The Friends of the Muscatatuck River Society are planning a river cleanup on Saturday, Oct. 1st.

The 19th annual Fall River “Shady” Sweep is held in memory of the society’s founder, Dan Shade.

Registration starts at 8 a.m. in the morning at the Vernon Commons off of Jackson Street near the water access point.

Volunteers will be walking along the banks of the Muscatatuck collecting trash, or you can paddle the river, but you must provide your own watercraft.

Children must be accompanied by a parent or responsible adult. You are encouraged to dress appropriately for the weather and for outdoor work.

The cleanup will finish at noon at the Jennings County Highway Garage on State Road 3 near the fairgrounds, where you can dispose of your collected trash. A free lunch will be provided at the New Bethel Methodist food stand on the fairgrounds, courtesy of local business donations.

If you have any questions you can get more information from Troy Jackson at 812-592-0481.

Photo courtesy of Jennings County Parks.

INDOT says that crews are again scheduled to close down lanes of Interstate 65 near the Columbus exit, starting Sunday night.

The work was originally scheduled to start this past Sunday but it was delayed.

According to INDOT you can expect the left lane northbound to be closed starting at 9 p.m. Sunday night until Tuesday, with the right lane to follow. The right lane should reopen Friday morning. Crews will be completing patching and applying an overlay to the I-65 bridge over State Road 46. The work schedule is dependent on the weather.

Southbound lane closures are scheduled to begin the following Sunday evening, Sept. 25, for the same type of work to occur. Those lanes are expected to reopen Friday September 30th.

Crews will also be making repairs to the beams and arch on the bridge and to the ramps at the Columbus exit, but a schedule has not yet been announced.

INDOT reminds you to slow down, to drive without distractions and to be alert to worker safety in all construction zones.

Cummins is supporting mobile groceries as a way to help relieve food insecurity in communities including Indianapolis and Jamestown, N.Y. The Columbus-based engine manufacturer is committing $800,000 in grants toward efforts launching mobile grocery markets.

A mobile grocery provides healthy food options by modifying buses, vans or trucks to host food options and to transport them to needed neighborhoods. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture about a third of Americans live more than a mile away from a market in cities, or farther than 10 miles from a store in rural areas.

Other communities taking part in the program include Charleston, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

The Indianapolis effort is being organized by Eskenazi Health Foundation.

The effort is through the companies’ Cummins Advocating for Racial Equity or CARE initiative. CARE was launched in 2020 to work to addressing systemic discrimination against Blacks and to drive racial equity in the U.S.

There will be a ceremony this evening at the Bartholomew County Memorial for Veterans honoring those who were held as prisoners of war or who are still missing in action.

During the event, there will be a reading of the names of 55 area residents who were held prisoner, are missing or both. Guest speakers will be Sandra LaBarbera and her brother, Ernest Walke Jr. Their father Ernest Walke Sr. was captured by the Germans after being part of the force that liberated Paris.

Also taking part will be the Columbus Indiana Children’s Choir, Southern Indiana Pipes and Drums, vocalist Harvey Leggett, Michael Schmelz bugler with the Columbus City Band and the Bartholomew County Veterans Honor Guard.

The ceremony will begin at 6:30 p.m. tonight at the memorial on the courthouse lawn and it normally lasts for 45 minutes.

A driver accused of killing a student after passing a stopped bus is now convicted.

After six hours of deliberating, a jury found Shankara Subramanian guilty yesterday. He was facing felony charges of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death or catastrophic injury and passing a school bus when a stop arm is extended causing death

In August of last year, Subramanian went around a school bus, hitting and killing 16-year-old Lily Streeval, a Columbus East High School student.

According to reports from the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department at the time, the crash happened at just before 7 on a Monday morning in the 1900 block of South Gladstone Avenue. The bus was stopped with its stop arms extended, and Streeval was attempting to cross the road to get on the school bus. That’s when Subramanian ignored the stop arms, passed the bus and hit the girl.

Subramanian fled the scene and was followed by a witness before getting stuck in a yard on County Road 250E, where he was taken into custody.

He’s set for sentencing on October 27th.

Our news-gathering partners at TTWN Media Networks Inc. contributed to this report.

