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(02/10/12 5:46am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Despite the recent nationwide economic slump, the Super Bowl provided a financial boost to many Indianapolis restaurants. With the influx of visitors from both around the state and around the country, business owners experienced more business and greater revenue. Stuart Robertson, owner of MacNiven’s Restaurant and Bar located on Massachusetts Avenue downtown, said this was true for his business. “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal days, and things picked up a bit on Thursday night,” Robertson said via email. “Around 1 p.m. Friday was when it started to get busy, and it stayed that way all the rest of the day. We have a door guy on for St. Patrick’s Day, our busiest day of the year, and we had one on from 1 p.m. Friday until after the game on Sunday night. Most of the time, we could only let people in if we were letting people out at the same time.”Several other restaurants — particularly those closest to the Super Bowl Village — did this as well. Doormen would lock the doors behind customers and then let several new people in every time people left. An official at one of these stores said the purpose was crowd control.“I was here all weekend,” Robertson said. “The place was packed, the people were great, polite, well-behaved. The vibe was electric.”Britni Fischer is the manager for the Starbucks located on Monument Circle. She said her store also experienced much more business.“It was really exciting,” Fischer said. “There was a lot of energy, and customers were great. We saw of course tons of people from the suburbs of Indianapolis but also lots of people from out of town.”She said her store also saw several celebrities during the week. “We had Stephen Baldwin in the store,” she said. “There was a Conan O’Brien sighting. But I think that was about it.” Although Fischer declined to give actual numbers for the increase in revenue or business, she said there was a definite increase. She also said they brought in extra help to handle the crowds.“We were lucky enough to borrow a lot of different partners from Indianapolis stores, and that helped us out considerably,” she said. Data for the business overall during the week is not yet available, but Dianna Boyce, director of communications of the Super Bowl Host Committee, said anecdotal evidence of positive gains for restaurants abounds. “Many of them extended their hours and made sure that they had staffing in order, made sure they had supplies and food ordered,” she said. “We really have gotten some very positive feedback.” She said she believes the effects extend beyond downtown and even beyond the Super Bowl. “Certainly it had a ripple effect that was beyond Indianapolis,” Boyce said. “I do think that the time and the sweat and the energy that most people put into that certainly will have long-term benefits. People will come back that maybe hadn’t been here before.”In the future, Boyce said it wouldn’t surprise her if Indianapolis was asked to play host to other large events. “I think it opened the eyes of the world that Indianapolis is a viable location for a lot of things, if we can do a Super Bowl,” she said.But for the event of the Super Bowl itself, Robertson said he was satisfied with how his business and staff performed.“Before the recession, I would take my staff to the Rawhide Ranch for a night over Memorial Weekend,” he said. “We stopped doing it. It would be all my staff and their partners, we would rent the entire property and have a huge party. It was great fun. With the way the staff performed this past weekend ... I’ll be calling the Rawhide Ranch.”
(02/10/12 2:06am)
Attendees walk through the rain Jan. 4 at the Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis. Local businesses reported an increase in customers the week before the game.
(02/07/12 5:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Two hundred years ago on Feb. 7, 1812, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake rattled the Midwest, marking the largest quake in U.S. recorded history. The town of New Madrid, Mo., at the earthquake’s epicenter, was destroyed, and portions of the Mississippi River appeared to flow backward because of the quake. Now, on the 200th anniversary, educators and activists are spreading awareness of earthquakes, natural disasters they said are often overlooked in the Midwest. Brian Blake, earthquake program coordinator at the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium, is one of the leaders of the “Great Central U.S. Shakeout,” which is taking place today around the Midwest. Currently, Indiana is leading the way in participation with 500,000 participants taking part. More than 2 million people are participating in total. “Last year was our first year doing it, and it grew out of a program that they started in California in 2008,” Blake said. “Basically, the whole idea behind it is to build public awareness about earthquakes and to increase knowledge of what to do during earthquakes.” Schools and independent groups have coordinated public events in which participants will take time to “drop, cover and hold on.” This is the motto for the event, as these are the steps to take in the case of an actual earthquake.“Drop to the ground basically, before the earthquake drops you, and then take cover under a sturdy table if you can, and then hold on until the shaking stops,” Blake said.One common misconception, Blake said, is that during an earthquake it’s best to stand in a doorway or to immediately try and get outside.“If you try and run in a big earthquake, the ground can move up and down and side to side, and it can do it simultaneously,” Blake said. “So if you’re running, there might not be ground there after a couple steps.”Blake said the most important thing is to protect your head and neck during a quake. But before a quake happens, he said everyone should take the time to secure heavy furniture or objects in his or her home.“The best time to prepare is before it happens,” Blake said. “Some easy things people can do are moving bookshelves away from your bed, moving heavy objects from higher shelves to lower shelves. Things like that can go a long way from preventing injuries and damages.” Michael Hamburger, an IU professor and leader of the IU PEPP Earthquake Science Institute, said preparations like this could prove important because earthquakes are fairly common in southern Indiana. “A 5-magnitude earthquake occurs every five, 15, 20 years in our area,” Hamburger said. “Magnitude 6 earthquakes, which are potentially significantly destructive ... occur every 100 years.” Hamburger said if another big quake occurred on the New Madrid zone in Missouri, the effects would be felt in Bloomington.“It would definitely be felt, and its effects would depend quite strongly on where it was located,” he said. The quakes in this region remain a bit of a controversial mystery to scientists, Hamburger said.The region is in the middle of a tectonic plate, where quakes occur much more rarely.“One of the characteristics of earthquakes in the Midwest is they tend to be felt and cause much more damage over large areas,” Hamburger said.Blake said the organizers of the Shakeout are hoping that by having this event, people will be able to practice what to do during an earthquake. That way when the next quake comes, people won’t panic.“We want people to practice it so they know what it’s like,” Blake said. “I mean, we teach children at schools how to stop, drop and roll and what to do for tornados and stuff like that ... and it really becomes second nature to them. When it comes time for an earthquake or when an earthquake happens, we want folks to be in the same position.”
