Columnists
Radical Solution for College Football Boondoggle
As some of the eight or nine (sorry, I have been told there might be 10 or 12 or maybe even 17 of you reading my scribbles – I just can’t wrap my head around those numbers) of you may know, my newspaper world began in the toy department. It was a long time ago…
Read More· THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
Here is part 2 of excerpts from my favorite columns from this past year. Looking forward to 2026. In one column, I celebrated the history of the parking meter. The parking meters in Chicago back in the 30s made very little money. The mafia only parked in front of banks for two minutes, just enough…
Read MoreSpotlight on Art’s Fourth Year Supports Children, Community, Creativity
By Esther Lakes Spotlight on Art Found and Event Chair There are moments in the life of a community that reveal its character with unusual clarity. Spotlight on Art Benefiting Children has become one of those moments for Hamilton County. The event began with a simple hope: that art might serve as a bridge between…
Read MoreFrustrations Grow; What Does Purdue Football Need?
If you are a Purdue fan, watching “60 Minutes” last Sunday night on CBS just added to the growing frustration that the folks inside Hovde Hall and Mackey Arena in West Lafayette slept while Indiana and its monied boosters (Mark Cuban, the Simons, the Irsay twins, etc.) put together a 13-0 season and its first…
Read MoreDr. Arrowood Shares Update
If you are out and about, be sure to stop by Dark Side Coffee House in Cicero and check out the charming surprise in the back hallway: the Tiny Art Gallery, a creative partnership led by HHHS art teacher Carrie VanAlstine. Inside it sits an even smaller delight — the Teeny Tiny Art Gallery, a…
Read MoreChristmas on the Prairie, Circa 1975
From Time to Thyme By Paula Dunn That recent spell of frigid temperatures took me back to my first experience working at Conner Prairie 50 years ago. (50 years? YIKES!) I was a volunteer during their 1975 Christmas celebration. I stood outside the Conner house and directed people toward the Village (aka Prairietown these days)…
Read MoreAsk Rusty – If We Both Collect, Will Our Benefits be Affected?
Dear Rusty: I reached full retirement age back in June, but I have not yet filed to collect Social Security. My husband currently collects SS funds, and he waited until he had reached full retirement age a few years ago. I am considering signing up now to receive my funds, but I am a little…
Read MoreMound Builders and Charles Cox
This was supposed to be a reader column, but it’s really part reader and part “this and that.” After I wrote about Strawtown’s mounds, Ed Snyder emailed that he’d heard rumors other mounds had existed in this county at one time, but that they’d been lost to agriculture or used as levees along the river.…
Read MoreCatching Up With Coach Dave Nicholson
Noblesville boys basketball fans, especially those not identified as Baby Boomers, might not recall the terrible state of Noblesville High School basketball before Dave Nicholson showed up for the 1975-76 season. The Millers had been so bad that legendary sports scribe Don Jellison wrote a damning column with the headline: Basketball Stone Dead in Nob…
Read More‘Twas the Night Before Branna’s Deadline
Who remembers the Noblesville Daily Ledger’s annual Christmas poetry contest? Well, I sure do, as every year it was a competition between my grandma, Bertie Hoover, and I to win the big prize! I started submitting mine in middle school, and who knows how long before that grandma was penning her prose. I won a…
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