Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 106, Greencastle, Putnam County, 7 January 1985 — Page 3

Northern Indiana cities holding on economically in 1984

By The Associated Press The tarnished economies of northern Indiana’s cities gained a little luster in 1984, with some exceptions, as a national economic recovery took hold and unemployment eased. But many cities remained tightly bound to their aging, basic industries of steel and transportation exulting when expansion brought new jobs and dollars and suffering when yet another shutdown brought new unemployment. For 1985, amid widespread predictions of slower economic growth, the region’s economic outlook is mixed. In Gary, where jobs at U.S. Steel have dwindled since 1979 from 30,000 to 7,000, the best hope is that things won’t get worse, an economist says. In Fort Wayne, General Motors Corp. provided a bright spot with plans for a new truck factory that will employ 5,000 construction workers next year, then 3,000 permanent employees if peak capacity is reached. In South Bend, the bands played and the politicians made speeches at the October opening of an ethanol fuels plant where 150 people will find jobs. But weeks later, Allied Corp. announced it would shut down its South Bend chassis and brake division and lay off more than 1,300 workers. Farther south in Rochester population 5,000 increased business orders for a variety of small manufacturers means 1985 will begin with unemployment well below the national average. Hard times continued to plague Indiana’s steel corridor Gary, Hammond and East Chicago where October’s preliminary figures show unemployment at 14 percent. Economist Leslie Singer, a professor at Indiana University Northwest, predicts the steel industry won’t improve before 1987 when he expects a resurgence of construction to replacing aging structures. “We expect a relatively flat year next year,” Singer said. At least 1,000 more steelworkers are expected to lose their jobs in 1985, continuing a six-year trend, he said. “There’s no recovery here yet,” he said. Trade workers and service industries that depended on the steel mills for business remain hard-hit. Fortney said a friend who found steady carpentry work in the mills for 15 years can’t find jobs there anymore. “He went to a union hall over in Illinois and signed up for work there,” he

Liberty teachers vote to strike

LIBERTY, Ind. (AP) The routine of this community of about some 1,700 has been broken as teachers prepared to go on strike today after rejecting a 6 percent pay increase. After some 30 hours of weekend negotiations between the Union County school board and the Union County Teachers’ Association, the teachers voted overwhelmingly to reject the latest contract offer. The two sides met for most of Saturday before breaking off negotiations Sunday afternoon. “We met for some 30 hours,” said Donald Brown, president of the teachers’ group. “The board offered us a 6 percent raise today (Sunday). We took it to our membership and it was rejected by a 74-3 vote. We’re now prepared to strike.

Hoosiers reconsidering careers in education

By The Associated Press Layoffs and cutbacks in the business world may have forced many education majors who opted for other fields to reconsider teaching careers, an Indiana University official says. Other prospective educators are taking advantage of state-initiated programs designed to produce more math and science teachers. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in those entering the math and science fields, and a lot of it has come from state scholarship support,” said Duaine C. Lang, coordinator of field experiences at Indiana University. Officials at Indiana and Purdue universities say they expect an increase in the next five years in the number of teachers with licenses in math and science, two subjects that now are experiencing teacher shortages. Many of those teachers are expected to be veterans already licensed in other fields, retired military personnel and professionals in non-teaching fields who have teaching backgrounds. Indiana and other states have introduced programs to bolster high school science, math and English instruction. The increased emphasis has prompted greater demand for teachers in those areas. However, many prospective math

said. On the plus side, Valparaiso picked up three new small manufacturers in 1984. “We feel it’s kind of stabilized as far as unemployment,” Fortney said. To the east, Fort Wayne residents have reason to be more optimistic next year. After unemployment peaked at 13.4 percent in February 1983, the rate tumbled to 6.4 percent by October. Unemployment was falling even as International Harvester laid off the last of its remaining 2,400 Fort Wayne workers and shut down its heavy truck plant and ended 60 years of production. The heaviest Harvester layoffs had already occurred as the payroll plummeted from 11,000 workers in the 19705. The drop in Fort Wayne area unemployment includes an undetermined number of discouraged workers who quit looking, state employment analyst Milton Craig said. But in the first ten months of 1984, 4,800 workers entered, or re-entered, the area’s labor force, he said. Unemployment had eased in South Bend in the months before Allied announced it would close the Bendix division there. The rate had slipped from 7.4 percent to 6.4 percent in the year that ended in October. In 1985, South Bend hopes to study the possibility of installing a low-cost heating system for the 15 industrial buildings that once house the Studebaker automobile company. Charles Minkler, director of the Michiana Area Council of Governments, said the project could attract new business to a once-thriving industrial area. In contrast to many larger cities, the Fulton County city of Rochester lacks large companies and the large problems that occur following massive layoffs. The executive director of the Rochester Chamber of Commmerce notes that his city’s largest employer. Hart, Schaffner and Marx menswear, has only 450 employees on the payroll. “We stress small plants and a lot of diversity,” Chamber director James Zimmerman said. The latest figures show only 4.5 percent unemployment in Rochester, while the average for the rest of the state and the nation hovers around 7 percent. At a recent meeting, local industrial executives talked of increased orders and expanding plants for 1985, Zimmerman said. “It appears to be a very good year ahead,” he said. NEXT: A Look At Central Indiana

