Around The Region

$12,300 offered for 2-acre flag made in state\nHUTCHINSON, Kan. -- A 7-ton version of the Stars and Stripes made in Indiana has a new home.\nThe Great American Flag fetched a high bid Thursday of $12,300 on Internet auction site eBay. The auction was conducted in conjunction with the History Channel's "History's Lost and Found Auction Block."\nMade by workers in Evansville, Ind., of heavy-gauge polyester, the flag covers two acres when displayed. Each star is 13 feet across and each stripe is 16 feet high.\nThe Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson had put the flag up for auction to help fund a new outdoor plaza.\nThe History Channel identified the winning bidder as Ted Dorfman of Greensburg, Pa. He is a senior vice president at the investment firm Morgan Stanley.\nDorfman said that he planned to keep the flag in Greensburg and display it publicly.\nThe Great American Flag was first displayed in 1980 at its hometown of Evansville, where Anchor Industries, a maker of tents and pool covers, made the flag. It also had been used to greet Americans held hostage in Iran and to welcome troops returning from Operation Desert Storm. \n4-year-old boy falls to his death at Arkansas hotel\nLITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A 4-year-old Indiana boy fell to his death Friday morning at an Embassy Suites hotel.\nGrayson Williams of Fort Wayne, Ind., was staying at the hotel with his parents, John and Leslie Williams, according to a Little Rock police report.\nHotel manager Gordon Rostvold said the boy was looking over a railing on the sixth floor of the hotel atrium when he fell to the lobby floor. Witnesses reported seeing the boy hit a tree on the way down and land in a fountain.\n"It was just a freak accident," said Officer Terry Hastings, a spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department. "It's really not a police matter. He was looking over the rail and just slipped and fell over."\nHastings said no charges will be filed.\nRostvold said the police were looking into the circumstances of the accident.\n"We comply with any health or safety standards that are required for the type of construction that we are in," he said. \nMissing 87-year-old found\nCRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. -- A surveyor working along a ditch Friday morning stumbled upon an 87-year-old man who had been missing for more than 17 hours after he left his sister's home for a walk.\nAbout 50 emergency workers had joined in the search Thursday night for John McIntire of Oakland, Calif., after he apparently became lost after leaving for an afternoon walk.\nLarry Truesdale of Indianapolis said he was unaware of the search when about 9:30 a.m. he heard someone yell, "Don't cut this tree down."\nAs Truesdale approached a large evergreen tree he heard the man call out again. Crawling under the thick tree branches, Truesdale found McIntire on his back with a limb across his throat.\nTruesdale said McIntire complained of pain in his left arm and back, but otherwise appeared unharmed.\nSearchers had passed by the area while looking for McIntire overnight.\n"The only reason he was found was because those two guys were there at the right time," police Sgt. Hal Utterback said.\nMcIntire was taken to a local hospital where he was being evaluated Friday. \nIndiana tourist shot in arm outside Devils Tower\nHULETT, Wyo. -- A tourist shot in the arm near Devils Tower National Monument might have been the victim of a stray bullet, the sheriff said.\nPhillip Sexton, 47, of New Castle, Ind., was wounded in the left forearm by a .22-caliber bullet Saturday afternoon, Crook County Sheriff's Department officials said.\nHe was shot while checking out the scenery at a concession stand just outside the park's eastern entrance, officials said. He was taken by ambulance to the Crook County Memorial Hospital, where doctors removed the bullet.