The Council for Youth Development in Bartholomew County announced its first Spark Spirit Awards winners at an event yesterday at The Commons.

The adult honoree went posthumously to to Nicki Vreeland and Rachel Hoke of Hope is the youth award winner.

Vreeland, who died in July, served as coordinator of the Healthy Communities Mental Health Action Team at Columbus Regional Health. She worked on , on efforts such as suicide prevention, increasing access to mental health services, and substance use prevention.

Hoke is attending Hauser and is involved in the school’s theater group and the FFA.

Yesterday’s Enlighten Up event at The Commons was presented by the council, Indiana Department of Health, Bartholomew County Youth Services Center, Project AWARE, and Bartholomew County Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. It was the centerpiece of
the Spark Spirit Week for the organization, encouraging youth mental health and family well-being.

The Bartholomew County Health Department is announcing that the Indiana Immunization Coalition will be holding a community immunization clinic in Hope later this month

The clinic will be from 3 to 6 p.m. the afternoon of September 30th at the Hauser High School Auditorium.

You should bring your insurance card as the coalition will accept and bill all insurance carriers. There is no cost for anyone without insurance, except for the Shingles vaccine.

Everyone who takes part will be vaccinated with all of the CDC recommended vaccines. The clinic will consult the state immunization registry to see what vaccines you are missing. If you would like to attend, but want to decline a specific vaccine, you can call 317-628-7116.

You can register online at patients.vaxcare.com/registration and use the enrollment code IN 65942.

Saturday will be Bike to the Market Day at the Columbus Farmer’s market.

Healthy Communities and the Columbus Bike Co-op announced the event as part of the community’s Move More Month celebrations.

If you choose to bike to the farmer’s market at Columbus City Hall and show your bike helmet at the Health Communities table, you will be entered into a drawing for prizes such as gift cards from The Bicycle Station and Columbus Cycling & Fitness. If you don’t have a helmet, you can enter a drawing for a new one. The prize drawing will be Monday. The Healthy Communities table will be located at the corner of Washington and First streets.

The Bike to the Market Day will be from 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.

Healthy Communities says that the event is a way of addressing the community’s need for residents to get more physical activity. Cheryl Wright, Active Transportation Coordinator with Healthy Communities of CRH says biking is a fun way to get moving and a great alternative mode of transportation.

For more information about Move More Month, bicycle safety or about Bike to the Market Day, you can contact Wright at [email protected] or by calling 812-379-8860.

Cummins is showing off a new Meritor powertrain with a Cummins battery system at a trade show in Germany next week. This is the first time since Cummins acquired the former Columbus-based Meritor earlier this year that it is unveiling the collaboration.

Meritor’s 17XE ePowertrain is designed for heavy truck use and can support 44 tons of combined weight or more. The powertrain features Cummins’ new lithium iron phosphate battery pack.

Amy Davis, Vice President and President of New Power at Cummins said the company is committed to bringing the electrified powertrains to market as quickly as possible. She said that the collaboration will move the company closer to decarbonizing the industry.

The IAA Transportation tradeshow is being held next week in Hannover, Germany.

Photo of Meritor’s 17XE ePowertrain, courtesy of Cummins

A walk to raise money for Alzheimer’s awareness and research is returning to Bartholomew County in a few weeks.

The Greater Indiana Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association is announcing that this year’s Walk to End Alzheimer event will be Oct. 2nd at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds.

The Walk is the largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s care, support and research. In 2021, the Columbus walk raised more than $94,000.

In Indiana alone, there are 110,000 people living with the disease and 216,000 caregivers.

The event will include a Promise Garden Ceremony, where participants honor those affected by the disease by wearing flowers with colors indicating whether you are currently living with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, are a caregiver, have lost someone to the disease or support the goal of ending Alzheimer’s.

Pre-Walk activities will begin at 12:30 p.m. The Promise Garden ceremony will be held at 1:45 p.m., and the Walk will follow.

Registration is free and you can register online at alz.org/Indiana/walk.

The Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Columbus is supported by Nationwide Presenting Sponsors Edward Jones and CVS, with additional support from Chapterwide Sponsor Trilogy Health Services.

Photo courtesy of Alzheimer’s Association, Greater Indiana Chapter