“We told the board we would recommend accepting a contract providing an increase of around 7 percent. This decision (to strike) has not been made easily. I was in tears at the meeting and most of the teachers were in tears,” he said. Brown said he expected only the three teachers who voted to approve the agreement to report for work Monday at the system’s elementary and senior high school. He said he believed the school board, which has not made public statements on the negotiatins, planned to conduct classes despite the walkout. Teacher strikes are not legal in Indiana. Teachers in the system currently receive a starting salary of $13,487 and the top salary is around $23,000, Brown said, adding that the average is about $17,000.

and science instructors instead choose more lucrative jobs in other fields, creating shortages of qualified teachers. Some educators believe the state’s teacher retraining and loan forgiveness programs will help retain qualified instructors in math and science. Both programs, adopted by the 1983 Indiana General Assembly, require participants to teach in Indiana schools for up to five years. The teacher-training program offers grants of as much as SI,OOO per semester for additional training in math or science if the participant agrees to teach those subjects here. The program is available to all instructors certified to teach in Indiana. The loan forgiveness program allows teachers who pursue math and science careers to forgo up to $2,000 in student loans. Last year, Indiana graduated 12 prospective math teachers and 16 others with licenses to teach biology, chemistry, physics or other sciences, Lang said. This year, he expects 18 math teachers and 20 science teachers to graduate, and by 1986, the number could climb to almost 30 in math and 35 in science. Purdue University graduated 12 prospective high school math instructors and nine prospective science teachers last year, officials there said.

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Laura Grimes, daughter of Barry and Sandy Grimes of Greencastle, was recently named state champion of Walk-Trot. She was honored at the Indiana Quarter Horse Awards Banquet Dec. 1 at Vallie Vista Country Club, Greenwood. In addition to winning a cooler for her horse, Laura won trophy buckles for being champion at the In-

Judges' pensions thawed

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The Indiana Supreme Court has decided to unfreeze the pensions of the state’s retired judges, in a move expected to result in back benefits totalling $350,000 for an estimated 100 former jurists. Judicial pension increases had been frozen by the Legislature in 1982, but they will now increase whenever judicial salaries go up as a result of Friday's decision The court unanimously affirmed a Monroe County court decision which said the 1982 law, and an amendment passed by the legislature in 1983, robbed the judges of their “constitutionally protected contract rights.” Associate Justice Roger Debruler, who wrote the Supreme Court decision, defen-

“The school board maintains it can’t afford to meet our demand. We maintain its (the money) there. It may not be there right now, but with some shuffling it would be available.” The two sides have changed their offers several times. On Saturday, after seven hours of negotiations, the teachers’ crisis committee announced that the board had raised its salary offer from 4 percent to 4.7 percent. That offer was rejected as the committee announced that the 1984-85 raises for the 12 administrators in the school system totaled $45,000, while a 4.7 pay raise for the system’s 86 teachers would total $14,350. The board’s original offer was for a 3.22 percent increase. The teachers originally wanted a 10 percent raise.

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diana State Show and the Indy Circuit. Mounted on "Snippy Star Wars," owned by Kim Bertram (ieft) of Greencastle, Laura also saw her parents receive awards for having the Champion Broodmare of Indiana and the third-place Yearling Stallion of Indiana.

ded the court ruling in a case which affects the justices. “A justice should disqualify himself in a proceeding whenever his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” he wrote. “However, in the cause at hand, self-refusal by each justice would result in there being no court at all to exercise the judicial power vested in this Court by the Constitution.” Judicial pensions, at age 65, range from 24 percent of salary after eight years on the bench to as much as 60 percent of salary after 22 or more years of service. Pension increases first were ordered in 1982 by the Judges Retirement Fund board on grounds the 1982 law capping pensions was unconstitutional.

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January 7,1985, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic

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Bth District seat still up In the air EVANSVILLE, Jnd. (AP) The battle for the Bth District congressional seal resumed today with another round ol recounts and legal squabbling. Secretary' of State Edwin Simcox scheduled a news conterence in Evansville to defend his certification of fellow Republican Rick Mclntyre as the winner and to criticize Congress for refusing to honor his certification. The Democra tic-controlled House refused Thursday to seat Mclntyre pen ding an Administration Committee ruling on an election challenge expected to be filed by former Rep. Frank McCloskey. McCloskey called Simcox’s certification of Mclntyre “bogus” because Simcox awaited a vote change in Gibson County before declaring a winner. McCloskey had been the leader by 74 votes until a court-appointed recount commission corrected a computer error from Gibson County that had given him too many votes. With recounts continuing in five of the district’s 15 counties, the candidates' lawyers are returning their attention to recounts already completed. Gibson Circuit Judge Walter Palmer scheduled a hearing today on a Mclntyre motion to disqualify ballots that were nol initialed by poll workers as state law requires. Recount commissions in some counties have accepted such ballots while others have thrown them out. The Gibson County commission counted some, but not others, which resulted in a net gain for McCloskey.

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