The Mail-Journal, Volume 17, Number 29, Milford, Kosciusko County, 6 August 1980 — Page 4

THE MAIL-JOURNAL—Wed., August 6,1980

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Editorials

New Milford Junior High a must It will be no news to patrons of the Lakeland School Corporation that they are the owners and supporters of one of the finest school systems in north central Indiana, if not in the mid-West. The school board appears to be taking steps to improve the system even further, if it carries out plans discussed at a meeting last Tuesday night to build a new $3.5 million junior high school at Milford. Os all the buildings in the school corporation, the junior high building at Milford, built in 1914 and kept in a highly serviceable condition by its custodians and maintenance crews, is the poorest. In fact, the old, two-story brick structure located on West Emeline Street in Milford, along busy State Road 15, fails miserably to meet state building codes. It doesn’t even have sufficient land area by state standards. The old building appears good from the outside, its brick fascade standing the ravages of several generations of wind, rain, snow and ice. Tearing it down will bring a tear to the eye of many old graduates who gather there once a year for class reunions and the occasion to meet old friends and swap school day stories. . , ~ . But this said, we must move on. According to an appraisal of the old structure, its windows are wooden and rotting, and they offer an enormous heat loss. Its stairwells are wooden, as are all the floors and ceiling joist, doors and other parts of the building. Its lighting and heating systems are woefully inadequate. There has never been a major fire at the old building, even though, following a Chicago fire in a similar building which took the lives of a number of classrooms of children some 20 years ago, it took considerable public condemnation to get Van Buren Township officials to build the second floor fire escape on the north side of the building. Thankfully, the fire escape has never been used in an emergency. It was revealed at the meeting last Tuesday that a cursory renovation of the old structure would cost $l.B million, and still many of the old problems would exist. An example of the problems this would not solve is the fact that noon lunches are prepared in the elementary school kitchen and transported about three blocks to the junior high building which has no kitchen. Another is the teeming traffic on State Road 15. Lakeland’s school business manager George Gilbert said early this week he felt the school board was in full agreement on accepting the plans of the Everett I. Brown Company, Architects and Engineers, Indianapolis, for a completely new junior high school facility to adjoin the present Milford Elementary School located at the west edge of Milford. Gilbert said he would be surprised if the school board didn’t pass favorably on the proposed new $3.5 million junior high school in the near future. According to Kenneth Brown of the architectural and engineering firm, at the last Tuesday meeting, it would take “two summers” to build the new school at Milford. If a holding company could be formed, plans approved, it would appear likely that construction could begin next spring. The building could be completed and occupied by September 1982. The advantages of the new building are enormous and would meet all requirements of the various state regulating bodies. In Superintendent Arnold’s words, it would then be incumbent on the school board to tear the old structure down and clear the land for sale. The sum of $3.5 million for a junior high school might seem like a lot of money, and it is. But, at that, a buyer’s market exists, according to architect Brown, and now is an ideal time to be taking bids on a building of almost any sort. Cost of the original Wawasee High School was $3,329,181.06, according to a page 1 news item in the March 1967 issue of The Mail-Journal. A comparison of this figure with that for the proposed new Milford Junior High School reflects the inflation of the intervening 12 years. The bonded indebtedness of the original Wawasee High School will be paid off in January 1983, and the first payment on the new Milford Junior High School would fall due in July of 1983. The taxpayer would never feel the jolt. The tax rate should remain the same. (Noter Preliminary plans for the new school at Milford are at the superintendent’s office and can be seen by any interested party.) It should be apparent by now that the editors of The Mail-Journal highly favor building the new junior high school at Milford, and urge the school board to continue in its present line of thinking to upgrade all facets of the Lakeland School Corporation. Almost any politician can explain to you, in great detail, why he is just the man the people need. What has become of the man who used to know exactly when the sun would rise?

