Banner Graphic, Volume 12, Number 79, Greencastle, Putnam County, 9 December 1981 — Page 1

No free game... City Council action puts 'tilt' on video machine explosion

By ERIC BERNSEE Banner-Graphic Managing Editor Flashing lights, bells, ball bearings bouncing off bumpers. The sights and sounds of pinball, circa 1931, have been usurped by the oodles of odd computer utterings. Video magic. Tilt has become blip. BUT SAY GOODBYE TO the free game. Effective Jan. 1, all video machines, gaming devices and surviving pinball and bagatelle games will require a SIOO annual city license. The SIOO per machine, per year license was approved Tuesday night by the Greencastle City Council as an amendment to an existing ordinance. With video machines popping up in restaurants, grocery stores and every available nook and cranny, in addition to two local establishments that primarily feature them, Mayor Jane Harlan turned to a 50-year-old city law for guidance. ON THE BOOKS, SHE found that a SSO annual fee was introduced in 1931 for the purpose of “regulating use of mechanical and electronic gaming devices.” However, there had been no increase since the or-

Fire puts family out of house A Tuesday evening fire left a rural Greencastle family homeless, according to Jim Nelson, chief of the Bainbridge Volunteer Fire Department. Responding to a call at 8:43 p.m. Tuesday, the crew went to the home of Brad Benson, Route 3, Greencastle. The home is located north of Greencastle on County Road 200 east. FAMILY MEMBERS WERE not at home when the fire began, according to fireman Gary Evans. They are now staying with relatives. Cause of the blaze was determined as an overheated woodburning stove located in the basement of the home. “When we arrived,” Evans recalled, “the home was already burning from the basement through to the first floor, through the attic and was beginning to burn on the roof.” Greencastle firemen were called at 9:06 p.m. Tuesday to offer assistance, supplying 2,000 gallons of water to fight the blaze. NELSON SAID THE BENSON family had installed the wood-burning stove approximately two months ago. He believes unfamiliarity with its operation could have contributed to the fire. “The draft had been opened all the way up which causes the most heat the quickest,” Nelson explained. “Then the family left the house.” Officials reported Bainbridge firemen returned to the scene Wednesday morning as the fire had rekindled. ACCORDING TO NELSON, better than 90 per cent of the fire runs the crew has made in rural areas have been due to wood-burning stoves. That estimate covers a two-year period. “Installation and operation of the stoves is a lot of it,” Nelson pointed out. “A lot of people don’t know how to operate them. “The only thing that will cut down on the amount of these fires is for the public to be aware of wood-burners,” the fire chief concluded.

Three-log night Variable clouds, breezy at times and cold. High in the low to mid 30s. Clearing and colder. Lows mostly in the upper teens. Mostly sunny Thursday and continued cold. High in the mid to upper 30s. Indiana Extended Forecast A dry period Friday through Sunday with seasonal temperatures. Lows mostly in the 20s. Highs in the mid 30s to mid 40s. Abby A 4 Calendar A 4 Classifieds A12.A13 Comics A 6 Crossword Al 2 Farm Horoscope Al 3 Obituaries AI4 People Sports A8,A9,A10,A11 jy A 6

Banner Graphic Putnam County, Wednesday, December 9,1981, Vol. 12 No. 79 20 Cents

dinance went into effect on Jan. 27, 50 ago. Since the ordinance had been forgotten for so long, none of the local businesses had paid such a license recently. “I just now found the ordinance,” Mayor Harlan said after Tuesday’s Council session at City Hall. Under the ordinance, licensing of pool or billiard tables used for profit or where a fee is charged for use will be $lO annually. HOWEVER, NO BILLIARD table, pool table or electronic game used, owned or possessed in a private dwelling will require licensing. In addition to the SIOO annual license, proprietors of businesses offering the games for use will face a SSOO fine for. each unlicensed device in their possession. The mayor expects voluntary compliance by Jan. 2. After that, police action will be used, she said. The SIOO license did not go without opposition Tuesday. Merle Dixon of Magoo’s Family Center spoke out before the unanimous Council vote. “I’M NOT OPPOSED TO some form of

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JINSIE BINGHAM New Chamber president

Putnam Patter Train hopper eludes local law officers

By DAVID BARR Banner-Graphic Civic Affairs Editor A traveler, whose name was never learned, hitched a train ride out of Greencastle and left two city officers waiting on the station platform. BUT THE LAWMEN were not emptyhanded. They had in custody three of the five men who left Indianapolis on Vandalia (Pennsylvania) No. 11 without benefit of tickets. The episode began on a March day 1912 when a telegram from Indianapolis advised the Greencastle law that suspicious characters were on the train and their intentions could be a holdup. When Old No. 11 rolled into the station at the south edge of Greencastle, Marshal Johns and Officer Stone were there to take into custody individuals who might be desperate characters.

