Thumbing through 20-year-old copies of the News-Banner the past few weeks, researching the “Great Flood of 2003” for our series of articles, was an interesting and enlightening journey on its own. While there were long-forgotten details and follow-up stories about the flood, even more fascinating were other issues in the news that proved to be either historic or prescient. Also discovered: oh my how things have changed and oh my how they’ve not.
Dominating the post-flood issues, the conference room in the Carnegie Annex was transformed into a regional office for FEMA. It included eight in-office staff plus four “field officers.” By the time they closed up and went home August 15, they had approved $426,329 in Wells County grants and begun the buy-out process in the Pickett’s Run area.
There were daily letters to the editor throughout July and into August from flood victims, including one from Tom Clark, CEO of Bluffton Regional Medical Center at the time, expressing his appreciation for the community that “saved the hospital twice in five days.”
As difficult as it had been to get around town during the flood, a week or so later a long-scheduled complete rebuilding of the railroad crossing on North Main Street proceeded, closing the busy thoroughfare for two solid, painful weeks.
Historically speaking, in the midst of the flood, the county commissioners were debating a wheel tax (which eventually was adopted) and a county building inspector (which was not). Drawings were released of a possible new pedestrian bridge next to the Main Street bridge, which was being evaluated and prepared for a major renovation. The Angel of Hope Park was in its early stages of consideration and fundraising. A $2.7 million project to completely rebuild East Dustman Road from Main Street to the city limits proved to be somewhat controversial.
Issues involving sewage in the McKinney Ditch date to 2003. That was debated, ignored and kicked down the road for more than 15 years before the state finally forced the creation of the Regional Sewage District.
The inaugural “Bluffton Special Needs Baseball League” game was held in late July. This would evolve into the annual Dream Team event at Whicker Park. Very fittingly, Dick Bricker was in the front page photo, helping a young player with his batting stance. He remained a key part of that effort and others at Bi-County Services up until his sudden death earlier this year.
Dick looked about 20 years younger in that picture (go figure), as did Tank Lowe in a front-page photo of the “Liberty Voices,” set to sing in the season’s first Kehoe Park concert on Sunday, July 6. That concert was moved indoors, of course. The Kehoe Park amphitheater wouldn’t be dried up and cleaned up of flood debris for another six weeks, just in time for the season’s final concert.
In the midst of flood week, the N-B had a historic retirement of Eugene “Mac” McCord, who was involved here for almost 60 years. This was Mac’s third retirement, having first stepped down from full-time work for health reasons in the mid-1980s and again from a part-time position in the ‘90s. According to Jim Barbieri’s editorial tribute, the West Virginia native came to Bluffton in 1946 when publisher Roger Swaim and editor Orin Craven were seeking a Democrat in order to keep some balance on the staff. At one point he was honored for covering his 1,000th city council meeting. Jim certainly surpassed that and I am wondering if Dave Schultz is nearing that mark.
Things change: How many of these businesses, whose ads populated these pages 20 years ago, do you remember? Snug Cafe, Nowak’s Hallmark, Bearcreek Farms, Deck’s Super Service, Heyerly’s Market, Gerber Bros. Super Value, Masterson’s. There were also ads for Butler Bros. True Value Hardware, which announced Aug. 22 that the store would close by Labor Day. The story was written by Joe Smekens.
Remember paying for long-distance phone calls? United REMC was getting into the business, offering special rates of 6 1/2 cents per minute.
A front page story introduced the five entrants to Bluffton’s annual Miss Mideastern Indiana pageant, a “qualifier” for the Miss Indiana contest. It was still somewhat of a big deal. Did you know that a young lady from Fort Wayne was selected just a couple weeks ago as Miss Indiana 2023? I happened to come across a two-paragraph news brief deep in the Journal Gazette while looking for something else.
In the July 1 edition, which included a one-paragraph mention of a 2.5 inch overnight rainfall, the top story was that the filing period for the 2003 city elections had closed. Ted Ellis was unopposed, thus lined up to be the “first-ever three-straight-term mayor” in the city’s history. Only one of the five council seats had a race; three of those unopposed were Democrats — Jim Phillabaum, Mike Morrissey and Melanie Durr — all of whom would serve four more terms.
Things don’t: Congressman Mike Pence was, as noted, in town July 11 to see the flood damage. He had also been in town just the week before for a Town Hall meeting, which was dominated by recent votes and changes in Medicare coverage for retirees. This is kind of a double-header: Some things don’t change but how they’re handled do. While the issues of entitlements haven’t changed, politicians’ stances have. Then: “We can’t afford to expand this.” Now: “Spend it baby, and vote for me.”
We Methodists have only been the most recent church denomination to have the contentious issues of human sexuality come to a head. There were three Associated Press articles in these flood-era pages covering controversies including a Catholic music director in Cincinnati, an associate pastor in a Baptist church in Nashville and an Episcopalian bishop somewhere else. On it goes.
Jim Barbieri famously wrote a daily editorial for years — Monday through Friday, thus my moniker as the “Saturday Sub.” His opines were largely focused on the flood issues during this period, of course, but I found his other musings on state and national topics just as interesting. One reflected on some complaints about a slanted court, although I could not determine what specific Supreme Court decision was in question and who exactly was complaining. But he wrote this paragraph in late July 2003 that is just as timely today:
“The less people think of the U.S. Supreme Court as a place to get things done or a substitute for going the whole nine yards on self-government and citizen participation, the better off we will be.”
Amen.
miller@news-banner.com
