333 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(09/10/07 2:26am)
HAMMOND, Ind. – A broken drainage device might have contributed to the flooding and closure of a major road artery into and out of Chicago last month, a joint investigation by several agencies has revealed.\nThe device, known as a flapgate and located in a drainage pipe along Interstate 80/94, was not working properly during heavy rains, sending water back onto the highway, Dan Gardner, executive director of the Little Calumet River Basin Commission, told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville for a story Friday.\nThe flapgates are designed to close when water flows toward the highway.\nThe commission, the Indiana Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the city of Hammond are jointly investigating why the highway, also known as the Borman Expressway, was forced to close almost entirely Aug. 24-26.\nAngie Fegaras, an INDOT spokeswoman, said the flapgate and other possible factors in the flooding remained under investigation.\nOfficials are also looking into a privately owned levee that broke nearby and a malfunctioning lift station in Hammond, Fegaras said.\n“All parties have come together to work as a team to further investigate the flooding, to establish future guidelines and to further investigate an alternative drainage system,” Fegaras said.\nImad Samara of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said dangerous accumulation of water on the highway receded once back-up gates were closed.\n“When we closed them,” Samara said, “things kind of got better.”\nNeither Gardner nor Fegaras could say which agency was responsible for maintaining the flapgate.\nGardner said the timing of the flood could turn out to be favorable if changes must be made to the highway’s drainage system.\nAnother contract is about to be awarded in the Army Corps’ Little Calumet River flood control project, Gardner said, and it will take place in the area where the flood occurred.\nIf a consensus can be reached on what caused the flood by the end of September, Gardner said, it might be possible to add the remedial work to the contract.\n“As early as Thanksgiving we could have repairs, remediation, being done,” Gardner said.
(09/07/07 3:58am)
CHICAGO – The Big Ten Network reached an agreement on Thursday with satellite TV provider Dish Network, expanding the reach of the \nnew channel.\nThe number of households with the network nationwide will initially increase from about 17 million to 28.5 million. In the eight states with Big Ten schools, the number will increase from 3.5 to 6.2 million.\nDish customers who subscribe to the America’s Top 100 package or higher will have access to the channel through early 2008. After that, customers in the eight Big Ten states will get the channel on the America’s Top 100 Plus service, which includes regional sports networks. It has yet to be determined how the channel will be made available to customers outside the eight states after that time.\nThe network was already airing on Dish on Thursday. The channel debuted Aug. 30 and offered its first live football games last weekend.\nSatellite competitor DIRECTV carried the network from the beginning. The Big Ten Network has yet to reach agreements with several major cable providers – primarily Comcast – leaving many fans in the eight states without access to the channel.
(09/07/07 2:44am)
WINAMAC, Ind. – A man who spent 40 years in prison for killing a 6-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother while he was a teenager has been charged with offering $50 to a boy to go with him to a nearby beach to pose for pictures.\nRichard Allen Dobeski, 59, was arrested Aug. 31, exactly 43 years to the day he was sentenced to two life sentences for murder. He was arrested after authorities searched his mobile home in Westville, Pulaski County Prosecutor Stacey L. Mrak said.\nDobeski is charged with felony counts of attempted criminal confinement and enticing a child. The age of the boy has not been released. The incident occurred near Monterey, about 50 miles south of South Bend.\nHe was being held Thursday in the Pulaski County Jail under $100,000 bond.\nDobeski was 16 in 1964 when he was convicted in the slayings of 3-year-old Cary Robert Johnston and his sister, Shawn Elizabeth Johnston, 6, of Long Beach. He received two life sentences.\nThe children were found in a crawl space underneath Dobeski’s home in Long Beach, just east of Michigan City.\nIn 1984, during an appeal, Dobeski agreed to a deal that reduced the life sentence to two 40-year terms. The murdered children’s parents, who had moved from the Michigan City area, were unaware Dobeski had been granted a sentence modification.\nThe Indiana Supreme Court ruled in November 2000 that Dobeski’s new sentencing arrangement must stand, allowing him to be eligible for parole. Dobeski was released from prison in 2003.
