and gave support for Brainard’s re-election.

According to the Reporter story, that thank-you note was posted on the Internet Friday morning.  The Reporter says Aasen’s thank-you note was taken from Brainard’s personal trash, which apparently was not on the street but still on the mayor’s personal property.

I will be the first to tell you that I have no idea what the legal issues are here and will leave that alone in this piece.  But there is something I want to make clear.

I know Adam Aasen because we co-hosted a weekly film podcast for about 18 months.  We put the podcast on hiatus last September largely because Adam was considering a run for Carmel City Council.  I consider Adam to be a friend.

When you work closely with someone over a period of time, you get to know a lot about that person.  Let me tell you about Adam Aasen.

Adam and I agree on some issues and disagree on others.  But I learned that Adam is no one’s rubber stamp.  He supports Mayor Brainard’s bid for another term, but that does not mean Adam will agree with the incumbent mayor on every issue.  He will weigh every matter before the council on whether it is good for the city as a whole and his district in particular.  That is the Adam Aasen I know.

So if people make the argument that Adam will be taking orders from Jim Brainard, that is not true.  He generally supports the mayor and is backing his re-election bid, but that does not translate into total loyalty.

Some people in Carmel are starting to call this incident “trashgate.”  Speaking for myself only, I’m more than a little tired of people taking every allegation of a scandal and adding “gate” on the end of it.

I know nothing about Adam’s primary election opponent and take no position on any election in Carmel.  Let’s just say I can vouch for Adam’s integrity, and that will be all I have to say.

For Fishers, I hope all the candidates derive a lesson from this tale.  It is best to keep your campaign clean – no trash, please.

Update: The story in the Reporter appeared to say that the note in question may have been stolen from Mayor Brainard’s personal trash.   Now, Ann Marie Shambaugh of Current in Carmel reports that Carmel Clerk-Treasurer Christine Pauley said she “accidentally” found a thank you note a city council candidate sent to Mayor Jim Brainard in a trash can at City Hall.  You can read her story at this link

Every summer, I see a man that does sports officiating in high school & small college football & basketball throughout central and southern Illinois.  When I last saw him in 2018, all he wanted to talk about was how so many local newspapers had folded where he referees, and how hard it is to find stories about local sporting events.

What has been happening in Illinois has also been happening in Indiana.  There are fewer newspapers and the surviving dailies have trimmed-back their staffing levels.

The state’s largest newspaper, the Indianapolis Star, is a shadow of its former self.  The remaining reporters and editors work hard and do very good work under trying circumstances.

I am not the only one worried about this development.  Randall Shepherd, retired chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, wrote a piece for the February 8th edition of the Indianapolis Business Journal’s “Forefront” opinion insert.  Justice Shepherd is very worried about the state of journalism around the Hoosier state.

Shepherd points to digital operations as reasons for hope. But my blog and podcast series are volunteer efforts.  Commercial success is hard to come by in this business.

But there are other institutions, such as public television and radio, that are growing journalists, using a model of funding the news operation through public broadcasting memberships from the general public.  However, these operations also depend heavily on foundation grants to remain viable.

We have some outstanding local foundations, such as the Lilly Endowment and the Fairbanks Foundation, that have chipped-in big-time to fund local public broadcasting journalism.  But we need to be real about this trend, because foundations over a period of time change the emphasis of giving and sometimes turn their money elsewhere.

I keep hearing and reading that there is an appetite among the public for news. particularly local news.  The statistics for my news blog and podcast series bear that out.

The sticking point is that no one has figured-out how to monetize (make money)  from the news content.  I see more operations going to a subscription model, where you pay a monthly fee to access more than a few pieces of content per month.  The Washington Post and New York Times have had success with this model on the national level, and a sports Web site, The Athletic, has high-quality sports writing, and you pay a monthly fee to access it.

I have resisted the temptation to charge people a monthly fee for access to my news content and will continue to do so.  I want anyone wanting to read this blog to have access to it.  But keep in mind this is a volunteer activity for me and I’m not getting any younger.  No one else has offered to join the local volunteer news blogging ranks in Fishers.

So, journalism needs to be alive at the local level.  I agree with the retired chief justice that Indiana needs more local news….the key is how it all gets paid-for.

You can read Randall Shepherd’s piece at this link, but you may be limited if you are not an IBJ subscriber (another news outlet charging for more than a little online content, and doing so successfully so far).

by

Richie Hall

Sports Editor 

Hamilton County Reporter

KOKOMO – If there’s one thing that people should know about the Hamilton
Southeastern girls basketball team, it’s this: Nothing rattles the Royals.

That grace under pressure has carried Southeastern to one win after another, and
that includes Saturday’s regional championship game. The No. 1-ranked Royals beat
No. 5 Homestead 57-47 to win the Class 4A Kokomo regional, the second regional title
in program history. Southeastern won its first title in 2006.

“When you’re winning in February, it’s fun,” said Royals coach Chris Huppenthal.
With this win, Southeastern improved to 25-1 for the season, matching the Royals’
mark for most wins in a season since 2006-07.