(02/07/12 5:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In 2011, Indiana public universities, including IU and Purdue University, faced state-funding budget cuts. The cuts resulted in a 3-percent decrease in funding for Purdue and a 5.5-percent reduction in funds for IU. These cuts led to increased tuition for some schools and staff firings at others.For IU, those cuts included a decrease of 483 staff and faculty, said Neil Theobald, vice president and chief financial officer for IU. “This year’s budget cut for IU-Bloomington was $10.4 million, or 5.5 percent,” Theobald said in an email. “In response, IU implemented an early retirement program. Today, IU employs 483 fewer faculty and staff than it did in January 2011. About one-half of this decrease is among IU-Bloomington employees.” Thomas Gieryn, vice provost of faculty and academic affairs for IU-Bloomington, said the cuts in the past year were almost exclusively in clerical and support staff on campus, rather than faculty members such as professors.“I can assure you that the vast majority of the people who took early retirement were support staff,” Gieryn said. “If you look just at tenure and tenure track, we’ve got an increase in 14 faculty, from 1,442 to 1,456.”Theobald said many of the staff who left chose to take the early retirement plan, and that it was “voluntary, so it was not targeted by school.”The early retirement plan they both reference is a new plan available to IU employees. Al Diaz, executive vice president for business and finance and the treasurer for Purdue, said Purdue also has a new, optional early retirement plan available to employees. “About 400 people decided to take it,” Diaz said.He said Purdue worked with IU on the early retirement plans, and he believes them to be similar. At IU, the plan is called the Early Retirement Incentive Plan. It offers financial and health care benefit incentives for University employees to retire earlier, therefore saving the University money.Another step Purdue has taken to reduce costs is curtailing hiring until further notice, Diaz said. “We simply said, ‘OK, you can’t hire for the next six months,’” Diaz said.All of this is an attempt to keep student tuition down, he said. Purdue’s tuition has increased due to the state budget cuts, but many new programs are in place to help create new revenue for the school and aid students in meeting the new raised tuition. One of these is the Decadal Funding Plan, which is aimed at increasing revenue for the school beyond tuition and state funding by cutting costs and increasing research commercialization, among other methods, according to the plan’s website. Another initiative at Purdue is the move toward trimesters, which would allow students to finish school more quickly and cheaply. Unlike Purdue, IU has actually hired new faculty this school year, Gieryn said. “From last year to this year, we hired 73 new people,” he said. “We had 71 resignations or retirements or deaths. ... We certainly had some faculty who took early retirement, but their numbers were so small that they were offset by the hires.”Diaz said what makes the cuts so hard on Purdue this time around is that they followed a previous round of even more severe cuts. “This budget cut ... came on the heels of the 8-percent budget cut we faced last biennium,” he said. “It puts us back to a decade ago.”
(02/06/12 4:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s cold and raining, but everyone is looking to the sky. Families huddled under umbrellas have faces turned upward, and nobody seems to speak. They’re all waiting and watching. Then, a low roar ripples through the crowd, and far above, a man and a woman glide down a zip-line strung from a nine-story tower to a platform on the other end of the street, right in front of the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. The couple begins doing back flips and somersaults in mid-air as the crowd screams in approval. For a moment, these zip-liners have managed to capture the attention of the Indianapolis Super Bowl Village. Hundreds of thousands of people traveled from across the country to Indianapolis to take part in the Super Bowl celebration. Some of the visitors were a little more local. Kelly King and Lucian Anderson, the two zip-lining crowd-pleasers, traveled from Broad Ripple in Indianapolis. “This is our third time to do this,” King said after she’d unstrapped from her harness. “It’s just an adrenaline rush. It gets better, and it gets easier, and you have more fun.”The two of them had been standing in line since 4 a.m. to get tickets to zip-line. Anderson said they had to come back so that his children could experience it as well. “It was so much fun that I said, ‘We’re going to hang out at four in the morning to make sure they get tickets,’” Anderson said.Aside from the adrenaline, he said the view from the zip-line was also spectacular, particularly while scaling the tower.“When you’re at the top of the tower, you have an incredible view of Lucas Oil (Stadium). You have an incredible view of the city,” Anderson said. The village had attractions other than just the zip-line, and it drew people from all over. While walking through the crowd, snatches of conversation in German and French could be heard along with English. News crews laden with cameras and microphones peppered the mobs of people.On nearly every street corner, evangelists stood on boxes with megaphones, shouting Bible verses and holding up signs with messages of repentance. Then there were the scalpers — people selling tickets, and even more people holding signs reading that they needed tickets. Don Brice, a Bloomington native, ended up selling his tickets to the Super Bowl. “We’re season ticket holders for the Colts,” Brice said. “We were sitting here with a couple of people ... and they were willing to pay over $2,000 a ticket. And that’s about two and a half times what the tickets cost me.”Brice came up to visit the village, and he said he was impressed with how Indianapolis handled such a large event. “I think they did a great job,” he said. “The Super Bowl Village is nice. It’s more for younger people in the evening with bands and stuff. The Super Bowl Experience was more for young kids, a lot of interaction things with the young kids. But it’s nice.”Indianapolis shut down all of the streets closest to the circle to allow for pedestrian traffic. There was a strong police presence, with groups of officers from various departments clustered on corners and between barricades to help direct foot traffic. There were also performers. People on stilts with long red-and-white-striped pants wobbled through the hordes of people. A troupe of college men in blonde wigs and neon track suits waited in line for food. Musicians were out, hoping to make some extra money by performing for passersby.“Lonie G” is a saxophone player who said he frequently performs in downtown Indianapolis. He decided to perform during Super Bowl weekend, blasting away on his saxophone with its case open at his feet. Every couple of minutes, at least one person would drop a dollar or two into it. He said he’s earned more than usual with the extra crowds.“I would say there’s more people out enjoying themselves today,” he said. “People are out here having a wonderful time.” Despite the weather, people still decided to visit the village Saturday. The city provided heating stations with heat lamps where people could stand to keep warm and to stay out of the drizzle.Still, for many, the Super Bowl Village being so close to home proved to be an opportunity not to be passed up, rain or sun. This was the case with the zip-liners, King and Anderson. They said they hadn’t planned on coming back for the actual Super Bowl weekend, but they couldn’t stay away. “We said we weren’t coming down,” King said. “We’re not ever going to get any sleep. We might actually not hit the beds until tomorrow at 10.”