(09/07/07 2:44am)
TIPTON, Ind. – Cardboard manufacturer Midwest Sheets Co. must pay a $600,000 fine following its guilty plea Thursday to federal charges over a chemical spill that killed more than 2,000 fish.\nMidwest Sheets pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the federal Clean Water Act for two July 22, 2002, discharges of more than 1,800 gallons of the caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, federal prosecutors said.\nCompany officials failed to notify the Tipton wastewater treatment plant of the discharges, which occurred when a storage tank overflowed, sending the chemical directly into the sewer system in the city about 30 miles north of Indianapolis, prosecutors said.\nThe highly concentrated chemical, which the company uses to make glue for corrugated cardboard, spilled into nearby Cicero Creek, killing 2,000 fish and disrupting Tipton’s wastewater treatment plant for a week.\nU.S. District Judge David Hamilton in Indianapolis ordered the company to pay the fine, to publicly apologize for the chemical release and implement corporate and employee environmental training programs. He also ordered the company to comply with all federal, state and local environmental laws.\nThe company’s general manager, Duane Matschullat, said in a statement that Midwest Sheets “deeply regrets” causing the spills.\n“Midwest Sheets takes corporate citizenship very seriously and deeply regrets the damage caused by the spill,” he said.
(09/04/07 3:58am)
INDIANAPOLIS – First, Don Bundy had trouble remembering the names of his grandchildren. Now, the 69-year-old Alzheimer’s patient forgets what a dinner plate is and relies on his wife, Carolyn, to remember his age.\nSince doctors diagnosed Bundy a few years ago, he’s volunteered for several drug studies and brain scans. He knows they’ll help science – but probably not him.\n“I think it’s an opportunity to help others have a better life, really,” the Indianapolis resident said.\nBundy’s efforts are part of a push by more than a dozen drug makers to crack an Alzheimer’s market loaded with blockbuster potential for the company that develops a breakthrough treatment.\nThe potential market alone is staggering: more than 26 million people diagnosed worldwide, a figure that is expected to quadruple by 2050. An effective treatment could easily surpass $1 billion in annual sales, said Joe Tooley, an analyst with A.G. Edwards & Sons.\nBut first a treatment has to get to market.\nWyeth has 23 drug compounds in various stages of development. Fellow drug maker Eli Lilly and Co. has started patient testing on a couple more.\nIndianapolis-based Lilly also is working with GE Healthcare on diagnostic testing that tells the difference between Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, which could ensure proper treatment.\n“I think in the course of our lifetime that we’ll see a significant change in the way we understand Alzheimer’s disease and the way we treat and possibly even prevent it,” said Niles Frantz, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association.\nAlzheimer’s is an irreversible, fatal disease. It involves the formation of lesions in the brain called plaques and tangles. Scientists believe they poison nerve cells and interfere with the ability to learn and reason.\nCarolyn Bundy thinks the disease began developing in her husband’s brain around the year 2000, when he started forgetting names and struggling with his job as a quality control manager at a food processing center.\nThen he began confusing simple tasks. She’d ask him to go to the garage for a screwdriver. He’d come back with a hammer. Now, she has to tell him over and over how to wash his hands or brush his teeth.\n“What he can do today, he might not be able to do tomorrow,” she said. “But something he can’t do today he might have no problem with tomorrow.\n“It’s a moving target.”\nAvailable treatments can ease symptoms of the disease, but none target its roots.\n“There’s just a huge unmet need for drugs to treat (Alzheimer’s),” said Brandon Troegle, a Morningstar analyst who covers Lilly. “Right now, there’s obviously no cures or anything that even stops the progression.”\nNeither Lilly nor Wyeth has an Alzheimer’s treatment on \nthe market.\nLilly is developing a drug that might attack the disease instead of the symptoms. The unnamed drug slows the growth of a sticky protein that serves as a building block for plaque. Lilly wants to find out whether it slows Alzheimer’s as well.\nThe company plans to start testing on 1,500 patients early next year.\n“The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease gradually worsen over time,” said Dr. Eric Siemers, a Lilly researcher. “What we would expect to see is the rate of decline in those symptoms is slowed, and so people are milder for a longer period of time.”\nAnother Lilly drug in an earlier stage of development could clear this protein from the body by latching onto it when it leaves the brain and then preventing it \nfrom returning.\nWyeth’s potential Alzheimer’s treatments range from drugs that handle symptoms to those that attack the disease. It is partnering with Elan Corp. to develop an antibody that binds to Alzheimer’s plaque and could clear it from \nthe brain.\nAll told, a couple dozen Alzheimer’s drugs have entered later-stage testing on people, said Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer’s Association medical and scientific advisory council.\nEventually, he thinks Alzheimer’s patients might be treated with a drug cocktail similar to what’s used for HIV or AIDS patients.\n“That’s easily five or 10 years away,” Gandy said.