What others say — How many lives ? There was another killing at Parker St. and U.S. 30 in east Warsaw last week. Another truck piling into a car with a terrified, helpless mother and her children. People around here are asking, how long do we have to put up with this? What does the final body count have to be before somebody decides that enough is enough? We have a killer stretch of highway. It was obviously not properly planned for the traffic patterns that have developed. Possibly the most serious single threat that exists to the lives of people who have to use those intersections are those big trucks that roll in from miles of open road into this short dangerous stretch that includes the three heavily used intersections around Warsaw. How many lives do we owe the trucking industry in order that they may save a few minutes? There are calls from all across the country to bring our truck traffic under better control. The Chicago Tribune in a recent editorial said that trucks are running into our circum-urban areas out of control. Instances are being cited of drivers on the road after dozens of convictions, using licenses from a number of states to conceal that fact. There have been numerous requests for federal licensing of truck drivers, but that’s another story. The Warsaw, U.S. 30 situation desperately needs some action. I have watched dozens of trucks, attempting to time the light, go through well after it has turned to red or before it is green. Only the fear and caution of the drivers crossing the highway have prevented the accidents. The critical danger zone seems to be from just east of the United Telephone Company on the east to the area of the Lucky Steer on the west. This covers about three miles and in it are the three traffic lights at the Lakes Village Shopping Center, Center St. and Parker St. There are other intersections also. The speed limit in this stretch has been reduced to 50 miles an hour, designated only by a few white signs that merely say 50 instead of 55. That is not enough to designate an area that dangerous. We have tried this area both with and without traffic lights. It is too dangerous either way. Why not consider it a critically dangerous zone and pull the speed down enough to make it safe? Why not also put up enough signs so that every driver would know well in advance that it is a danger zone and then really crack down on offenders? Sure, this would take more law enforcement, more traffic control and extra time to get through the three miles or whatever the danger area would be but a lot of people are telling me that our problem is severe enough that we must do somethng. . Even at 35 miles an hour it would take a little less than two minutes driving time to get through Warsaw’s danger zone. In the interest of possibly saving the life of just one more little boy, this doesn’t seem to be asking very much. Don Frantz - WARSAW TIMES UNION

JIIH! | Old wooden windows let cold in, leave heat out at Milford Junior High School I Voice of the people A column on the opinions of the people of the Lakeland area ... QUESTION: "Do you think the Lakeland School Corporation should renovate the Milford Junior High School building again or make plans to build a new building?"

Hw | Ml

BRENDA BUCHER Milford (student)

“I think they should build a new one. That other one is kind of old.” I MARILYN BROWN Milford (housewife) “I’m in favor of a new building. I spent all of my 12 years in the building and it was an old building then and had a lot of things wrong with it. It had a lot of cosmetic work on it. When the school corporation started they said it had 15 years left. There’s not enough space to fit the government regulations. We need a new facility. I hate to see a child loose a life just because we’re trying to save an old building.” JUDY MARQUART Milford (factory worker) “I don’t know what condition it is in. There’s a lot of areas that need to be worked on like the shop area and home ec. area. They need to be better equipped. SHERRIE SHAFER Syracuse „ (store owner) “Renovate it. Save expenses. Why does everybody have to have anew school?” JOANN ROBINSON r 5 Syracuse (secretary) “I’ve read some things on it, but not that much. As many times as it has been renovated, they probably need a new building.”

Letters to the editor

Our policies ... on letters ... on corrections We welcome readers’ letters. Our requirements: Letters must be written to the editor, not the public; they must be signed with a full name in ink, they must include an address which will be used for verification, but will not be published; Letters longer than 400 words will not be printed or will be edited for brevity. Writers will be limited to one published letter per month. Readers with long comments should contact editors about possible guest columns. Send letters to: The MailJournal, P. O. Box 188 Milford, Ind. 46542. The Mail-Journal will correct errors in fact in its news stories. To request corrections please call the editor or the publisher at 658-4111.

An answer to Ulrich

Dear Editor: In the July 30 MJ you printed a letter by Byron Ulrich which asked if America can wake up in time. Could America wake up when it doesn’t even know it is sleeping? Also, the few who believe it sleeps don’t even know why it sleeps. Mr. Ulrich’s great concern is that of Communism taking over. America. Why would God allow evil Communism to take over this great nation of Christians? Scripture shows that “God’s people’’ are never overthrown as long as they remain genuine “God’s people”. If there is a threat from Communism it would only be because “God’s people” are not genuine. Right? Our “greatest enemy” wouldn’t be Communism. It would be our Christianity! Matt. 5:13 would prove this. How could Christianity be genuine when it doesn’t even

BILL TROUP Milford (NIPSCo worker) “No, don’t renovate the old one. Do something at the junior high level in Milford, so we won’t have a central junior high in the future.”

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KIM WRIGHT Milford (postal clerk)

“I guess if it can be renovated it should be. But if they’re going to fix it or build another one, they should make it big enough so they don’t have to send the high school kids to Syracuse. ” KAREN HOSTETLER Milford (unemployed) “I think they ought to build a new one. Then the kids won’t have to worry about getting off the bus at the wrong school. ” ROB BROOKS Milford (student) “I think they should fix the old one up, because there wouldn’t be enough room down at the little school to have any playground equipment.” GLENACE KERN 518 Front St. Syracuse (homemaker) “I’m not much on the school. I haven’t been reading up on it and I wouldn’t want to say, but if they can renovate the one they have and to do it right, it’s okay. That’s what I would think.”

know what Scripture teaches concerning the “Way”? (Continued on page 5)