(02/06/12 1:22am)
Ice sculptures are displayed Saturday at the Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis. Food Network hosts Randy Pinch and Derek Maxfield did ice sculpting as part of the festivities.
(02/06/12 1:22am)
A person rides the a zip line Saturday at the Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis. The 800-foot long zip line has been one of the biggest attractions at the Village.
(02/06/12 1:21am)
Attendees walk through the rain Saturday at the Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis. Several blocks of downtown were closed to traffic and featured various entertainment opportunities.
(01/27/12 4:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last month, the IU basketball team brought home a huge win against rival team Kentucky, then No. 1 in the country. But some unexpected winners came out of the event — businesses on Kirkwood Avenue. After the win, students who weren’t already on Kirkwood to watch the game rushed to the street, spilling out of bars and restaurants and celebrating the win in a block party. In all of the celebration, more money was spent at the businesses located on Kirkwood, resulting in higher-than-usual financial gains. Nick’s English Hut was one of the businesses to experience a jump in sales, said Susan Bright, the bar’s financial analyst. “It was electrifying,” Bright said. “It was like we were in the NCAA Final Four game, and we had just won. “I’ve been there for Final Four games, so I can compare the Kentucky game to a Final Four game in like 1987, and it was exactly the same.”Bright said the game drew more fans than usual, with people lining up to get into Nick’s to watch the game, and spectators spent more than they might have on a normal Saturday.“Compared to a normal Saturday, I wouldn’t say it doubled sales for the day, but we probably had a 40 percent increase,” Bright said. “And it wasn’t just after the game. It was before, during and after.” Another bar on Kirkwood, the Crazy Horse, also experienced financial gains, said General Manager Brian Radermacher. However, for them, the gains were more long-term than immediate.“It’s hard to say for just that day, but I think the increase you’re going to see is in the games following that game,” Radermacher said. “It’s nice to see more people coming in from out of town.”Radermacher said now that IU is winning, people are more likely to travel to Bloomington to watch the games, either at a bar or at Assembly Hall. Crazy Horse has seen a decrease in sales in previous years because of the IU basketball team’s losses, Radermacher said.“Now, we again feel we have a chance to win every game,” Radermacher said. “That is where we’re seeing an increase in sales.”Radermacher said this has been a trend he’s noticed in basketball games since the Kentucky game, and he also said he thinks the team’s wins have helped commerce throughout Bloomington.“I think it’s helped all the businesses around town,” he said. “I think it’s helped Bloomington in general. There’s a buzz in the air now, and it’s nice. It’s nice to have it again.”
(01/25/12 5:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For several years, the cost of college has increased annually, and so has the amount of student loans. Student loan debt is expected to exceed $1 trillion in the near future, surpassing the national credit card debt, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The average student in Indiana graduates with $27,000 in debt, compared to $25,250 nationally. The state has the eighth-highest average debt in the country, and 62 percent of recent graduates had debt.Within the state, IU has the greatest amount of debt, with the average debt per student at about $28,000, while students at Purdue University graduate with a little more than $26,000 and students at Ball State graduate with $24,000, according to the Project on Student Debt. Matt Reed, a policy analyst for the Project on Student Debt, said that since the first debt report in 2006, his team has seen increases every time the survey has been taken. “There’s national data that shows increases in borrowing starting from the early ‘90s up until the present,” Reed said. There are several factors that could explain the increase, Reed said. One is the general state of the economy. Rising costs and cuts in federal scholarship opportunities also contribute. “As the costs continue to rise faster than inflation and family income, and grant aid doesn’t always keep up, we have seen greater borrowing,” Reed said. Roy Durnal, the interim director for the IU Office of Student Financial Assistance, said the University is doing several things to try and bridge this gap between costs and funds. “Over the past several years, IU has significantly increased gift aid offered to undergraduate students,” Durnal said.Gift aid — or aid available to students as scholarships for exceptional grades or as a supplement for students with financial need — has increased 77 percent from the 2005-06 school year. But 55 percent of IU-Bloomington students still graduate with at least some debt, according to the Project on Student Debt. Durnal said another way to curb debt is to take advantage of all of the credit hours a student is allotted in a given semester. “The flat tuition rate at IUB means you’re paying the same tuition for 12 credit hours as you are for 17 credit hours, so students should work together with their academic advisor to maximize their credit hours each semester,” he said.Reed said another important factor is thinking about what type of loans to take out if loans are simply unavoidable. “If you need to borrow, first find all you can in grants and scholarships,” Reed said. “And if you need to borrow, take out federal student loans and look at federal parent loans before even considering private student loans.”Federal loans have built-in safety guards for students, including fixed interest rates and payment rates that can be adjusted based on the income a recent graduate student makes after college, Reed said. The programs make sure that if students don’t get jobs right away, they will be able to pay their loans without the loans being a burden, he said. Reed said although the idea of debt can be overwhelming, a university education is, on average, an investment worth making.“People who have college degrees have higher employment rates and higher earnings, and taking out federal student loans can therefore be a great investment, as long as you take out a moderate amount,” Reed said.
