Columnists
Heights Superintendent Shares Update
Last week, Hamilton Heights Middle School hosted EMS and First Responders Day, offering more than 350 students an up-close and personal look at careers in public service. From emergency medical teams to police officers and firefighters, students gained an insider’s view of the vital work these professionals do every day to keep our schools and…
Read MoreFunny Business!
There’s a great deal of pressure on me to be funny. I feel it at church, at pickleball, and when I run into people at the supermarket. This is what happens when you write a humor column for 25 years. At our book club, when I say something like, “I think the book has a…
Read MoreReading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic in the Early Days
From Time to Thyme By Paula Dunn Now that Labor Day is behind us, I feel more comfortable writing about schools. (I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the idea of kids’ summer vacations ending in July!) A couple of interesting letters about early schools appeared in the Noblesville Daily Ledger in 1916. The…
Read MoreLiving in Surreal Times
In the spring of 1968, just four and a half years removed from the assassination of our country’s 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we watched a year dawn unlike any we had seen in our young lives. Martin Luther King was gunned down in April. Bobby Kennedy was murdered two months later. And two months…
Read MoreColorfully Carousing Through Cherished Collectibles
Crayons. I credit Crayola for creating my craze for collecting. In the 1960s, Crayola crayons were a popular and affordable item, with boxes containing 8, 16 or 24 crayons, starting at a paltry price of 19 cents. The brand also introduced a built-in sharpener to the box of 64 crayons, which launched in 1958 –…
Read MoreCounting Down Top Purdue Boilermakers Reaches 70s
Perhaps the strangest NFL championship game, pre-Super Bowl era, involved the Chicago Bears winning the title in 1932 on an indoor 60-yard field that was littered with circus “leftovers.” A Purdue All-American center never forgot that game until the day he died at age 92. He’s among this week’s edition of best Boilermakers by number…
Read MoreAsk Rusty – How Do I Apply for Social Security and Receive My Payments?
Dear Rusty: I’m ready to apply for my Social Security benefits, and I’m aware of how my benefits are calculated. What I would like to know about is how the application process actually works and how my benefits are received. Signed: Ready to Collect Dear Ready to Collect: Essentially, you have two main options for applying for Social Security…
Read MoreWhere Did Wave Start? Dick Knows
I’m a big baseball fan, and recently I met my old friend Howard in Chicago to see the Cubs play the Astros. While we were sitting there, we witnessed what has been dubbed “The Wave,” a coordinated crowd movement in which fans stand and raise their arms in sequence, creating a rippling, cascading effect across…
Read MoreHas It Really Been 24 Years since 9-11?
A quarter of a century almost? Has it really been that long since that awful Tuesday morning? Most of us can remember exactly where we were 24 years ago as the Sept. 11 morning news began to trickle in. The idea that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center caught our attention. A…
Read MorePaula’s Going With the Flow
After the quiz on Hamilton County waterways ran, Larry Cloud raised the subject of Carmel’s Flowing Well. That reminded me that, although I’ve written about the numerous mineral springs that once existed in this county, I’ve never devoted a column to the famous Carmel landmark. The Flowing Well is a little different from the county’s…
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