“It feels amazing to know that we’ve taken everything from the summer, we’ve
just progressed over time and we’ve built a trust and a family,” said senior Tayah Irvin.
“It feels amazing to be able to win with these girls, because I’m not ready to be done with
them.”

Southeastern will play at the La Porte semi-state next Saturday, where it will take
on No. 4 Crown Point. But to get there, the Royals had to first get past a dangerous
Spartans team, one that had three senior players who were part of Homestead’s 2017
state championship team.

Yet Southeastern never trailed in the game. The Royals bounced out to a 12-4
lead in the first quarter, with Sydney Parrish scoring nine of those points. The Spartans
came back to within 14-12 by the end of the period, but Parrish began the second quarter
with a three-point play to make it 17-12.

Homestead tied the game at 17-17; seniors Kara Gealy hit a layin and Sydney
Graber made a 3. The score was then knotted at 19-19, but back-to-back 3-pointers from
Amaya Hamilton and Malea Jackson pushed the Royals back up 25-19. Later, Irvin
scored on a putback and Molly Walton’s layin got HSE ahead 29-21.

“We tell our kids before we came out, our schedule was built to get us in situations
like this and for us to be successful in situations like this,” said Huppenthal. “Our
girls have played and they know they’ve played the best teams in the state and they
know what they need to do.

“And again, there’s just a quiet calmness and a quiet confidence about this group that
is special,” said Huppenthal. “And there isn’t a kid out there that isn’t contributing. Tayah
Irvin came up with a couple big buckets and big free throws down the stretch. Syd,
obviously hit some big shots. Malea hit some big ones there in the fourth quarter.”

“We always talk about, we can’t think we’re good just because we end up beating teams,” said Irvin. “We’ve got to keep working, because once we start thinking we’re good, we’re going to get beat.”

The Royals led 31-25 at halftime. Homestead made a push in the third quarter, but Southeastern again got big baskets when it needed them: Parrish and Jackson both hit
3s in the later stages of the period. Thus, the Royals were still ahead 39-37 after three
quarters.

Southeastern then took control in the fourth period, scoring the quarter’s first eight
points. Irvin started things off with a layin, then Jackson hit her third 3-pointer of the
game. The Royals began working the clock in the fourth quarter, and made a key defensive play when Parrish got a steal near Homestead’s basket.

Seconds later, Parrish drained her third 3 of the game to put Southeastern up 47-37,
then Irvin made a couple of free throws to give the Royals their biggest lead of the
game, 49-37 with 3:37 left. The Spartans’ Rylie Parker hit a 3 to get the lead back
under 10 points, but Homestead would get no closer than seven points, as Southeastern
closed it out from the free throw line in the game’s final four minutes.

Parrish scored 27 points, while Jackson added 14. Hamilton and Irvin each collected
eight rebounds, with Parrish pulling seven rebounds. Jackie Maulucci handed out four
assists.

Southeastern advanced to the championship game with a morning semi-final win
over Fort Wayne Carroll, 59-34.

The Royals outscored the Chargers in each quarter, leading 25-11 after the first
quarter and 40-19 at halftime. Parrish led the Southeastern scoring with 16 points, while
Hamilton scored 10 points, including a pair of 3-pointers.

Irvin and Self both pulled five rebounds, with Irvin also making four steals. Walton
handed out five assists.

Hamilton County Reporter

Fishers won its Senior Night game on Friday, beating Pendleton Heights 55-48.

The Tigers led 13-4 after the first quarter, with Josiah Matthews scoring five
points. Fishers held a 29-21 advantage at halftime, with Alex Szilagyi adding seven
points in that period.

The Arabians cut the Tigers’ lead to 41-38 after three quarters,but Fishers outscored Pendleton 14-10 in the fourth to get the win. The Tigers went 8 of 9 from the free throw line during that quarter.

Four players finished in double figures for Fishers, led Szilagyi’s 15 points. Matthews added 14, Jeffrey Simmons had 12 and Willie Jackson scored 10.

The Tigers are 15-6 and host Zionsville next Friday.

Hamilton County Reporter

Carmel won an all-county game Friday over Hamilton Southeastern, 57-40, at the
Eric Clark Activity Center.

The score was tied at 11-11 after the first quarter, but the Class 4A No. 2 Greyhounds
surged ahead 27-18 by halftime. While the third period was closer, Carmel still led
38-28 after the quarter finished, then outscored the Royals 19-12 in the fourth.

Three Greyhounds finished with 13 points each: Andrew Owens, John Michael
Mulloy and Karsten Windlan. Owens and Mulloy both pulled six rebounds, with
Mulloy also making two blocked shots. Ben Frische collected five rebounds.

Noah Smith scored 13 points to lead Southeastern, with Chris Grubbs and Vinny
Buccilla both adding 12 points. Mabor Majak pulled 11 rebounds and handed out
seven assists. Smith also collected seven rebounds.

Carmel is 16-1 and plays at Fort Wayne Carroll tonight. The Royals are 13-6 and
travel to Anderson on Tuesday.