FIRE SCENE: Benson home gutted by Tuesday night blaze north of Greencastle

By DAVID BARR Banner-Graphic Civic Affairs Editor Election of officers and recognition of new directors topped the agenda when the Chamber of Commerce Board met Tuesday in the DePauw Union. PRESIDENT FOR 1982 will be Jinsie Bingham, owner of WJNZ, who has served in capacity of vice president for the past year. New vice president will be Steve Carney, Public Service Indiana, and succeeding Jean Rossok as treasurer will be Gary Schopmeyer, Central National Bank. Newly elected directors include: Barbara Feld, Feld’s Carpet Place; Pat Aikman, DePauw University; Dr. Warren Macy; Will Prather, Public Service Indiana, and Dick Sunkel, Horace Link & Co. With the Christmas promotion well in hand, Tucker Gray, Retail Committee chairman, said plans are already in the

OFFICERS FOUND TWO of the wanted men hiding in the blind baggage and three hanging to the rear of the express car. With Marshal Johns in hot pursuit, these three scrambled to the top of the car. One of the wanted took a desperate chance and leaped from the top of the car and made his escape. The marshal collared the other two and handed them down to Officer Stone. The officers lined up their four suspects and began searching for weapons, but just then the Vandalia conductor gave the high sign to the engineer and the train began moving out. ONE OF THE WANTED men, the one farthest from the officers saw a way of escape. He made a dash for the departing train, leaped between two cars and found a seat on the car’s coupling

licensing,” Dixon said, “but SIOO per machine will be too big a burden on myself and my family. Counting pinball machines, we have 21 now, and $2,100 a year for licensing is too much for me.” “You don’t own the machines yourself, do you? ’ ’ Mayor Harlan asked. “No,” Dixon responded, “and I’m not a big businessman either.” “Then it’s between you and whoever owns the machines,” Mrs. Harlan countered, asking the Council for a vote. AS THE UNANIMOUS VOTE on second and third readings was ringing in his ears, Dixon disgustedly departed the Council chambers. Another Greencastle businessman came out against the ordinance, as well. However, Marvin Long of Marvin’s Topper Pizza University was too late to affect the voting. Near the end of the two-hour meeting, Long learned the ordinance had already been passed before he arrived. “That’s too bad,” he said. “We’d at least have had some fun. I’ve never won one up here but I’ve gotten my say.”

ALSO GETTING THEIR say Tuesday night were representatives from the Greencastle Housing Authority and the Black Lumber Co. Ed Hammer, executive director, and John Stouder, president, of the Housing Authority outlined an available housing assistance program to be used to subsidize rent on existing homes and apartments. Hammer said families with low to moderate income levels would be assisted in paying rent, as long as the property involved meets “safety, decency and sanitation” requirements. The family would pay 25 per cent of its income toward the rent, with the Housing Authority, through HUD Section 8 funding, paying the remainder of the rent. “THERE IS A REAL NEED for something like this,” Hammer told the Council. “Castlebury (a low to moderate income housing project) has 200 families still eligible and on a waiting list. ” Hammer said the program would be of triple benefit. “It helps the low-income family,” he Col. 3, back page, this section

making for the Presidents Sale shortly after the first oi the year. PLANS ARE NEARING completion for Chamber-sponsored Career Day at Greencastle High School, according to Ted Sanders, who with Bob Haymaker has chaired this project. Keith Gossard, HBG Insurance, spoke to directors on a possible health insurance plan which could be made available to Chamber of Commerce members on a group basis. Earlier, Chamber officials had received a coverage proposal from a non-local firm. Gossard said that coverage, better in some respects, could be provided locally at a lower figure. CHAMBER PRESIDENT Mike Harmless announced that plans for a new city and county map will be completed within

