First Financial Bank and the First Financial Foundation are announcing a $50,000 grant to Greensburg Community Bread of Life.

Bread of Life is the only soup kitchen in Decatur County. The grant will add additional space for the efforts, allowing the organization to increase its programming and to serve more people in the community.

First Financial Bank says the grant is the latest initiative under the company’s strategic intent to be woven into the communities it serves. In 2020, First Financial gave over $3.5 million in financial contributions and its associates performed more than 8,900 hours of community service.

Columbus East High School is rescheduling its food pantry distribution after the recent flooding at the school.

The distribution, originally scheduled for this week, will now be on Friday, July 2nd from 3:30-6:30 p.m. You can drive up for pre-bagged collections of food, with enough for about 200 families.

The Columbus East Food Pantry is available to the entire community and is not limited to Bartholomew Consolidated Schools families.

The pickup point is at door 31 in the west parking lot behind the school near the tennis courts.

There will also be a Columbus East food pantry distribution on Friday, July 23rd from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The Columbus East Food Pantry is a Gleaners school-based food pantry.

A North Vernon man was arrested on DUI charges after a three-vehicle crash in Columbus Tuesday night.

Columbus police were called to the crash scene in the area of 7th Street and Central at about 9:30 Tuesday night and found that all the vehicles had suffered minor damage. However one driver was slumped over inside his vehicle.

Police say the driver, 41-year-old Michael J. Clark, appeared unsteady on his feet and smelled of alcohol. He was taken to Columbus Regional Hospital to have his blood tested and then to the Bartholomew County Jail on a preliminary charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

The Bartholomew County 4-H Fair kicks off on Friday with a new midway company, remodeled buildings and entertainment including a Tony Stewart midget racing night at the grandstands.

Where COVID-19 limited last year’s fair to virtual 4-H exhibits, this year will be a full, traditional fair says Rick Trimpe, the fair board president.

Trimpe says the down time allowed the fair board to spruce up the facilities.

Kissel Entertainment from Alabama is the new midway operator, and people should be impressed with the quality and cleanliness of the rides as well as the professionalism of the carnival workers.

The Tony Stewart events on Tuesday will include the Columbus native racing his midget car in the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midgets to benefit the Tony Stewart Foundation and the renaming of the grandstand in his honor.

The official fair kickoff is at 5 p.m. Events on Friday will include the Lil Hands on the Farm at the 4-H Community Building, blacksmithing demonstrations at the Heritage Building, Ferguson Road performing at the Farm Bureau Building and a Demolition Derby sponsored by Toast Promotion starting at 7 p.m. at the grandstand.

Midway wristbands are $25 Friday and the rides start at 5.

First Christian Church in Columbus will be kicking off its fundraising efforts to save the church’s clock tower with an event this afternoon.

Repair costs are estimated at $2.4 million. The project has recently announced two grants that require matching funds:

• The Jeffris Family Foundation based in Janesville, Wisconsin announced this week the award of an up to $500,000 grant which would provide a $1 match for every $2 pledged for the project.
• Earlier this month, organizers announced a Save America’s Treasures grant from the U.S. Department of Interior. The $500,000 grant requires a dollar-for-dollar match.

Fundraising efforts will launch with a Save Our Tower Campaign event at 4 this afternoon at the church at 531 Fifth Street. It will include a presentation on the church history and a guided architecture tour of the church by J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program Director T. Kelly Wilson.

Photo: First Christian Church photo courtesy of Landmark Columbus Foundation.

The city of Columbus recently announced that Hope native Mikala Brown has started working with the city as redevelopment project coordinator.

Brown will be responsible for coordinating the department’s various public and private improvement projects. She will also serve as a community advocate for awareness of redevelopment issues.

Brown is a 2017 graduate of IUPUC, where she earned a bachelors’ degree in Business with a dual concentration in Management and Finance. She received the IUPUC Chancellor Scholar award, which goes to the student with the highest GPA. Since 2020, she has owned and operated Cedar Spring Farm LLC in Hope, a local event solutions provider.

The Bartholomew County Health Department will be having a free COVID-19 clinic Monday at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair.

Both the Pfizer and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines will be offered at the clinic which will be held in the sheriff’s department tent at the fairgrounds. The clinic is for those 12 and older and walk-in patients are welcome.

A free gift will also be given with each vaccination.

The clinic will be from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Monday.

The city of Columbus has finally ended its lease with the Subway restaurant in The Commons.

The owners of the restaurant, Estep and Co., told the Columbus Redevelopment Commission at the end of last year that they were closing the restaurant and sought to end the lease with the city. The redevelopment commission agreed in January to begin the process of ending the lease.

At this week’s meeting of the commission, city attorney Stan Gamso, said that the paperwork had finally been processed by the Subway corporate headquarters, allowing the lease to be terminated. The big hold up was confusion on the part of the corporate office over who the lease holder was in Columbus. The Columbus Redevelopment Commission became responsible for managing the leases in the city-owned restaurant spaces after the dissolution of Downtown Columbus Inc., a non-profit corporation the city created to find tenants for those spaces.

The Subway lease in the Commons had been signed in 2011, and had been renewed after the first 5-year term for about $2,800 a month. However the commission suspended all rents for its restaurant tenants during the pandemic through the end of June.

Heather Pope, the city’s redevelopment director, said that the restaurant owners have paid the utilities and property taxes. The restaurant equipment is expected to be removed by the end of the month.

Photo courtesy Carol M. Highsmith, from the Library of Congress collection.

Columbus Scottish Festival organizers are announcing that the festival will not be held this year, due to the loss of major financial support.

On social media, the festival organizers announced that while they look forward to continuing to share Scottish culture in southern Indiana, presenting a full festival this year would jeopardize their ability to present the festival in the years ahead. They said that the not-for-profit organization relies on grants, sponsorships and entry fees for funding.

On the normal festival weekend, Sept. 11th and 12th, there will be virtual festival programming through the group’s Facebook page.

You can get more information at scottishfestival.org.

A Butlerville man is under arrest after Jennings County deputies found a stolen catalytic converter in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The sheriff’s department reports that a deputy pulled over an SUV in Geneva Township at about 6:46 p.m. Monday evening for a traffic violation. Deputies discovered that the driver, 40-year-old Travis Groce had a suspended driver’s license. A search of the vehicle revealed the stolen exhaust part, as well as methamphetamine.

Groce was arrested on preliminary charges of theft of precious metals, possession of methamphetamine and driving while suspended.