The entrance to the Columbus Air Park campus will be revamped, beautified and made more functional after a decision by the Columbus Redevelopment Commission yesterday to provide $100,000 in funding for the $2.4 million project.

The Community Education Coalition requested the donation to help cover infrastructure costs at the southwest corner of the properties that include IUPUC, Ivy Tech Community College Columbus and Purdue Polytechnic Columbus. The 12-acre corner formerly held Poling Hall which was demolished earlier this summer.

John Burnett with the Community Education Coalition said that the organization would be putting in an additional $100,000 from its funds and with the city money, the money would be for needed geo tech, survey work, engineering design and infrastructure for the project.
The funding will come from the tax increment financing district that encompasses the airport.

Design on the corner project is starting this month with construction expected next spring and summer.

One Columbus man is dead and another is under under arrest for murder after an investigation that began early Friday morning.

According to reports from the Columbus Police Department, 61-year-old Coy Wayne Thompson of Columbus was found along a woodline near the road after a reported disturbance at about 1:40 a.m. Friday morning near Indianapolis and Tellman Roads. He was taken to Columbus Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy was scheduled over the weekend but the results have not yet been released and his cause of death has not been announced.

After an investigation by police and the Bartholomew County death investigation team, officers arrested 43-year-old Joshua R. Davis of Columbus on a preliminary charge of murder.

The Bartholomew County Death Investigation Team consists of officers from the Columbus Police Department, Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office, the Indiana State Police, as well as the Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s Office. They continue to assist in the ongoing investigation.

YES Cinema in downtown Columbus will be hosting a special showing this week of a movie based around a Bartholomew County family.

The film, “Lifemark,” is being presented as a special Fathom event with showings today through Wednesday at the not-for-profit cinema on Jackson Street. The documentary is based on a short story called “I Lived on Parker Avenue.” The story is about an 18-year-old young man’s life after being contacted by his birth mother who lives in Bartholomew County and the disruption it causes.

The film is rated PG-13.

The daily showings will be at 7:01 p.m. and tickets are $7.

YES Cinema at Fourth and Jackson Street is owned and operated by Lincoln Central Neighborhood Family Center.

The Shelbyville mom accused of abandoning her special needs son in Ohio back in February has pleaded guilty in the case.

Heather Adkins entered her plea last week. Prosecutors say she drove her non-verbal, autistic five-year-old son from Indiana to Cincinnati, and left him on  a rural street, in the rain.

She pleaded guilty to child endangerment, but says she wasn’t trying to harm her child. Adkins is looking at as many as three-years in prison when she’s sentenced next week.

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

Legal Aid will be holding an in-person walk-in clinic in Jennings County tomorrow.

Legal Aid offers the clinics for low-income residents of its eight-county district.

If you take part you will have up to a 10-minute consultation with a volunteer attorney to answer general questions, to offer legal information or to receive other advice.

Legal Aid is hosting the walk-in legal clinic from 3 – 5 pm Tuesday at the Jennings County Public Library.

From 4 to 5 p.m. there will be a clinic on evictions, where you can get free legal advice on issues such as negotiating with a landlord, rental assistance, damages hearings and sealing of eviction records.

The Community Education Coalition will be requesting $100,000 from the Columbus Redevelopment Commission today to help revamp the corner of the Air Park Campus that used to contain Ivy Tech’s Polling Hall.

The hall was demolished earlier this summer, leaving a 12-acre space to be redeveloped. Ivy Tech has now moved into the new Moravec Hall.

John Burnett, head of the Community Education Coalition, said during a presentation before the commission last month that the $100,000 would be for the last piece of a more than $13.4 million project that restructured the Columbus Learning Center and the wider campus on the Columbus Municipal Airport property.

The funding would come from the tax increment financing district that encompasses the airport and would go toward infrastructure improvements.

The space on the southwest corner of the campus will include a combination of green space, landscaping, walkways and parking. Burnett said the goal is to make the space as inviting as possible for those entering the campus and authentic to the spirit of Columbus. The community has already raised $2.3 million toward the corner project, he said.

Design on the corner project is starting this month with construction expected next spring and summer.

The Redevelopment Commission meets at 4 today in the council chambers at Columbus City Hall.

Columbus police are investigating the death of a man Friday morning after an incident near Indianapolis and Tellman Roads.

According to police reports, officers were called to the scene of a disturbance at about 1:40 a.m. that morning. They found an injured man in the woods and he was taken to Columbus Regional Hospital where he died.

An autopsy was scheduled over the weekend.

Anyone with any information on the man is asked to call the Columbus Police Department at 812-376-2600. Tips and information can be submitted anonymously.

A Versailles man died in a crash over the weekend in Jennings County.

39-year-old Christian P. Schular was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash by the Jennings County Coroner’s Office.

According to reports from Indiana State Police, the two-vehicle crash happened at about 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon on County Road 650N near County Road 575E. The driver of an SUV, 40-year-old Jessica R. Parsons, of Butlerville was driving west when she left the right side of the road, overcorrected, came back onto the road and into the path of a car being driven by Schuler. The two vehicles collided in the westbound lane.

Schular suffered fatal injuries. A passenger in his vehicle, 18-year-old Whittney Schular suffered serious injuries and was flown to University of Cincinnati Medical Center by Stat Flight Medical Helicopter. Parsons was taken to St. Vincent Jennings Hospital in North Vernon with non-life-threatening injuries.

State Police say the investigation is ongoing and speed may have been a contributing factor in the crash. Toxicology results on both drivers are pending.

Troopers were also assisted at the scene by the Jennings County Sheriff’s Department, Butlerville Fire Department and Jennings County EMS,.

Legal Aid will be holding an in-person walk-in clinic in Jennings County next week.

Legal Aid offers the clinics for low-income residents of its eight-county district.

If you take part you will have up to a 10-minute consultation with a volunteer attorney to answer general questions, to offer legal information or to receive other advice.

Legal Aid is hosting the walk-in legal clinic from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Jennings County Public Library.

From 4 to 5 p.m. there will be a clinic on evictions, where you can get free legal advice on issues such as negotiating with a landlord, rental assistance, damages hearings and sealing of eviction records.

IUPUC will be hosting a panel discussion next week on censorship. That is part of Banned Books Week and it is being organized by the University Library of Columbus and the Division of Education at IUPUC.

Banned Books Week is an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association that celebrates the freedom to read. This year’s theme is “Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us.”

Guest panelists include Samantha Bresnahan, Public Policy and Community Engagement Associate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, and Jason Hatton, Library Director, Bartholomew County Public Library.

The discussion will be held in the Summerville Room at the Columbus Learning Center at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Light refreshments will be served. The event is free and you are invited to attend.

For more information about this event, you can go here.