(09/04/07 2:45am)
LAPORTE, Ind. – Former Indiana Gov. Joseph Kernan has been tapped as a consultant for a proposal to bring an intermodal rail development to LaPorte County.\nKernan is a part-time consultant for Cressy & Everett, a Mishawaka, Ind., real estate development and management firm with options to buy land near Union Mills about 30 miles southwest of South Bend.\nKernan, who went to high school with the firm’s owners, said the intermodal project is still being researched for LaPorte County. An intermodal is a rail yard where goods are loaded and unloaded from train flat cars and trucks for transport by rail and highway.\nKernan said intermodals can be strong economic development engines, creating jobs while also reducing tractor-trailer traffic on roads and highways. He said northwestern Indiana is an ideal place for such a project.\n“Its proximity to Chicago and multiple railroad lines that connect to Chicago gives it the opportunity for the right kind of facility to be created,” he said.\nKernan said Cressy & Everett first must determine if the project is viable and makes sense financially. Then, he said the project would need the support of the railroads.
(09/04/07 2:44am)
BROWNSBURG, Ind. – A small plane landed on a stretch of highway that was under construction Monday after the pilot reported having mechanical problems, officials said.\nThe pilot told officials he was heading to Eagle Creek Airport on the northwest side of Indianapolis when he decided the twin-engine plane would not make it and spotted a section of Ronald Reagan Parkway being built in Hendricks County.\nThe planed landed safely at about 10 a.m., but a wing was damaged when it clipped a piece of construction equipment, Ryan Miller of the Brownsburg Fire Territory said. The pilot and the other person on board suffered no injuries.\n“Had any part of this scenario been different, it could have been very tragic,” Miller said. “To have to initiate an emergency landing and finding an area that’s safe enough to land your aircraft without injuring yourself or damaging the aircraft any more than he did, I think is very lucky.”\nThe section of highway being built in the suburbs west of Indianapolis is unpaved, but the packed gravel made a relatively safe landing site, Miller said.\nInformation on the identities of those on the plane or where the flight originated was not immediately released.
(09/03/07 3:37am)
FORT WAYNE – Two Korean War veterans who served their country rather than finishing high school nearly 60 years ago finally have their diplomas thanks to a change in \nstate law.\nCarl Edwards and Arthur Flotow, both 77, were joined by relatives Saturday night when they received their framed high school diplomas in a special ceremony at a Fraternal Order of the Eagles Lodge in Fort Wayne.\nAlthough diplomas were offered to veterans of World War I and World War II, the benefit was only extended to Korean and Vietnam war veterans in May after Gov. Mitch Daniels signed new legislation into law.
(08/29/07 4:00am)
HAMMOND, Ind. – Residents and officials are questioning why Interstate 80/94 flooded last week, causing parts of the route into Chicago that is one of the nation’s busiest stretches of highway to be closed for three days.\nIndiana Department of Transportation officials defended the design, saying unusually heavy rains were to blame for the closure of the highway section that has been rebuilt over the past three years.\n“It was an act of nature,” INDOT spokesman Joshua Bingham said.\nBut area residents and officials, including Hammond’s city engineer, rejected that argument. They believe some improper drainage was to blame for the problems with the highway known in the area as the Borman Expressway.\n“I’m not an engineer, but I can tell you there’s a problem and it must be fixed,” Hammond City Councilman Dan Repay said.\nA section of the highway was closed to all traffic on Saturday and partially shut Friday through Sunday because of flooding that reached three feet deep at points in a \nthree-mile stretch.\nBingham said last week’s storms created a 100-year flood for the Little Calumet River that runs along the highway.\n“INDOT didn’t cause the flood. The rain caused the flood,” he said.\nStanley Dostatni, Hammond’s city engineer, said he believed the reconstructed highway is susceptible to flooding because the new design narrowed the storm water ditches considerably. He said that means when the area becomes saturated with rising flood waters, the water has nowhere to go but on the road.\nINDOT spokeswoman Angie Fegaras said Dostatni was mistaken. Despite how it appears, she said the ditch system was upgraded and is “adequate” for normal amounts of rain.\nCrew were continuing Tuesday to pump water from the ramps and some surrounding areas at two interchanges for I-80/94 a few miles east of the Illinois-Indiana state line. All ramps were not expected to be reopened until late in \nthe week.
