Hamilton County 4-H Fair time is here.

On Friday, Westfield’s Megan Wiley was crowned 4-H Fair Queen.

On Saturday, 4-H’ers brought their canine friends and competed in Dog Agility. 

On Sunday, 4-H’ers checked in an array of projects, from Creative Writing and Photography to Arts & Crafts, and Home Environment, Gift Wrap and Sewing. 4-H’ers also checked in Aerospace, Child Development and Electric. Bees, Entomology and Forestry. Genealogy, Health and Small Engines. And almost all posters were checked in.

Today, both open and closed judging will take place for many of these projects, which will be on display during the 4-H Fair that officially opens on Thursday and runs through July 23 at the 4-H Fairgrounds, 2003 E. Pleasant St., Noblesville.

I’ve known Sandy Stewart as long as I’ve been working in Noblesville as a journalist. And I met her friend Dottie Young a long time ago, too.

The 1964 Noblesville High School graduates, who live just blocks apart in Old Town Noblesville, have a lot of fond memories of old Noblesville, growing up here. And they plan to share a lot of those memories during Noblesville Preservation Alliance’s inaugural Noblestories storyteller series, which kicks off on Sunday.

They’ll speak at 4 p.m. at Logan Street Sanctuary, 1274 Logan St., just blocks from their homes. Admission is free and open to the public. Hamilton County Television is also a partner in the series, which will be broadcast live.

Young is a small town girl from Clarksville in Hamilton County’s Wayne Township and found herself in much larger surroundings when she arrived at NHS in 1960.

They met in high school, in art class. “I knew who she was, but we didn’t run in the same crowds,” she said. 

TORONTO — After being announced on Tuesday as Harding Racing’s driver for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto, Noblesville native Conor Daly recorded Harding Racing’s best finish of the season with a 13th place result on the streets of Toronto.

Daly started in the 11th position but lost a few spots on the start and fell to 14th at the end of the first lap. After he fell four more positions on Lap, Daly started his climb back through the field during the pit stop cycle and also thanks to a little bit of chaos.

A full course yellow was called on Lap 28 for Ryan Hunter-Reay’s stalled car and several cars hadn’t pitted yet. Because the pits are closed when a caution comes out, those cars can’t take advantage of pitting immediately and fall to the rear of the field. That shuffle elevated Daly from 16th to 10th.

But the chaos didn’t end there.

Mike Hanna was the first high school vaulter in the state to clear 16 feet. 

The current Noblesville High School girls pole vaulting coach was also the first Indiana collegiate vaulter to clear 17 feet and the first Indiana State University athlete to win a national championship. He’s being honored with an event in his name, too. 

The Mike Hanna Street Vault at the Indiana T&F and Cross Country Hall of Fame Museum in Terre Haute is the first of its kind event that’s scheduled to take place July 21. Pole vaulters from across the Midwest will showcase their skills and pay tribute to a man who’s decided to sit this one out. 

“I’m not going to pole vault,” Hanna said. “They just use my name.” 

No, Hanna won’t vault. He’s happy with his current path. One he chose to follow to give back to the future of the sport he loves, he said. 

Dan Martz Sr., 74, of Noblesville, passed away on Friday, July 13, 2018, at Copper Trace in Westfield.

He was born Aug. 13, 1943, to Robert and Virginia (McClannon) Martz in Burnham, Illinois.

Jacqueline L. "Jackie" Stapleton, 91, Sheridan, entered heaven Tuesday evening, July 10, 2018, and into God's loving arms, and once again reunited with parents, her two sisters and her granddaughter.

Born June 30, 1927 in Arcadia, Ind., she was the daughter of the late Lowell Eugene "Dewey" and Julia Evelyn (Foster) Leonard.

Michael Scott Henry, 71, of Westfield, passed away on Monday, July 9, 2018.

He was born June, 9, 1947, the loving son of Victor and Rose Mary Henry of Westfield.

Dear Editor,

“Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
-Abraham Lincoln

This quote comes to mind as I watch the drama unfold between the Indiana Transportation Museum (ITM) and the City of Noblesville. We are in the final stages of ITM’s eviction from Forest Park and I’d like to make a couple of comments on the way this episode has been handled.

This is a real David and Goliath story. However, unlike in the Bible, Goliath will end up winning this battle despite David’s efforts. The City has always held all the cards. It is the landlord, it has seats on the Hoosier Heritage Port Authority, which owns the tracks, and it has the deep pockets and formidable firepower of a taxing authority. The ITM is a non-profit that depends on donations and train fares to pay its bills and is run by volunteers.

Still, it managed to successfully operate trains in Hamilton County for decades.

Dear Editor,

(The Times columnist) Ginger Claremohr's recent article (titled "Exploring my thoughts on immigrant parents, children") described strong emotions that virtually every parent would experience, if their children were in difficult situations.

We must be cautious and not let emotions alone, determine our position on extremely large and multifaceted situations. We need to gather all the information possible, before forming an opinion, on such complicated problems, that affect many areas of our lives,for years to come. 

Dear Editor, 

and dear Sen. Mike Delph:

The Hoosier State Press Association thanks you for reaching out to us to work on legislation that would clarify what information should be available when a public employee’s discipline results in their suspension, demotion, or termination.

Your S.B. 101 would have restored the amount of information to be disclosed to the public upon request as intended by the 2003 General Assembly and moving forward require any agency to document the reason for the discipline and event that was deemed to violate policy, procedure, or rule.

The bill failed to advance after failing to get a hearing in the Senate Local Government Committee, chaired by Sen. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo, who raised a concern over the impact language would have on previous disciplinary actions that were undocumented.

I’ve been thinking on this for a while, and I invite you to think through it with me.

I grew up in a strong, evangelical, Christian community, and continued in that faith tradition for most of my adult life. Then I had a major crisis that included my faith. So, I walked away and started over figuring things out for myself.

For a while now, I have been angry at Christianity. I have been angry at all churches regardless of denomination. I have been angry at the way mankind mutilated the message of Jesus and used it as a tool of oppression. I would have said “to hell” with it all, except I wasn’t sure anymore whether hell was real.

One thing I didn’t expect is that my crisis would affect my political points of view. But when you set out to “look at everything with new eyes,” you have to actually look at everything.

I saw a young athlete two weeks ago who complained of shin pain.

He had been upping his running mileage; the pain was due to a stress fracture. It is estimated that between five and 30 percent of athletes and military recruits develop a stress fracture each year. Briefhaupt first described the condition in 1855 when examining military recruits.

Everyone is familiar with bone fractures, especially those that result from acute trauma. These fractures are usually easy for an untrained person to see on an X-ray – the bone looks like a broken stick. Stress fractures, however, can be much more difficult to diagnose.

Stress fractures result from repeated stress on the bone. This repetitive microtrauma causes disruption of the microscopic structure of the bone over time that eventually exceeds the bone’s ability to heal itself. A tiny crack subsequently develops in the bone that may or may not be obvious on an X-ray. Think of bending a piece of metal over and over; eventually it weakens and breaks.

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