We asked readers and staff to choose the stories they believe had the greatest impact on Brown County this year. Here’s how they ranked.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]1. #DoSomething
That was the echo heard throughout the county after a 28-year-old Brown County man died of an overdose on Labor Day weekend. He was the third to die since July.
After his death, friends and family gathered outside Brown County High School in prayer. A couple days later, a Facebook group called “Do Something, BC” was created and discussion began about how to spread greater awareness of addiction and help those who are suffering.
The group now has more than 1,000 members.
Two of the three overdose victims had fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid, in their systems, according to a report from Coroner Earl Piper.
In response to the deaths and addiction in the county, Brown County Schools and the Brown County Sheriff’s Department worked together to put on a program for freshmen and sophomores. Speakers shared stories about losing their loved ones to overdoses and overcoming addiction.
In October, 25-year-old Daniel M. Alton of Nashville was charged with aiding, inducing or causing dealing in a narcotic drug in connection with the third victim’s death. Police went through the victim’s phone and learned that Alton had helped the man get the heroin that would later kill him, court documents said.
In November, the Brown County School Board of Trustees passed a policy that will make naloxone available at school buildings where public events are hosted, such as ballgames. Naloxone reverses an overdose of an opiate-based drug.
In 2017, 15 overdoses were reported in the county, including the three fatal ones. Twelve of them involved heroin.
2. Dr. Brester retires
After 50 years of treating animals at Bean Blossom Animal Clinic, James “Doc” Brester retired and the clinic was sold in August.
Doctors Andrew P. Mills, Amy L. Smith and Chad M. Hennessy with Franklin Animal Clinic are the new owners.
The Bean Blossom location is the Franklin Animal Clinic’s third clinic in Indiana. The primary veterinary hospital is in Franklin and another clinic is in Greenwood.
Brester’s patients would sometimes wait hours in the parking lot for their names to be called after doing a walk-in appointment. The new doctors planned to offer specific appointment times and other services Brester didn’t, such as X-rays.
Brester said he wouldn’t be a stranger around the practice. He had planned to continue the mow grass there.
3. The Maple Leaf
Brown County will be home to a 2,000 seat government-owned music venue in 2019.
The Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center received all of the necessary government approvals this year to go up on 13.472 acres of Chuck Snyder’s farm behind Brown County Health & Living Community.
Maple Leaf Boulevard, a new three-lane street, will be constructed from State Road 46 south to the venue’s parking lot for show guests to use.
The public first learned of the plans to build it in late June. But the venue had been in the works since early 2017, when an ad hoc committee of community members and government officials formed to explore the possibility of using the innkeepers tax to pay for it.
The estimated cost to build it is $12.5 million. Revenue from performances is to be used to help pay back the loan, with innkeepers tax used as backup in case it does not make enough to cover the mortgage.
The innkeepers tax is charged on overnight room rentals in the county. It is collected by the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission. Currently, the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau receives 95 percent of that tax to market and promote Brown County.
Community members expressed concern over using the innkeepers tax as a backup revenue source, and whether or not that decision would eventually affect local taxpayers. Concerns and questions also arose about a perceived lack of hearings to get public input; the ownership of the venue; and the possible impact on emergency services and taxpayers.
Project supporters believe the venue will bring in more innkeepers tax and fill a void in the county created when the Little Nashville Opry burned in 2009.
4. Kids on Wheels
Local teens will continue to search for a place to skate in 2018, but they’re getting closer.
Since January, Kids on Wheels have been working toward their goal of tearing down “the wall between kids and adults in the community” by creating a safe place for young adults and the community to gather and skateboard.
Kids on Wheels is student-led with adult advisers. It operates as a nonprofit under the BETA Teen Center.
In June, the teens earned their first grant from the Brown County Community Foundation. That $10,000 matching challenge grant has already been matched, said Colleen Smith one of the parents involved with KOW.
KOW has been looking at building the skate/teen park at the county-owned Deer Run Park, but members prefer a location closer to town to avoid having young people walking or skating alongside Helmsburg Road to use the park.
Earlier this month, Smith said that KOW has a piece of property in mind where the park may go, and that the landowner had agreed on a price. But she did not want to say where the property is until a contract is in place.
Smith said KOW will work on applying for a $50,000 matching grant in January and that the group would reach out to the public once they know how much more has to be raised.
5. Hard Truth Hills
A Brown County-based company made a big leap in 2017 when it bought the biggest undeveloped land mass in Nashville and began building a new attraction.
The first building at Hard Truth Hills opened last week. Hard Truth Hills is envisioned as a place for the Big Woods family of companies to showcase its line of distilled spirits.
Most of the 300-plus wooded acres will stay wooded, said CEO Ed Ryan. The few acres being developed at the top of Firecracker Hill will contain a welcome center as well as a 250-seat Big Woods restaurant/distillery/brewery and company offices, he said.