(01/24/12 3:11am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Indiana is the odd one out among most neighboring states because it doesn’t have a statewide smoking ban. But some legislators are hoping this situation will change by the Super Bowl. Jon Macy, coordinator for the Monroe Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Coalition, said there is a push in Indianapolis to pass statewide legislation before the heavy influx of out-of-towners arrives.At 23.1 percent, Indiana has the fifth highest rate of smoking nationally, according to smokefree.gov.“Basically, they don’t want to be embarrassed when people come to Indianapolis and there’s no ordinance that prohibits smoking in bars,” Macy said. “I think it’s at least 25, maybe getting close to 30, states have comprehensive laws, so Indiana’s kind of falling behind.”These new ordinances would make it illegal to smoke in places such as bars and restaurants, along with places where this practice is already banned, such as bus stops and places of employment. Monroe County has much stricter ordinances than the rest of the state, and the county actually led the Midwest in this initiative, Macy said.“Bloomington was one of the first cities in the entire Midwest to pass a comprehensive law like this,” Macy said. “Bloomington’s law was in place before Chicago.”In 2005, nearly all locations in Bloomington went smoke free, including 21-and-over bars and clubs. It’s also illegal to smoke on the IU campus, aside from designated smoking areas, and at bus stops. Smoking is also prohibited in places that serve any kind of food or beverage in Bloomington, which may be why there are no hookah or cigar bars in the city.“This is just my hunch, that it would be difficult for a hookah bar to survive financially just on the tobacco product,” Macy said. Pete Giordano, director of Community and Family Resources in Bloomington, said that overall, businesses in the city experienced minimal change in the amount of business they received after the ban. He also cited fear of lost business as one possible cause for the lack of a ban statewide. “I think there’s a lot of misconceptions on what the impact on businesses would be,” Giordano said. “Most saw no overall impact, or an increase.”Giordano said Nick’s English Hut saw an increase in business after the ban went into effect in Bloomington.“I think a lot of people just didn’t want to go into smoky bars,” Giordano said. Macy said there appears to be much support for a statewide ban, but other issues may prevent it from happening.“We just kind of have to see how the legislative process plays out,” he said. “The other problem we’re having is the other legislative issues, like the right-to-work deal, are taking all the attention. It’s such a hot topic that even the Democrats have walked out or are boycotting, so if they don’t have a quorum, they can’t even vote.”To vote on the statewide ban, a majority of representatives currently in office must be present for the vote. Given the other current controversies, the ban might not even go to vote. Giordano is hopeful that a ban will be passed soon, but he said there may not be enough time between now and the Super Bowl for an effective ban to go into place. He also said he is hopeful Indiana will soon join its neighbors in a ban.“If they can make it work in New York City,” Giordano said, “we can probably make it work here.”
(01/20/12 4:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>He was the pledge class president for his fraternity, Phi Kappa Sigma. He was the executive director for alumni relations for the IU Student Association and he was a top fundraising committee member for IU Dance Marathon in 2009. This past fall, he made his debut in Big Man on Campus as Mario in a live re-enactment of the video game Super Mario Brothers.Logan Good graduated this winter from the Kelley School of Business, and he’s now working at the Fortune 500 Company Western & Southern Financial Group selling life insurance to clients. Now that he’s graduated, Good said he is striving to make a difference in the greater Bloomington area, and he’s using education and life experiences as a vehicle to get him there. “Specifically what I’m looking to do is to protect other families and make sure they’re sound financially,” Good said. “The first way is looking forward and assuming that everything goes right. Then there’s the other side, the protection side, which I guess I have a stronger connection to.” For Good, this job isn’t just about selling life insurance. He’s selling security — the same security that he was given as a sophomore in college. “Essentially, it’s like I’m paying it forward almost, giving other families the same opportunities that I was afforded,” Good said. If it hadn’t been for life insurance, Good said he wouldn’t have been able to complete his college education.Good’s family lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago. His mother, Jami Good, is a photographer, and his father, Steven Good, was the CEO for the major realty group Sheldon Good and Company.In the midst of the housing crisis in 2009, Good’s father committed suicide. Good was a sophomore in college at the time and was home for winter break. When his father passed away, Good’s family was left with seemingly little future financial security.“We couldn’t even pay for a headstone at first,” Good said. “When you can’t even pay for your father’s headstone, it’s kind of a shock to the system.”The funeral was four days before Good returned to IU. “I have two brothers, so we were at the funeral,” Good said, “and we were all huddled in a circle, and my two brothers were really upset, and we were basically like, ‘We’re fucked. What are we going to do?’”“I said, ‘You know what? We’re going to go out, we’re going to work our asses off and we’re going to kick ass. We’ll be fine.’” Immediately following his father’s death, Good’s family didn’t know how they were going to afford tuition. Then they found their answer: life insurance. “My dad was thoughtful enough to be responsible and take out a life insurance policy,” Good said. “After my dad passed away, the policy took force, and it really made me that much more thankful. It was tough grieving and everything, but on top of grieving, imagine being kicked out of your home and not being able to go to school.”After his father’s death, Good’s drive for philanthropy deepened, and he came back to school determined to succeed. “I’d study at the library until three, four in the morning, and most kids walking out would be like, ‘Oh, this is horrible, why am I here, I wish I was out,’” Good said. “But for me, walking out, I’d look up and have this grin on my face and be like, ‘I am so thankful I have this opportunity to study my ass off until three in the morning and be miserable with the books.’” Upon graduation, Good knew he wanted to make a difference with his career as well. For a while, he considered moving to a city and working for a big-name company.“Being a Kelley student, too, there’s always the notion of doing something sexy when you get out of school,” Good said. “Like going and working in a big city, and going and living in some tall tower. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes, people lose focus of what is really important.” Good interviewed many places but said his current job just began to make sense. “Essentially what I’m doing is I am advocating for families,” Good said. “It’s amazing because I can do it right away, and I believe in what I’m doing. What I’m helping people with profoundly changed my life and changed the outcome of it.”Jesse Carnicom, the district sales manager for Western & Southern who hired Good, said he and Good had an immediate connection to one another. “We had an interview scheduled at the business school there, and we immediately connected because of his story,” Carnicom said. “The first thing I identify is whether someone wants to enter this industry because of money or because of passion.”Carnicom came from a similar background as Good, with his father dying when he was a teen. His mother left him and his sister some time later, when he was just 16 years old. Unlike Good, his family did not have any life insurance, and they struggled.He placed Good into an accelerated program and said Good should be a manager for him within the next few years.“His ability to be sincere and to communicate his story when he’s talking to a prospective client or family ... it’s impossible for him not to make it,” Carnicom said. Good said that as awful as some events in his past were, they’ve shaped him into who he is today and made him more thankful. He poured himself into his education, and now he’s pouring himself into his career. He said he refuses to let any event hold him back.“A lot of people, I feel like, when something happens to them, it would be easy and tempting to run from it and try to avoid people, but for me it’s quite the opposite,” Good said. “At the time it feels like your world is falling down, but as bad as things might be at the time, just accept them and move forward and have faith in yourself.”
(01/19/12 4:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Much of Southern Indiana is covered with woods. It’s not uncommon to see forest wildlife here, such as squirrels, opossums or deer. But some believe these woods are home to a much larger creature: Bigfoot. Last fall, a string of recent sightings sparked a visitation from the Animal Planet reality show “Finding Bigfoot.” Mike Bardsley is the owner of the Indiana Bigfoot Awareness website and said he has had several encounters with Bigfoot in Kosciusko County in the northern half of the state.“At fist, I was only really interested in finding out who else, where else and when other people in this immediate area might have had a sighting or encounter, after my middle child and a couple of friends had two different sightings take place ... in the fall of 2003,” Bardlsey said via email. “I’ve been pretty much around the whole state, as there have been reports from the north state line to the Ohio River. Many go back decades.”Bardlsey said he has only had one visual sighting personally, back in 2009 during Fourth of July weekend, while at a research site with members of his group. He left the campsite in his car early in the morning after recording 28 vocalizations for about two hours. While driving, he began to pull to the side of the road but then decided not to and continued. However, as he came back onto the road, he saw something. “Thinking it was another deer like I had just missed over on another road, I backed off the gas at about 20 mph and went to high beams,” Bardsley said. “That’s when I realized I was looking at a large, hair-covered black creature who began running off the road to the south.”He said it was approximately 6.5 feet tall but might have been as tall as 7 feet. “It was a very profound moment to see one after talking to quite a few people over the course of investigating the phenomenon who had told me about their encounters,” he said. Bigfoot is not a new legend. Stories of Bigfoot with several different names date back thousands of years, since the beginning of man, said Rhettman Mullis, an academic and field researcher for Bigfootology.Bigfootology is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using a multidisciplinary approach to make sense of Bigfoot.The members also operate with the assumption that Bigfoot exists, which changes how they interpret the data. They know he exists; they’re just trying to figure out what kind of species they’re dealing with. “We have artifacts going back thousands of years,” Mullis said. “In every Indian tribe around the world, Bigfoot goes by different names. Each Indian tribe has its own specific name.”These names can include Sasquatch, Yowie, Meh-Teh and Mountain Man, among others. “I actually have a hypothesis that a lot of our lore that we talk about these days is actually Bigfoot related,” Mullis said. “We have the boogeyman, we have the wildman, we have the ghouls in the woods. In England, we have the enchanted forests that would speak. Well, that’s all typical Bigfoot behavior. You go out into the woods, and you think you hear people talk. Well, you’re not psychotic. You’re probably hearing a few Bigfoot talk.”One of the main goals of Bigfootology is to create a species profile for Bigfoot. Mullis said many members of their group believe Bigfoot build nests, live in family groups, are approximately 7 feet tall, are covered in hair and are omnivorous. Mullis is also spearheading the idea that Bigfoot are diurnal, or active during the day, rather than nocturnal. “Most incidents happen during the day,” Mullis said. “They build refuges away from men. So if they’re truly nocturnal, that means they’re sleeping during the day. That means, since we don’t go to their nests, how could we be seeing them?”Mullis said based on the topography and forestation in southern Indiana, it would make sense for Bigfoot to live here, and Bardlsey agreed. “Based on the number and consistency of reports coming out of the southern portions of the state, and meeting and talking with many who have had first-hand, personal experiences, I just have to believe that grown, rational people can be telling the truth about what’s happened to them,” Bardsley said in the email.One common misconception with Bigfoot is that he is a monster. Mullis said the vast majority of reports involving Bigfoot are non-confrontational. However, Bigfoot is an animal like any other, and therefore, when cornered or threatened, he could respond violently. “Most people don’t want to talk about the horror stories because we don’t want people to get the wrong impression,” Mullis said. “Most horror stories actually happen with women. There’s a significant history of kidnapping, rape. As a matter of fact, that’s the most common story amongst every tribe, especially in North America. They’ll have women that will be taken and they will be bred with.” Mullis also pointed out there are several stories of Bigfoot helping humans as well, including rescuing children and injured hikers. “There’s stories about good and bad,” Mullis said. “So I tell people to be careful, because they’re just an animal like everybody else.” Bardlsey said he’s been convinced of Bigfoot’s existence through his own experiences and believes one day we will inevitably find Bigfoot to exist, but perhaps we aren’t ready yet.“I’m hoping for now, until we know more about them, they’ll remain hidden from humankind,” Bardsley said. “We don’t have the greatest track record of dealing with things we don’t really understand.”