(08/29/07 3:51am)
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber said promising recruit Quinton Watkins will not play or attend school this fall because he is not academically eligible.\nWatkins could still join the team in the spring after attending either a preparatory school or a junior college.\nWeber announced last week that junior guard Jamar Smith will sit out the year after pleading guilty to drunk driving.\nWatkins, meanwhile, was expected to compete for playing time as point guard. Returning starter Chester Frazier is now most likely to start at point.\nWeber says the team will start figuring out its guard rotation while on a weekend trip to play in Canada.
(08/29/07 3:47am)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Defensive tackle Corey Simon agreed to terms Tuesday with the Tennessee Titans and will try to resume his career after not playing at all in 2006.\nThe Indianapolis Colts released Simon on Aug. 4 after he failed a physical at the start of training camp. Simon took a physical with the Titans a week ago and was expected to be at practice later Tuesday.\n“Corey brings a combination of run-stuffing size and pass-rushing ability to the defensive tackle position,” general manager Mike Reinfeldt said in a statement. “Prior to last season, he has been a consistent and productive player who contributed to playoff teams and we are excited to see him get a second chance here with the Titans to prove he still has that ability.”\nSimon had arthroscopic knee surgery but was placed on the non-football illness/injury list Oct. 5 with an undisclosed ailment a year after signing a five-year, $30 million contract with the Colts.\nHe was the sixth pick overall in 2000 by the Philadelphia Eagles and a Pro Bowler in 2003. He spent five seasons with Philadelphia and had 270 tackles and 32 sacks, but the Eagles released him just before the 2005 season because he refused to sign a one-year franchise tender.\nIf healthy, he could help a defense that ranked 30th in the NFL against the run last year, giving up 144.6 yards per game.
(08/27/07 4:00am)
A torn sign hangs on the side of the road leading to the Crandall Canyon Mine in Huntington, Utah, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007. The latest holed drilled into the collapsed mine where six men are trapped broke through an area too small for the men to survive, a lawyer for several of the men's families said.(AP Photo/Deseret Morning News, August Miller)
(08/27/07 3:58am)
DETROIT – The New York Yankees hit the ball hard Sunday. The Detroit Tigers just kept making all the plays.\nThe Tigers used three early homers and three late defensive gems to beat the Yankees 5-4, and can win their first series since mid-July with a victory in the series finale Monday night.\n“We’ve had some bad moments this year, but the one thing about this team is that they always give it everything they have,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “That’s the thing that makes a manager proud.”\nThe Tigers moved within 4 1/2 games of the Seattle Mariners in the wild-card race. Detroit began the day 2 1/2 games behind Cleveland in \nthe AL Central.\n“We knew how much we needed this one,” said Tigers reliever Joel Zumaya, who pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings. “A big game against the Yankees means a lot of emotion.”\nNew York fell 2 1/2 games behind Seattle, and 7 1/2 behind Boston in the AL East.\n“We’re all right,” manager Joe Torre said.\nAfter third baseman Brandon Inge made a spectacular play in the eighth, part-time first baseman Carlos Guillen bailed out Tigers closer Todd Jones with two tough plays in the ninth.\nHideki Matsui started the inning with a grounder between first and second, but Guillen, who moved from shortstop to first before the eighth inning, ranged far to his right to get the ball, then threw across his body to Jones covering first.\n“That was an incredible play,” Jones said. “I didn’t think he could get to the ball, but when he did, I figured I better get myself over to the bag.”\nAfter Jason Giambi’s single, Guillen snared Robinson Cano’s hard-hit grounder and started a game-ending 3-6-3 double play.\n“They caught everything we hit,” Torre said. “With our offense, normally we can overcome that.”\nGuillen, Detroit’s All-Star shortstop, has been playing first base in the late innings of games because of a bad back.
(08/06/07 12:05am)
Nearly 100 countries speaking at the first U.N. General Assembly meeting on climate change signaled strong support for negotiations on a new international deal to tackle global warming. There was so much interest among worried nations, many facing drought, floods and searing heat, that the two-day meeting was extended for an extra day so more countries could describe their climate-related problems, how they are coping and the help they need.