The company started in a Nashville alley in 2009. It has since expanded to three other cities with restaurants in Bloomington, Franklin and Speedway. A new Big Woods restaurant in Westfield was just announced last week.
The entity — which includes Big Woods restaurants, Hard Truth spirits and Quaff ON! beers — also operates production facilities in Nashville and Martinsville, and two restaurants in downtown Nashville. It has become one of Brown County’s biggest employers.
The new Big Woods Pavilion restaurant at Hard Truth Hills is projected to open in late spring 2018, Ryan said.
6. Yellowwood logging
In November, 299 acres of Yellowwood State Forest backcountry were auctioned outside the forest office while protesters yelled and held signs high.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry organized the sale. About 1,733 trees will be cut, demonstrators said.
Hamilton Logging Inc. of Martinsville bought the timber for $108,785 — thousands less than a bid from a hardwood flooring company owner, who wanted to save the trees as they are. Hardwood executive Bobby R. Bartlet was unable to bid because he was not a licensed timber buyer, said Dave Seastrom with the Indiana Forest Alliance and Wild Tecumseh Friends.
Demonstrators have been concerned about include the impact the logging will have on the old-growth forest area and the species that call it home. The back country also includes the Ecoblitz study area, where scientists from all over the Midwest are conducting a complete inventory of all living things in the forest.
“Save Yellowwood” signs have been planted throughout Brown and surrounding counties, including Indianapolis. County residents and members of various environmental groups — including the IFA, Friends of Yellowwood, the Sierra Club and Mind the Gap — have been calling and writing to state legislators and Gov. Eric Holcomb since the sale was announced.
A letter signed by more than 200 Indiana scientists was delivered to Holcomb’s office.
Nevertheless, residents on Possom Trot Road reported last week that logging trucks were moving into the area.
7. $1M cut from school budget
In April, Brown County Schools Superintendent Laura Hammack told the school board that the district would need to cut $1 million from its general fund. The cuts were based on declining student enrollment and funding from the state.
Hammack’s 16 recommendations included eliminating 8.5 paraprofessional jobs; replacing all five certified preschool teachers with instructors who hold associate degrees and reassigning those certified teachers elsewhere in the district; moving the cost of substitute teachers to the capital projects fund by contracting with an outside company to hire them; and cutting back on outside “professional development” spending, which was $93,600 in 2016.
The total projected savings was $958,437 for the general fund, which pays teachers and staff.
The general fund budget for 2018 is $14,928,751. Last year, it was advertised as $16 million.
Hammack and financial consultant Bob Harris reported to the board in October that the school’s budget was in “a good spot” and that the results from the cuts were positive so far.
8. Local soldier killed
A Nashville mother received news in August that her son, U.S. Army Sgt. Jonathon Michael Hunter, had been killed serving in Afghanistan.
Hunter, 23, was killed by a suicide car bomb. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
This was Hunter’s first deployment. He had been in Afghanistan for about a month. He had just married his wife, Whitney, in October 2016.
Military service had been a tradition in his family since the Civil War, and Hunter had planned to complete college after serving.
“I’m very, very proud of who he has become and what he did for our country,” said his mother, Kimberly Thompson.
Hunter was the second man with Brown County ties and the second Columbus East graduate to have given his life in the service of his country in Afghanistan. In 2010, 27-year-old Jeremy McQueary was killed while searching for improvised explosive devices. He left behind a wife and infant son in Nashville.
9. 99.3 percent graduate
All but one student in the Brown County High School Class of 2016 earned a diploma. It was the highest graduation rate the school has posted in at least 10 years.
That accomplishment was announced in January.
In August, the Indiana Department of Education announced that graduation rates will be calculated differently this year due to new federal rules.
Students who get a general diploma will still be high school graduates. But for the purposes of calculating schools’ graduation rates, general diplomas won’t count, because the general diploma is not the type of diploma that a majority of Indiana students earn, Superintendent Laura Hammack said.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick has been advocating for this new rule to be changed, but there’s no guarantee that it will.
The state also has been talking about completely revamping graduation standards and making new “pathways.” Read more about that in Hammack’s column on Page A4.
10. 135 detours
For several months, for the second year in a row, you couldn’t get into or out of Brown County on 135 North without taking the back roads.
Four bridges on the busy highway needed attention from the state this year. The Indiana Department of Transportation opted for full closures on all of the projects, sending drivers on a maze of detours onto winding, hilly county roads.
One of those detours was Railroad Road. Within the first several weeks, three drivers were seriously injured in crashes on that road.
Bridge replacement projects were undertaken on State Road 135 South in Van Buren Township between June and September, in Bean Blossom from April to September, and in southern Morgan County just south of Morgantown from September to late November.
The state isn’t planning any more work on 135 in 2018, but three projects are planned on State Road 46 West and East.
