Three local churches, including one in Markle, are hoping their 2019 “Christmas Offering” causes a ripple effect of redemption through the area and inspires other congregations to follow their lead to eliminate thousands of dollars of medical debt for those who can’t afford to pay the bills.

Alan and Vicky Rickard’s house in Huntington is distinguished by a flower bed that states the year the house was built.

The numbers “1892” are rendered in the flower bed with artificial flowers, which are visible to anyone who passes the house on North Jefferson Street.

While the house has been a familiar sight in Huntington for 128 years, there was a time when demolition loomed for the historic structure.

And if it wasn’t for the Rickards, along with the owner who preceded them, it wouldn’t still be standing.

It finished up a bit later than anticipated and cost a bit more than was bid, but the renovations at the Huntington City-Township Public Library’s Huntington branch are now in use and have been welcomed by – primarily – the library’s youngest patrons.

Executive Director Beka Lemons says it’s been about 19 months since the library’s Children’s Department underwent its first space planning back in April of 2018. Bidding took place in September 2018 and construction started a month later. It was completed, for all practical purposes, by the end of November 2019.

In 2010, Brooks Fetters was busy running funeral homes in Huntington and Markle.

While he was a public officeholder, serving on the Huntington Common Council, he had no aspirations of seeking the city’s highest office and becoming mayor.

However, a municipal election was approaching in 2011. And as it drew nearer, Fetters found himself searching for an answer to one question, posed to him again and again.

Ashley Burson got an extra, early Christmas present when she returned home from Nigeria for a visit with her family.

She got engaged.

Burson, a Huntington native who graduated from Huntington North High School in 2009 and Huntington University in 2013, has spent the past six months in the Nigerian town of Jos, located in the Plateau state in the central part of the African country. While there, she lived her dream of teaching kindergarten.

Jessica Smith, a senior at Huntington North High School, is the recipient of the 2020 Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship in Huntington County.

Elizabeth Allred is the first person in her family to attend college. Adopted by her grandparents when she was 13, the Manchester University social work major from Huntington was recently honored with a “Realizing the Dream” award by the Independent Colleges of Indiana (ICI).

Each recipient is awarded $3,000 by ICI to help with college costs, and each of them in turn selects a “most influential” teacher or mentor to receive a $1,000 professional development grant.

Jim Seneff and Doug Ware both recorded assists during their time playing basketball for Coach Bob Straight at Huntington High School in the 1960s.

Now, over 50 years later, Seneff and Ware have each logged an assist for their former head coach one more time.

In Huntington North High School’s Criminal Justice class students are learning about “community policing” by putting their lessons into hands-on practice this Christmas season.

The juniors and seniors in Terry Stoffel’s class have been actively involved in raising funds for the annual Shop with a Cop, and will also help at the event, coming up on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at the Huntington Walmart store.

When others may have been out walking their dogs or scurrying about between places like the grocery store to their vehicles, Jack Wilson got his exercise this fall by picking up black walnuts.

To be precise, 1,150 pounds of them.

At the end of October, which also marked the end of “walnut season,” Wilson says, that’s how much the nuts weighed that he delivered to a buyer, and then donated the proceeds to Love In the Name of Christ.

A club at Huntington North High School is in the last week of a donation drive aimed at keeping people in Huntington County warm this winter.
The ASL (American Sign Language) Club is seeking new mittens, gloves, hats, scarves and other warm items for its “Mittens for Many” drive, going on now until Friday, Nov. 22. The campaign is not just looking for donations from fellow HNHS students but from the community as well.

So far, they’ve collected around 50 pairs of mittens and gloves, aiming for a goal of 200 before the campaign ends.

Not even out of his teens, Paul “Gene” Strevy found himself in the middle of World War II. But even in the midst of war, his best memories are of some of the more humorous moments he found himself in while serving three years in the U.S. Army.

Now 94, Strevy, a native of Andrews, remembers vividly his time – with a bit of perceived fondness – for the more humanistic duties he performed, once he got out of boot camp after he was drafted to serve. It was 1943 and he was 18 at the time.

Strevy says his main job in the army was a “sailjer.”

Older adults who find themselves suddenly the caretakers of their children’s children are finding support for the unique trials, tribulations and joy as a second-time-around parent.

It’s called “ROCK – Raising Our Children’s Kids” – a free, secular program for grandparents who have custody of their grandchildren, meeting on Wednesday evenings at Trinity United Methodist Church, in Huntington. There, they can meet up with others who share the same situation and glean from the mistakes and successes of their peers.

A resource to Huntington County residents in danger of losing their homes is back up and running, after it got a shot in the arm in the form of grant funding to help prevent homelessness.

The Rapid Rehousing & Homeless Prevention Program (RRHP) is a program of Huntington House and jointly administered under the umbrella of Community and Family Services.

Anyone needing a greeting card can stop by Doris Kline’s rooms at the Heritage Pointe of Huntington and pick one up, no charge.

There’s a rack outside her apartment door, and even more tucked away in the drawers of her workshop area.