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taiziN AROUND

By ARCH BAUMGARTNER SOME AMERICAN travelers seem to have the belief that they have to travel overseas to “see the world,” when many of the world’s best, most aweinspiring sights are right here within our own continental borders. Traveling throughout America can be as diverse and varied as most trips abroad. Yet it’s amazing how many easterners or midwesterners have never been west of the great Mississippi River; or for that matter, how many west coast residents have never seen Indiana with its broad fields of corn and soybeans and lakes. Della and I had an opportunity to sample a bit of Americana for 10 days in July in what was a much-delayed trip for us. What prompted it all was an invitation card to a wedding anniversary of Frank and Kay Pfeiffer, fellow travelers of ours for the past 10 years, who are residents of the sand-swept town of Raton, New Mexico, some eight miles south of the Colorado border. We left Fort Wayne on Thursday, July 17, on a United flight for Denver and were met there by Ruth Jones Neuhauser, a former Milford resident and longtime friend, and her son Stuart. Ruth and her son are well known in the Milford community. A new experience was renting a Hertz car for the 10 days that took us to interesting places in Colorado and New Mexico. A pretty girl at the Hertz reception desk handed me the keys to a late model Fairmont (one of those four-on-the-floor jobs) and bid me a bon voyage. After a night at the Neuhauser residence, following a bite at The Cody Inn, nestled high in the mountains west of Golden, owned and operated by Steve and Jody Jones, we were on our way down Interstate 25 south of Denver. It was a hot, sticky day, but it was new country and interesting. Along about mid-morning we passed the famed Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. We found it large, more spread out than we had ever suspected. It was off-season for the Academy, and so there weren’t many students to be found, but overhead buzzed the light little aircraft pulling gliders. On down the road several hours was Pueblo, Colorado. A university town (we pulled off for a quick inspection), we were now beginning to get a feel for the Spanish culture that pervades the southwest. It was about 5 p.m. when we came to Trinidad, a town of about eight thousand where we had Holiday Inn reservations. Just over the line was Raton, our destination. It was good to see the Pfeiffers at their country club that evening for dinner and reminiscence about a number of overseas trips. Raton is a town of eight or nine thousand, out there all by itself. The streets showed signs of dust and sand storms. The town, modern in all respects, has a high percentage of Spanish-speaking residents. The Pfeiffers, our hosts, were former owners of the 3,500circulation daily, The Raton Range, and so we had a lot in common. On Saturday we had to visit the race tracks where Texans flooded into town by every available means to bet on their favorite horse. Horse racing — now there’s an experience all in itself! The Pfeiffers were honored guests for one race, had

The hot weather bothers Binky

By DON RICHER 1 You say you’ve got lots of problems and you want some advice, is that it, Binky? You say the 1 heat’s about to get you down, you don’t feel so good and you thought you’d tell me about it? Have I got it right, Binky? j You say the air conditioner broke down and | you can’t sleep nights and your underarm j deodorant is making you break out in little red , spots? You say your 16 year old daughter is engaged and your son bought a used motorcycle? ( And he’s going to make the payments by delivering the morning paper? And the ] motorcycle doesn’t have a muffler? ( Your wife came home the other day with tar all over the car and she was crying? That was I the day she lost her job? You say everybody at work is on vacation and you can’t do it all by yourself? The air conditioner doesn’t work there, I either? ' You say you are a republican who doesn’t * I like Reagan and your wife is a democrat who < doesn’t like Carter and you don’t know whether 1

their pictures taken, and all that. Frank is a big man about town. The Sunday, July 20th. wedding anniversary reception was held at the country club where all the prominent people of Raton turned out. Along with us were Phil and Pat Oppenheim of Lake Tippecanoe. (Note: The Oppenheims own My Store in Syracuse.) The Oppenheims had also traveled overseas with the Pfeiffers. f One day. free to us. Della and 1 looked over a map and decided to meander through the Colorado countryside, a real day of leisure. We finally came upon a small, wind-swept town of 600 or 800, which would have been a natural for a western movie setting. Old store fronts, badly in need of paint and of a 1900 vintage, stared at us. We went into a small but delightful restaurant for lunch and enjoyed a hot burrito. Our waitress, a lady of about 50, asked us the usual questions: how was our lunch, where were we from, how do you like Colorado and more especially “our little town.” For the life of us we could not think of one good reason to live in tiny La Veta. Our solicitous waitress said she was born in La Veta. lived here all her life. “I went east one time and nearly died.” she said, adding. “I couldn’t wait to get back here.” It proves that home is where the heart is. The Pfeiffers graciously agreed to help us see, a little more of their state of New Mexico. We four drove southwest until we came to Red River, a tiny stringtown village where skiing in the mountains is big in the winter. We had lunch here, then went on to Toas and finally Sante Fe. Toas is historic Indian and a visit to the pueblos there is a must. We heard succinct definition of a pueblo: Why, they’re nothing but Indiana condominiums, a passerby told us. All, or almost all the dwellings and business houses in Toas are of Spanish architecture. The town is an art colony and a real attraction for anyone traveling the storied Sante Fe Trail. The same for Sante Fe, New Mexico’s state capital. We spent the night here, found the motels overpriced but passable From this point in north central New Mexico the Pfeiffers returned to Raton by bus and we headed northward for Colorado. It was a six- or seven-hour journey through open, barren country until we came to Durango, Colorado, a college town of some 15,000 people. It’s Fort Lewis College, coupled with ski slopes, attracts many college students each year. Other than that, the town has capitalized on its western theme. A stringtown city, all the buildings are painted up and the western architecture preserved. A coal-fired train running on a narrow-gauge track leaves daily for Silverton and back. It is a daylong trip, usually booked a year in advance. The train is easily one of the area's big attractions. When we left Durango, we headed north and at mid-morning came to Silverton, some 11,500 feet above sea level. Talk about a western town, this is it. They’ve tried to preserve the entire western theme, and trinket shops abound in this small town The Durango train stops there at noon each day and visitors have lunch and crowd their shops. Then we came to Ouray, called Colorado’s Little Switzerland. The road wound down out of the mountains and went through the town’s only main street. We didn’t stop, for we were headed for Glenwood Springs, on 1-70 and west to Denver for a day of swimming.