(01/18/12 5:10am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the past, many Super Bowl host cities have relocated homeless people outside the city.Michael Hurst, director for the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, said the homeless will definitely be staying. “The worry here is whenever there’s something that happens and a person is displaced ... with say the Super Bowl or any other event, that creates an issue because the outreach team doesn’t have access to that individual,” Hurst said. Outreach teams are groups of people from the coalition and Indianapolis police officers, along with other agencies, that keep tabs on the homeless community members, bringing them medical supplies and checking in on them on a daily basis. “If a person is used to staying in a certain place, the outreach folks know where those folks are,” Hurst said.One of the main goals with these outreach teams is to get the homeless to go inside, into shelters or other facilities. Hurst said if a person won’t go inside, it’s often because the person has a mental illness or addiction. The key to getting them inside the shelters is to gain their confidence.“It’s very important to build a trust relationship with those folks, and it takes a very long time,” Hurst said about the subject. During any given night, around 100 or 200 homeless people are not housed in shelters and live on the streets or in camps throughout the city.“For those people who don’t go inside, most of them have mental health or substance abuse issues that they’re dealing with that kind of influence their decision not to go inside,” Hurst said.In light of the Super Bowl, Hurst said his agency met with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and explained why the homeless cannot be moved out of the city. Although IMPD was unavailable for comment, Hurst said they happily obliged the coalition’s request.“(It’s) one of the beauties of what this community has and does with its relationship with IMPD,” Hurst said. “IMPD officers, they have their own outreach program.” One other concern with the homeless population and the Super Bowl is that people may pose as homeless to make a quick buck, Hurst said. He said there are two types of homeless: passive solicitors, who simply sit with signs and cups, and panhandlers, who actively ask passersby for money. Hurst said the key between knowing if they’re homeless or imposters is the time of day they are seen. “At nighttime, the people who are homeless will go into shelters, or they go into camps,” Hurst said. “So when you see people at night holding signs saying they’re homeless or walking up asking you for a quarter, chances are very, very strong that that person is not homeless. “They’re housed. They might have some other issues going on ... but they’re not homeless.” Hurst said IMPD will have an increased presence during the Super Bowl, which will hopefully discourage imposters while adding extra assistance to those who actually are homeless. “That’s one of the beauties of any special event,” Hurst said. “More officers on the street is almost like having more outreach workers on the street.”
(01/12/12 5:06am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington’s unemployment rate has dropped in the past year and is lower than the surrounding counties’, according to the most recent employment report the Indiana Department of Workforce Development released in November.But that doesn’t mean unemployment and poverty aren’t still prevalent issues, particularly in Bloomington, one of the more economically depressed cities in the state, said Jennifer Osterholt, director of the Bloomington Housing Authority.“What our mission is, is to provide safe and affordable housing to low-income families,” Osterholt said of Housing Authority. “We own and operate 310 units of affordable housing on three sites, and they serve the elderly disabled and families.” The organization also helps families pay their rent if they can’t make the payments, with programs in place to help them reach the point where they can pay bills on their own. Osterholt said, despite what the numbers say, she has actually seen an increase in families requesting help. “What happens is once you’re helping a family, you’re signing a year contract,” Osterholt said. “We opened our waiting list for about two hours, and we had about 600 people standing in line.” When it comes to this seeming discrepancy, one factor that needs to be considered is the way unemployment is calculated.Currently, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development reports the numbers it receives from the U.S. Department of Labor, said Valerie Kroeger of the department. Although the unemployment rate for a state might be low, “employment” includes anyone surveyed during the U.S. Department of Labor unemployment survey who did any work at all, for any pay, ages 16 and older. The plain unemployment rate does not account for how much money a family needs to survive or whether that employment is enough to keep it afloat. Osterholt said this issue affects many Bloomington families. “First of all, there are low wages. Extremely low wages,” she said. “And rents in Bloomington are relatively high because of the University. And that’s a double-edged sword. You get outside Monroe County, and where are the major places for employment? There’s that issue to deal with.” More jobs also need to be created, Osterholt said. “It’s an economic factor,” she said. “Until the state of Indiana or the government or whoever creates additional jobs, then folks don’t have jobs.”Osterholt said unemployment and struggling families are still issues that face Indiana. The families that stood in line to get on the waiting list for help from the Housing Authority can attest to that. “In many communities, you get on the waiting list, but you might be on the waiting list for five to 10 years,” she said. “Without work, folks have needs.”
