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I had a busy A&E weekend, with the “Three Girls and Their Buddy” concert at Clowes Hall on Friday night (more on that later), the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s hot ticket “Rite of Spring” performance on Saturday (see previous blog entry…
Small businesses in the Muncie area are struggling to compete for employees against IBM and Sallie Mae now that the giants have opened locations in the region. Sallie Mae has hired 70 workers since opening a call center in Muncie in late 2006, and an IBM customer service center in Daleville has hired about 200 […]
While the rest of the state struggles to hold its own through the national housing downturn, the Columbus area is thriving. Bartholomew County, where Columbus is the seat, saw the median house price rise 8.7 percent, to $139,000, in the third quarter, according to The Republic, the city’s daily newspaper. Nationally, the median price fell […]
Westfield hopes to draw business farther north New development could reduce residential tax rates Judge and Ging Jones moved to Westfield more than a decade ago to escape the congestion and crowds of Carmel. They wanted to live in a safe, friendly community with good schools where they could leave their doors unlocked during the […]
Spotlight on Hamilton County Named for Alexander Hamilton, a member of the Continental Congress and a framer of the U.S. Constitution 5 LARGEST CITIES/TOWNS population Fishers ………………………………………61,840 Carmel ………………………………………60,570 Noblesville ………………………………….40,115 Westfield ……………………………………13,444 Cicero …………………………………………4,400 5 LARGEST EMPLOYERS employees Sallie Mae…………………………………….2,300 Conseco Inc. …………………………………2,300 Marsh Supermarkets Inc………………….1,650 Resort Condominiums International ….1,200 EDS Corp. …………………………………….1,200 COUNTY […]
JOHNSON COUNTY Cable swap for the new year Cable customers have seen little change in service since Comcast Cable took over Insight Cablevision in Johnson County Jan. 1. But change is on the way. Philadelphia-based Comcast now handles cable television, Internet and digital phone service in most of Johnson County. This spring, Comcast and New […]
Judge to settle mayoral dispute MADISON COUNTY – A judge in New Castle has been appointed to oversee a challenge brought by five Anderson residents over the eligibility of Kris Ockomon to serve as the city’s new mayor. Ockomon, a Democrat, upset incumbent Kevin Smith, a Republican, in the November election. The five plaintiffs filed […]
TIPPECANOE COUNTY Purdue wants tax abatement to expand research park The Purdue Research Foundation has received preliminary approval for tax abatement on its research park that would save the foundation $1.5 million in taxes. The abatement for the Purdue Research Park was approved Jan. 7 by the West Lafayette Economic Development Commission. It likely will […]
BOONE COUNTY Hotel, water park planned Two projects, including a hotel and water park complex, are poised to join Duke Realty Corp.’s Anson development at the Interstate 65 and State Road 334 interchange. An affiliate of locally based Street Corner Group LLC expects construction to begin this year on the $50 million water park/hotel project […]
SHELBY COUNTY Shelby County leaders still support Intelliplex In spite of the controversy this year about Intelliplex, the technology park on the north ern edge of Shelbyville, the Shelby County commissioners wavered not a bit in approving an annual grant to the park. The commissioners voted 2-0 in December to give Intelliplex $125,000 in Economic […]
MORGAN COUNTY Martinsville loses restaurant The first restaurant to open in Martinsville’s massive Wal-Mart-anchored Grand Valley retail center has closed. Damon’s Grill, which opened in 2001, had been struggling for years. Franchise owner Bennet Ackerman bought the restaurant in 2007 and has been losing money ever since. Ackerman owned three Damon’s locations and has closed […]
HANCOCK COUNTY Developer auctioning lots A Greenfield residential and commercial developer has come up with a creative way to deal with the housing slowdown: auction its undeveloped lots. R&F Development on Jan. 26 will auction five lots in four of its subdivisions, at reserve prices ranging from $15,000 to $20,000. Some of the lots fetched […]
MONROE COUNTY Bloomington programmer’s site becomes worldwide sensation John Breen of B l o o m i n g t o n designed the program behind Freerice.comto help his son study vocabulary words for the SAT. He had no idea how far his creation would reach. The site, which is just 3 months old, lately […]
People think of Indiana as a place of moderation. We’re not known for extremes. We are followers, not leaders. Certainly, we are not risk-takers. How then can we explain some inexplicable behaviors? Indiana’s secretary of state and others were in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Supreme Court recently to defend the nation’s most extreme voter ID law. No one was prepared to say we suffered from an avalanche of voter fraud. There was not even evidence of a snowflake of…
He started his own business and has grown it 17 percent a year. Now, Indianapolis entrepreneur Jeff Medley is using his know-how to ramp up a not-for-profit autism therapy center he helped found in the summer of 2003. As president of the Verbal Behavior Center for Autism, Medley led the center’s move to a larger building near 96th Street and Keystone Avenue Nov. 1. Now the center is adding students as fast as it can hire therapists to work with…
Let’s play a game. I am going to write the name of a company, and I want you to say what immediately comes to your mind. I am not looking for your feelings about the stock price, but rather what you think about the company itself. As an example, let’s look at Wal-Mart. The stock has been a dog for 10 years and probably will keep dogging it for years to come. But the company is amazing in its ability…
Last Halloween a federal court in Virginia gave the biotech and pharmaceutical industries a big treat when it preliminarily halted the Patent and Trademark Office, or PTO, from implementing new rules governing certain aspects of patent prosecution. This ruling was significant because it prevented the PTO from imple menting new rules governing patent applications that many thought would weaken protection of important biological and chemical inventions. Several local life sciences businesses and entities with significant numbers of patent applications in…
Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of John Patrick Shanley’s play “Doubt” (now playing at the Indiana Repertory Theatre), is how quickly it transcends its hot-button issue. Yes, this is a show built around the suspected despicable actions of a parish priest, but it’s really not about that. It’s about, as its title bluntly states, doubt. And it’s about certainty. And it’s about faith. And it’s a show I’d love to see again, since I suspect the show will get even…
I am a huge fan of the Discovery Channel TV show “Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.” I don’t get to watch if often. “SpongeBob SquarePants” dominates the Hicks household. But when I do, I revel in the host’s exploits in some of the nastiest jobs imaginable. But I think there’s one job I am more afraid of than anything I’ve seen on his show. There’s no amount of money that could make me a state legislator during a fiscal crisis….
Apparently, teen-agers driving around with 5,000-decibel subwoofers in their trunks are not the only ones who don’t get this: Many of us are slowly going deaf. Ten percent of Americans under 70 suffer from noise-induced hearing loss, according to the National Institutes of Health. It’s bad enough that the average 25-year-old carpenter has “50-yearold ears” thanks to noise on the job, and that noise-induced hearing loss is the most common work-related medical problem. But we’re not just talking about adults….