Anderson will be on the ballot? The dishwasher leaked water all over the floor, a wheel came off the lawnmower and you stubbed your toe this morning? Binky, does that about do it? You say your jobs keep piling up at home and it’s just too hot to do anything? It’s too hot to play golf and the fish quit biting and you don’t know whether the infection on your ankle was caused by a chigger or a mosquito? You say the humidity fogged your window and you backed into a fire hydrant? And you didn’t know it punctured your gas tank until you ran out of gas on the interstate? You say you’ve lost credibility with the Boy Scouts because you took them on a hike and everybody got poison ivy? And your daughter wants a big wedding only a month before the baby is due? And your wife doesn’t know how to keep it a secret from her mother who is moving in next week? Binky, is that it? You say thebills are piling up and no matter how hard you work you keep losing ground and everything is going wrong and you came to me for advice, is that it, Binky? Tell you what let’s do, Binky. Let’s go sit under a catalpa tree and let the worms eat us up.

The entire trip north from Durango includes the west slope of the Rocky Mountains, and is some of the most colorful country in the United States The Red Mountain Range is in this area and offers a magnificence, usually high on one side and preciptous on the other. The brakes on our little Ford began to heat up and squeek whenever applied. We knew we were in high country, for our ears popped as if we were in an airplane. We could not help but think how treacherous it would be driving these mountains in the winter. And then Glenwood Springs. A motel keeper in Durango told us. “Be sure you spend a night in Glenwood Springs. We got a splendid big room overlooking a two-block long swimming pool which is fed by underground thermal springs. One end of the *pool was separated into a 30 by 100 pool with temperatures, according to the sign, from 104 to 115 degrees. You have arthritis, you say. This is just the place to cure it. We were told, that in the early days when Indians roamed this part of the world, they brought their aged here as a sure cure for infirmaties of most any sort The larger pool carries a temperature of about 90 degrees, and on the far end* are competitive lanes and finally a large area for high divers in 12-foot-deep water. The water, fresh from the thermal springs, has to be cooled to its 104-115 degrees, then cooled again for the larger swimming area. We would judge 5,000 swimmers were in the several pools the Thursday we were there. The fee: $3.25 per person (adult), but it opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m. One is bound to receive his money’s worth. This is ski country. And in the winter, while dad goes into the surrounding mountains to ski, the family can idle the day away in the pool, with snow flakes falling on their heads. And nearby, rubber rafts are coming down the treacherous Colorado River. Rafting, as it is called, looks like it would be real fun, but our 10 days was closing out and we felt we didn't have time for a raft ride — this time. The 155 miles east on 1-70 took us back to Denver, but not before we stopped off at Vail to see what all the commotion there was about. Vail is an overnight building phenomenon. built around the nearby mountains where the wealthy come during the slow winter months to ski. If there is a building depression in' the country, it isn’t to be found at Vail.. Realtors must surely be having a field day as they sell those super-expensive condos to the idle rich. The roofs of these condominiums are built with an oblique line so as to capture the sun’s rays, and the outside for the most part is of natural or stained cedar. The sameness of the miles of structures offer an intriguing sight. Vail has an absence of cars on its streets. We quickly found we had to park our car in a free underground parking lot, then walk the streets of this quaint village where wearing attire presented a mixed bag. When we visited Vail, signs were touting the upcoming Fourth Annual Jerry Ford Golf Tournament, scheduled for July 28 and 29. The well-manicured golf course lies along 1-70 where travelers got an eye-catching view of how the well-heeled spend* (Continued on page 5)