Hamilton Community Center and Ice Arena will be hosting a visit from two speedskaters from the 2022 Winter Olympics next week.

Organized by Full Throttle Speed Skating Team and Toyota, Olympians Andrew Heo ( and Austin Kleba will be at the center for a meet-and-greet, speed-skating demonstration and a chance for the public to skate with the Olympians. Heo competed as a short track speed-skater and Kleba as a long-track skater for the U.S. team in the recent Olympics.

The event starts at 6:30  p.m. on April 13th with the meet-and-greet portion.

The event is free. You can get more information at Full Throttle SST dot com.

INDOT contractors are scheduled to begin working on State Road 46 in eastern Bartholomew County today.

Crews from Dave O’Mara Contractor will be patching, milling and repaving a section of the highway between State Road 7 and State Road 9. You can expect to see single lane closures for the resurfacing work.

A pipe replacement between U.S. 31 and County Road 450E is coming in May and will require closing the highway for about 7 days. Access will be maintained for local residents.

The work is expected to take until the end of October on the $3.7 million dollar project.

INDOT also says that work is set to start up again today resurfacing in the Interstate 65 construction zone between Columbus and Walesboro.

Crews have been installing temporary concrete barrier walls and shifting traffic from the southbound lanes to share the northbound lanes. Starting tonight, there wil be nightly lane closures from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. while crews patch, mill and pave the interstate. The resurfacing work is expected to last through July.

In addition to lane closures and traffic shifts, you will also see a round-the-clock reduced speed limit of 55 mph, with 45 mph flashing signs when workers are present.

You will see temporary traffic signals at a bridge construction project in Brown County, starting this week.

INDOT says that work is scheduled to start today replacing the superstructure of the State Road 135 bridge over Pleasant Valley Creek. That is south of State Road 46, near Van Buren Elementary School.

Milestone Contractors will be the crews working on the $2 million project.

INDOT asks you to use extra caution, to drive without distractions and to be alert to worker safety in construction zones. The schedule is dependent on the weather.

INDOT asks you to use extra caution, to drive without distractions and to be alert to worker safety in construction zones. The schedule is dependent on the weather.

The City of Columbus will be holding a spring cleanup for community yards starting this week.

The cleanup will run today through April 15th. You can clean up your yards, flower beds and fence rows, by raking loose leaves, grass, pine needles and other yard debris to the curb. City crews will use leaf vacs to collect the loose debris on the same day as your normal trash collection.

You do not have to participate in the city’s regular yard waste program to take part in the spring yard cleanup.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, a Columbus native, is slamming the CDC’s order lifting border restrictions.

Pence says lifting Title 42 will have negative effects on both sides of the border.

The Title 42 health order has allowed the U.S. to expel nearly two-million migrants since the pandemic began. Pence says this move will more than double the amount of immigrants crossing the U.S. border.

Story courtesy of TTWN Media Networks Inc. 

Early voting starts tomorrow for the May 3rd primary election. In Bartholomew County, there will be a few contested races on the Republican ticket.

In the Indiana House District 59 race, incumbent Republican Ryan Lauer will face a primary challenge from long-time Bartholomew County Prosecutor Bill Nash. Three Republicans will be running for the Indiana House District 73 race covering northeastern Bartholomew County — Jennifer Meltzer, Bob Carmony and Edward K. Comstock II.

The Bartholomew County prosecutors office will have a Republican primary with Lindsey Holden-Kay and Joshua K. Scherschel running for the seat Nash is vacating. And there will be a Republican primary for Bartholomew County Assessor with incumbent Republican Ginny Whipple running against Laura DeDomenic.

Three of the four seats on Bartholomew County Council will have contested Republican primaries. In District 1, incumbent Scott Bonnell will face Dave London and Greg Patterson. In District 2, appointed incumbent Greg Duke is running for the first time against Leah Beyer. And in District 3, incumbent and former sheriff Mark Gorbett will face Derick Olson.

The primary election is May 3rd. Early voting begins at NexusPark, the former Fair Oaks Mall, tomorrow. That will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays until May 2nd. Nexus Park will also host weekend voting hours on Saturdays April 23rd and April 30th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Bartholomew County Governmental Office Building on Third Street will also offer early voting on April 23 and April 30th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

There will not be early voting at the courthouse this election.

If you haven’t yet registered to vote, you can do so at the Bartholomew County voter registration office through today, or you can go to indianavoters.in.gov.

A new fitness center that grew out of local addiction recovery efforts is having a block party celebrating its grand opening on Saturday.

Rat Park CrossFit & Fitness at 410 Hope Avenue will have activities going on from 3 to 7 p.m. that will include free community workouts, a sled race competition, a cross fit workout, live DJ, smoothies and food truck.

The fitness center idea grew from the efforts of the Recover Out Loud group for those recovering from substance abuse disorders.

Organizers, John and Meagan Cunningham say that when the coronavirus hit and most recovery support groups were suspended or went virtual, they began hosting people at their home to take part in recovery-centered fitness sessions under their car port. With financial support from Heritage Fund: The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County and Columbus Regional Health Foundation, the Cunninghams are opening the fitness center.

John said that the Rat Park name comes from a series of scientific experiments that showed solitary rats were more easily drawn into addictive behaviors, while when they were brought into a larger society, they dropped the addiction.

The center will still offer the free R-Fit recovery-centered fitness program, as well as paid memberships with a portion of those fees going to support the Recover Out Loud community efforts.

Purdue professor Brandon Johnson says the explosion that people heard on Wednesday was most likely a meteor that blew-up as it entered the earth’s atmosphere.

People across central Indiana heard and felt the boom, including in Bartholomew, Brown, Fulton, Greene, Monroe, Morgan and Owen Counties. Johnson says there’s no video of the meteor, but he says all of the signs point to something falling from space. Johnson says if they can find a better track for the meteor, he may even go out to look for what’s left of it.

The American Meteor Society received at least three reports of a meteor sighting that day. The sound heard by area residents could be explained as an “air burst,” the noise the meteor would make when exploding mid-flight.

Story courtesy of our news-gathering partners at TTWN Media Networks Inc. 

Image courtesy of nasa.gov

Early voting is set to begin Tuesday for the May primary election.

In Bartholomew County, you can vote early at Nexus Park, formerly known as Fair Oaks Mall from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays until May 2nd. Nexus Park will also host weekend voting hours on Saturdays April 23rd and April 30th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Bartholomew County Governmental Office Building on Third Street will also offer early voting on April 23 and April 30th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

There will not be early voting at the courthouse this election due to changes to the security layout that make reaching the voter registration office difficult.

If you haven’t yet registered to vote, you can do so at the Bartholomew County voter registration office until Monday, or you can go to indianavoters.in.gov.

The Indiana Department of Transportation has rescheduled the U.S. 31 public open house originally scheduled for yesterday afternoon at Taylorsville Elementary School

The agency says yesterday’s planned open house was canceled because of scheduling conflicts.

The event has been tentatively rescheduled to Wednesday, April 13.