(01/11/12 4:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The December Monthly Revenue Report for Indiana was released last week. The report data showed positive gains for Indiana that exceeded early predictions. Major tax revenues were up 1.6 percent from predictions, and other revenues were up 3.7 percent. Both of these were gains of 9 to 10 percent compared to last year’s revenue. Although the results were positive, Budget Director for Indiana Adam Horst said the gains really aren’t significant. “The result for the month is roughly within a percent of what the target was or what the forecast was,” he said. “It’s kind of on target with the forecast. The trends continue to see pretty good growth in sales tax. We continue to see the gaming revenue struggle.” Gaming revenue consists of revenue collected at casinos, race tracks and similar establishments.These dips or crests below or above forecast are caused by hard-to-predict variables, said Bill Witte, an IU economics professor. Witte said forecasters use a statistical model that includes personal income, as well as variables such as the New York Stock Exchange. “One thing that could clearly improve the forecast was a stock market variable,” Witte said. Horst said the revenue report for January will be more significant because it will more accurately portray any gains in holiday spending for the state. “It’s kind of hard to draw any conclusions about how we’re going to end the year,” he said. Indiana government is also in a legislative session, and it is a non-budget year, Horst said, meaning that they will essentially “stay-the-course” as long as revenues are around target each month. Monthly revenues during 2013 will be of more importance, because there will be new legislators, Witte said. Horst said December’s monthly revenue was near what was expected, but that the gains were a good sign. “Every month we can exceed the forecast, even by a small amount, that’s obviously a positive thing,” Horst said. Witte agreed. “They’re not spectacular,” Witte said of the numbers, “but they’re not disastrous either.”
(01/09/12 12:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Holiday spending exceeded predictions in 2011 despite a sluggish economy, according to a national Gallup Poll study. Self-reported consumer spending increased 4.1 percent during the holiday season, which lasts from the day after Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day. The National Retail Federation had predicted a 3.8 percent increase.Grant Monahan, president of the Indiana Retail Council, said Indiana tends to track national trends.“When the season began, projections had an increase of about 2.8 percent over last year,” Monahan said. “And then as the season began, it was really going much better than anticipated.”Monahan said his reasoning is based on his own speculation as well as anecdotes he’s heard from colleagues.He said the nature of the holiday season itself lends itself to spending to buy gifts for friends and family.“People may change their holiday spending budgets, but for the most part they’re going to go out and spend,” he said.Monahan cited “pent-up demand” as a cause for the increase. Consumers may have cut back spending during the year, so they splurged during the holidays, Monahan said.“They were buying items for themselves as well, and I think that’s really part of that pent-up demand,” he said.Monahan said another component of this demand was increased credit card use.“I think with the tough economy people have been…more disciplined with regard to their credit card use and were using debit cards and cash more,” Monahan said.By using credit cards, consumers could put off paying bills and therefore spend more, he said.Consumer Jenn Hugenberg said she went against this trend and spent less this holiday season.“I made sure I got gifts that they wanted and would use but that were cheaper,” she said.Hugenberg said that this wasn’t intentional, however.“It just kind of happened,” she said. “I just feel like I got what I wanted to get people, but it wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be.”The Gallup poll said one factor that remains to be seen is whether the overall profit for businesses will suffer from this season due to deep discounts and sales.“How profitable retails went this year still remains to be seen,” Monahan said.A last factor that needs to be considered is the use of gift cards. It was a record year for gift card sales, Monahan said. Those still need to be redeemed, which will give a boost to profits in upcoming weeks.What all of this means in regard to the economy as a whole remains to be seen. Faith in the economy still remains low among consumers, with unemployment and underemployment still high. Confidence in the government also remains at a record-low among consumers, according to Gallup.Monahan agreed with this.“Hopefully, they’ll be back to shopping in 2012,” he said.
(12/09/11 5:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>An official statement released by Alex Sabol, president of Kappa Sigma fraternity, said the student transported fom the fraternity to a Bloomington-area hospital Wednesday “is healthy and in fine physical condition.”The student had a high blood-alcohol level and was driven in a personal vehicle. Kappa Sig has been suspended pending an investigation of the incident.Sabol also said in the statement that the chapter will fully comply with any investigations and that it plans to use the experience as a learning opportunity. As stated in Wednesday’s press release, a student was taken to the hospital by personal vehicle Wednesday morning with an extremely high blood alcohol level.“We don’t know exactly what happened. All we know is there was an incident that was associated with the men in Kappa Sig,” said junior Will Kragie, the vice president of communications for the Interfraternity Council.Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Activities Steve Veldkamp said IU is conducting an investigation of the fraternity.“We have suspended the fraternity until we can determine if the chapter was responsible for creating circumstances which led to an underage IU student’s hospitalization due to acute alcohol poisoning,” Veldkamp said in an email. “We have been in contact with the national office and the local chapter leadership. They are cooperating fully in the investigation.”“We’re a resource, not a police force,” Kragie said. Senior and IU Student Association Chief of Communications Nikki Suseck said IUSA would not comment until more information is known. IUSA President Justin Kingsolver said the same.In recent years, IUSA has been making a push for a medical amnesty law, which would enable students to call an ambulance or take a student who has overdosed to the hospital without fear of repercussions from the University for the drug or alcohol use that might have occurred. IUSA could not comment at this time as to how this incident will affect that initiative.