(08/05/07 5:28pm)
INDIANAPOLIS – A voting machine company must pay Indiana more than $350,000 in civil penalties and investigative costs for 198 violations of Indiana election law, an administrative law judge has ruled.\nIndianapolis-based MicroVote General Corp., which provided voting equipment to 47 Indiana counties, including Monroe County, during the last election, came under investigation last year after allegations that the company sold uncertified machines.\nAdministrative Law Judge J. Lee McNeely indicated in his order that voting equipment companies must comply with state laws to preserve the integrity of elections.\nAccording to the findings, MicroVote marketed uncertified voting equipment between Oct. 1, 2005, and April 28, 2006, negotiating more than $400,000 worth of new sales contracts in 10 counties, according to a Friday news release from the Indiana secretary of state’s office.\nThe company had discovered its equipment could not handle split-precinct and straight-ticket voting – functions required under Indiana law.\nAs early as April 22, 2006, MicroVote knew one of its systems was not operational, the release states, but concealed that from the Indiana Election Commission until later that summer. The 47 counties that used the voting equipment in the May 2006 primary elections did not meet Indiana’s legal standards.\nThe Associated Press left a message seeking comment with MicroVote on Friday.
(07/30/07 12:56am)
A 19-year-old man was hospitalized Wednesday after he was injured at the Monroe County Fair.\nVan Buren Township Fire Chief Tim Deckard said the man was unconscious with a head injury when emergency personnel arrived and appeared to have been trampled by a steer he was leading out of a barn at around 2:15 p.m., Wednesday.\n“We were the first ones on the scene,” Deckard said. “He was unconscious, and you could tell he was suffering from a head injury.”\nBut Jeff Holland, the county 4-H director, said Thursday that witnesses had said the teen slipped and fell and that the steer was not involved.\n“To be honest, I was not there; I didn’t witness it,” he said.\nThe man was not participating in a fair event at the time of the accident, officials said.\nFair board officials told fire officials late Wednesday that the man had been placed in a drug-induced comamd, Deckard said.\nThe teen’s family declined to comment on the accident or provide any information regarding his condition.
(07/30/07 12:09am)
Four Indiana coal-burning power plants landed on an environmental group’s latest list of the dirtiest power plants in the nation.\nThe Environmental Integrity Group put Indiana, Texas and Pennsylvania atop a list of the 12 states with the heaviest concentrations of the dirtiest power plants. Texas had five. Indiana and Pennsylvania each had four.\nThe group used data gathered from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.\n“This report is a vivid reminder that generating electricity through coal is a very dirty business, and power companies have not come forward to clean up voluntarily,” said Jan Jarrett of Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future during a Thursday conference call to discuss the list.\nHowever, power companies say they operate efficiently and have spent billions cleaning up their plants.\nDuke Energy’s Gibson station near Princeton placed fourth on a list of the Top 50 polluting plants ranked by carbon dioxide tons. American Electric Power’s Rockport plant placed seventh.\nPlants operated by Indianapolis Power & Light and Northern Indiana Public Service Co. also made the list.\n“Here in the Midwest, as this report indicates, we have an abundance of filthy outdated coal burning power plants that are contributing to the soot, smog mercury and global-warming pollution challenges we are facing,” Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club National Coal Campaign said during the conference call.
(07/26/07 12:01am)
INDIANAPOLIS – An Indiana State trooper was injured Wednesday when a box truck slammed into a car as he was speaking to its occupants, knocking the officer into a ditch along Interstate 465, police said.\nThe accident in a construction zone came a day after another trooper was injured when a semitrailer sideswiped the trooper's patrol in southwestern Indiana.\nIn Wednesday's accident, Trooper Henry Kalina, 40, had stopped along I-465 on Indianapolis' northeast side and was standing on the car's passenger side speaking to its driver.\nState police spokesman Sgt. Ray Poole said the box truck's driver was moving from the center lane to the right lane when he may have noticed the trooper's car.\n"He swerved and instead of hitting the police car he hit the car that was stopped by the trooper," Poole said.\nKalina, who is a member of Gov. Mitch Daniels' security detail, was knocked into a ditch by the force of the impact when the truck slammed into the car's driver's side.\nHe suffered leg injuries but was alert and conscious when he was taken by helicopter to an Indianapolis hospital, Poole said. Two women and a child in the car were treated at the scene for minor injuries.\nThe truck driver, who pulled over a short distance from the accident scene, was not injured.