Johns and Stone quickly sized up the situation and decided if they tried to catch the escapee, they would probably lose the three they already had. So they let well enough alone. While no weapons were found, Chief-of-Detectives Lauderback asked local police to charge the men with vagrancy and hold them in jail for further investigation. AFTER THE THREE WERE put in safe keeping, Officer Stone combed the area for the man who jumped from atop the express car and found him within a short time. When No. 11 stopped in Terre Haute, officials found the door between the blind baggage and the express car was open. Since it was locked when the train left Indianapolis, the four in Greencastle’s jail were to be questioned further. When the train stopped in Effingham,

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the coming year. He also announced that a DePauw Winter Term student, Tanya Cooper, had requested to work in the Chamber office. Present at Tuesday’s meeting were students from the Architecture Department at Purdue who presented the Landscape Architecture Program which the university offers to local communities. Their report was based on a study which had been made on downtown Greencastle. Termed a revitalization approach, the students showed slides of the courthouse and environs as they now are and as they could become if certain alterations were effected. THE WHOLE PURPOSE, according to student spokesmen, is to make the area more inviting and thus draw more people into the area.

111., officers there found two more unauthorized passengers who had remained too well hidden for Johns and Stone to detect. VANDALIA NO. 11 seemed to be operating under a jinx of some sort, since a few weeks before the Greencastle incident, there had been an attempted holdup at Liggett, west of Terre Haute. Putnam County Deputy Sheriff Kelley reported to the Greencastle Herald Newspaper, that the four men apprehended were: Erskin Ballard, 20, and George L. Ashire, 18, both of Evansville; Fred L. Cowan. 20, Terre Haute, and John Huhn, 22, the man who leaped from the express car. Both the law and the newspaper had serious doubts that those arrested, dubbed as tramps, were giving their real names.

W. Central to ponder 7requests Seven requests for federal funds and other documents will be reviewed by the West Central Indiana Economic Development District’s Board of Directors when it meets at 7:30 p.m. Monday, at the district office, 121 S. Third St., Terre Haute. THE PROPOSALS, WHICH affect Putnam, Clay, Parke, Sullivan, Vermillion and Vigo counties, will be reviewed by the board for consistency with local and areawide planning objectives and for duplication of effort. The Southern Indiana Health Systems Agency has given notice it will seek renewal of full designation and funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for health planning and implementation activities in 38 southern Indiana counties. The application will include $412,351 in federal funds and $63,000 in other funding, for a total project cost of $475,351. A total of $29,250 in funds from the Environmental Protection Agency is being requested by the Vigo County Health Department’s Air Pollution Control* Division. The total project cost of $105,550 includes $73,300 in county funds. The Vigo County Economic Opportunity Act Committee Inc. has submitted a preapplication with ACTION for funds to continue its Foster Grandparent Program, now beginning its 10th year. The request includes $181,990 in federal funds and $25,734 to be provided by the committee, for a total project cost of $207,724. PUTNAM COUNTY’S Retired Senior Volunteer Program has also submitted a preapplication with ACTION for $22,872 for the fiscal year beginning May 1, 1982. The total project cost of $38,999 includes $16,127 in local resources. Area Seven Senior Services Inc., located in Terre Haute, has submitted an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA) for purchase of four replacement vans for its transportation program. The program serves elderly people in Clay, Parke, Vermillion and Vigo counties. The project includes $46,992 in federal funds and $11,748 in local matching funds for a total project cost of $58,740. Child Adult Resource Services Inc. has also submitted a Section 16 (b) 2 with UM TA for purchase of three vans to provide transportation for the elderly and handicapped in Putnam. Clay, Fountain, Owen. Parke, Vermillion and Warren counties. The total project cost of $51,150 includes $40,920 in federal funds and $10,230 in local match money. WCIEDD IS SUBMITTING its fiscal years 1982-84 Transportation Systems Management document to UMTA and the Federal Highway Administration. The report consists of a short-range transportation plan for the Terre Hauteur banized area which relies on low-cost improvements of the existing transportation system. No cost is involved. The board will meet in executive session after the meeting to discuss personnel matters.