(12/09/11 3:54am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU Health had the most reported errors of any hospital system in Indiana last year, according to the 2010 Medical Error Report. However, the number of serious medical errors was three fewer than in 2009, from 22 to 19. Medical errors made in IU Health hospitals included eight foreign objects left behind during surgeries, six cases of bedsores, four falls resulting in death or injury and one incident of surgery performed on the wrong body part. Terry Whitson, author of the report, said the title can be misleading. “I think there are two factors,” Whitson said. “If you go down the list of all hospitals and the ones that have the most numbers, it’s mostly the size of the hospital. The second one is the complexity of the procedures.” IU Health is the largest hospital system in Indiana with three separate hospitals: Methodist Hospital, IU Hospital and Riley Hospital for Children. When the volume of patients treated is taken into account, the number of errors is not disproportionate, said Margi Smith-Simmons, the public relations manager for IU Health. “In terms of those three hospitals in 2010, we admitted more than 58,000 patients and that error rate is 0.20 percent,” Smith-Simmons said.Between these three IU Health hospitals, health professionals performed approximately 70,600 medical procedures. Whitson also said the complicated procedures done at IU Health make the system more prone to errors. “If you look at a smaller hospital, they don’t have as many procedures, and they’re not as complex when they do it,” Whitson said. Several changes to the way the report is compiled in recent years may have played a role in the high numbers, Whitson said. For example, patient falls that result in serious injury or disability, rather than death, are included in the total.“By making the definition a broader definition, I believe in 2009 we increased the number from about nine to 17, and probably what that reflects is the change in definition,” Whitson said. Another source of medical errors is pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores, Smith-Simmons said. “This is a problem that patients and or families can help address and be aware that these can happen,” Whitson said. Smith-Simmons said that in 2010, there were zero pressure ulcers at Riley Hospital for Children, which was an improvement.Both Smith-Simmons and Whitson said any medical errors are unacceptable, and that IU Health plans to perform an analysis on all the individual errors that occurred in 2010.“Every hospital, any time they have an error, regardless of whether it is one that is reported to the state or one that is not, they will try to do what we call an analysis,” Whitson said. “It’s part of their quality assurance system. Their responsibility is to review any error and to prevent any future errors of that nature.”Smith-Simmons said the reduction in errors from 2009 to 2010 could be considered a positive result for IU Health. “We’re slowly getting better and we’re definitely improving,” Smith-Simmons said.
(12/07/11 2:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For every fraternity and sorority on campus, philanthropic work is just one component to joining. But for some nontraditional greek houses, community service is the driving force. Senior Ryan Jochim is the president of Alpha Phi Omega, one of the bigger service fraternities on campus, with about 150 members. “It’s a fraternity that specializes in community service, mostly around the Bloomington area,” Jochim said.Colleen Rose and Leslie Fasone are assistant directors for student organizations on campus, from traditional greek houses to service houses. Fasone said that most greek houses are considered social organizations because they encompass “the whole person.” They also fall under the jurisdiction of one of the greek councils on campus.“The organizations that are in the four councils are part of the larger fraternity and sorority social community,” Fasone said.Rose said another aspect that separates the service fraternities from the rest of the greek system is that their main purpose is community service. “All (greek houses) have something about service, but that’s not the only driving force, whereas with APO, that’s the primary focus,” Rose said. “Just doing community service.” Because of this, the houses have mandatory community service hours. In the case of APO, each pledge must complete 20 hours and each active member 30 per semester. The houses are also typically coed despite being a “fraternity” or “sorority,” Rose said. She said the service houses are more of a separate system. The service fraternities and sororities even have their own rush process. “We have a two-week rush period where we just have call-out meetings,” Jochim said, “Then we usually have some sort of social after each one or some sort of example service.” Senior Felicia Wisniewski is the president of a service sorority for music students, Tau Beta Sigma, which focuses on the various school bands at IU and promoting women in music.She heard about Tau Beta Sigma through her involvement in band and said its rush process is similar to APO’s.“People express interest, come to our activities and then at some point ... we just pretty much offer it to anyone who is interested,” Wisniewski said. “And most people will accept it. Some people won’t.” Wisniewski said her sorority focuses on supporting the bands, giving them candy after performing during games and serving concessions at band concerts.She said the service was what drew her to join Tau Beta Sigma, and she probably wouldn’t have joined a traditional sorority. “I personally don’t hold up the same sort of moral standards a lot of sororities promote,” Wisniewski said. “A lot of things that I do wouldn’t necessarily be the same or be viewed the same way.”Members of service sororities and fraternities can also be members of traditional greek houses, and many of them are. Houses from the traditional greek community sometimes reach out to APO, Jochim said. “We don’t hate them or anything, but we’re just indifferent to them because we do have brothers who are members of fraternities and sororities,” Jochim said. “If some of them come to us with a project that they’re doing ... we help them a little bit with that.”Although APO does not revolve around major events like Homecoming or Little 500, Jochim said, in the past, the traditional greek community has tried to get APO involved in Little 500 as well, but it declined. “Someone actually asked us to be paired with them for Little Five last year,” Jochim said. “They only wanted to invite the girls over to their social, and we were like, ‘No, we have guys too.’”Wisniewski said members of her sorority have expressed interest in participating in traditionally greek events like Little 500. They also work closely with the coed band fraternity Kappa Kappa Psi.Rose said despite their names, greek service fraternities and sororities are different, and they are distinct from the typical greek community. “They’re greek letter organizations,” Rose said, “They’re not greek in the way that is commonly thought of as greek.”