(07/26/07 12:00am)
JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. –\nLeaders of a homeless shelter are searching for a way to keep its doors open as they try to find enough cash to pay off a $400,000 tax debt.\nOne of Haven House Services' options would be for the nonprofit group to sell some of its transitional housing units to help pay the tax bill while keeping its emergency shelter open.\nExecutive Director Barbara Anderson said if Haven House sells its transitional housing property, she would like to find a buyer offering similar services so that residents would not be displaced.\nHaven House, the only such homeless shelter in the southeastern Indiana area, owes the Internal Revenue Service $400,000 in payroll taxes that were not paid over the last three years.\nAnderson said the taxes weren't paid because the agency didn't want to cut services to the homeless and because she and Haven House's board members hoped someone would come forward with a \nsubstantial contribution.\n"I let my heart do the thinking instead of my head," Anderson said. "It was a stupid decision. We were just trying our best to get by."\nShe said Haven House will not ask local governments to help pay the debt, but she hopes to develop a plan for long-term public funding to help keep the group afloat.\nHaven House Services runs an emergency shelter for homeless people in Jeffersonville, Ind. and owns transitional housing facilities in Jeffersonville and New Albany, Ind. Its shelter houses about 60 homeless people a day from Clark, Floyd, Harrison and other counties, as well as some from the Louisville, Ky., area.\nHaven House employs 23 people and has served nearly 8,700 people during the past five years, she said. The organization has a $520,000 budget for the year.\nAnderson said it's highly unlikely that the group would sell its emergency homeless shelter, but some residents are worried about what would happen to them if the shelter closed.\nKelli Orman, 33, said she and her son would likely be on the street if the shelter closed.\n"I would probably lose my son to the state, because I would have no way to keep a roof over his head," she said.
(07/23/07 12:26am)
WEST LAFAYETTE – Purdue University officials celebrated the end of a major fundraising campaign by spending more than half a million dollars – part of which came from campaign contributions – to throw a party for donors.\nThe bill for the June 30 event totaled $576,778, the Lafayette Journal & Courier reported Friday. About half the bill was paid by the Purdue Research Foundation. The rest was covered by money raised during the school’s Campaign for Purdue, which brought in $1.7 billion in contributions over the past seven years.\nOn the invite list were about 650 donors who give at least $1,000 a year to the university, said Joe Bennett, vice president for university relations.\nSome think the party marking the end of the campaign was too expensive.\n“That seems like a big waste,” said David Hoover, a junior studying actuarial science at Purdue. “Pay for renovations to some of these buildings. A lot of the buildings need it.”\nThe money Purdue spent on the party could have paid for tuition for 81 students for one year, the salaries of six average full-time faculty members for a year, or the average debt of 30 graduating seniors.\nBennett said the event had to be upscale to properly thank contributors, many of whom donated more than $1 million.\n“It’s part of what you do to raise money at that kind of level,” Bennett said. “That’s what the people who made contributions to us deserved.”\nBennett told The Associated Press Friday that the university typically spends between 7 percent and just over 10 percent of money raised on fundraising overhead costs, and that the average cost for the Campaign for Purdue was about 8.5 percent.\n“We spent less than a dime to raise a dollar,” he said, adding that Purdue spends less on fundraising overhead than many other universities.\nErik Hanson, a philosophy graduate student, said Purdue has to treat donors right if it wants to continue fundraising on such a large scale.\n“If throwing a big party for donors will help increase donor support, sometimes that’s what you have to do,” Hanson said.\nThe event was held at the Mollenkopf Athletic Center, so stages, lighting, audio and other equipment had to be brought in and set up there. Student singers and musicians weren’t available during the summer, so professionals were hired. The university hired an event planning company to bring in food, entertainment and decorations.\nTickets to the event brought in $15,826 – money that went toward event expenses.\nFaculty Senate President George Bodner said it’s difficult to determine the appropriate amount to pay for events thanking donors.\n“I hate to say this is the best way of spending it, but sometimes you have to say thank you in an appropriate manner,” Bodner said.
