Originally publihsed Sept. 18, 2017.

Carrie Munson likes being on the move.

Maybe it’s in her genes.

Her great-great-grandparents immigrated from Germany in the mid-1800s, crossing the country in a Conestoga wagon on their way to homesteading in Nebraska.

“So I kind of have that pioneering spirit,” Munson says.

Munson was born in New York and lived in Illinois and Wisconsin before making her way to Indiana. She now lives near Logansport, but can legitimately claim a large chunk of northern Indiana as her home base.

Originally published Sept. 11, 2017.

Uncharacteristic of youngsters their age, the pupils in teacher Courtney Whitney’s afternoon preschool class sit quietly on the concrete risers inside the courtyard garden at Flint Springs Elementary School on Thursday, Aug. 31, their eyes collectively fixed in anticipation on a little mesh cage sitting on the ground.

Inside, flexing and expanding its unmistakable orange, black and white-dotted wings, is a freshly-emerged monarch butterfly.

Originally published Sept. 14, 2017.

Students at Huntington North High School have a new place to gather and study this year, located adjacent to a row of lockers and next door to the school office. Appropriately enough, it’s called the Locker Lounge.

HNHS Principal Russ Degitz says the lounge was the brainchild last year of then-administrative intern Katie Jellison, who proposed turning the space into a place where students could work on homework.

Originally published Sept. 7, 2017.

Traditionally, helmets just protect football players during a hit.

The helmets at Huntington North High School, though, protect players after hits, too.

Originally published Sept. 4, 2017.

Sharon Laupp describes a horticultural event at her house as like “waiting for a baby to be born.”

On Wednesday, Aug. 30, her unusual plant gave birth, at night, to a single, fragrant flower. And then it was gone.

Laupp’s plant is a night-blooming cereus, which she believes is the only one of its kind in the area.

Originally published Aug. 31, 2017.

By the end of the year, Ana Velazquez hopes, her small charges at Huntington Catholic School will be able to follow along as she speaks to them in Spanish.

“My goal is at least to have them say five complete sentences,” she says. “If I carry on a conversation, they can pick up on it.”

Velazquez is teaching Spanish to the school’s kindergartners and first-graders, and Huntington Catholic Principal Derek Boone says plans are to eventually expand the classes to take in more grades.

Originally published Aug. 28, 2017.

If you’ve noticed an absence of litter along Huntington County roads, thank a group of inmates from the Huntington County Jail.

The inmates, non-violent offenders who have earned the trust of the jail staff, are walking rural roads, picking up trash tossed from car windows and marking the location of larger items pushed from the beds of pickup trucks.

“It’s bottles and cans,” says trusty Billy Craft as he fills a black plastic garbage bag with debris found along CR 300W on a perfect summer day.

Originally published Aug. 24, 2017.

Chris Treft was 18 months old when he attended his first hockey game.

His grandfather, Harold Treft, took him to see his beloved Komets, Fort Wayne’s longtime minor league hockey team. While the elder Treft loved his infant grandson, he also loved the perks that came with having a diaper bag to carry into the Komets’ arena, the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.

Originally published Aug. 21, 2017.

Most parents hope their children will do well in school, college, career and life. In the Forsythe household, their two kids have sailed over hurdles on many of those milestones, shooting for the stars way ahead of the curve for their ages. And yes – it is, indeed, rocket science.

Originally published Aug. 17, 2017.

The shooting range at Huntington’s Roush Fish and Wildlife Area is a popular place.

In a slow month, says Assistant Property Manager Bethany Blicharz, the range gets at least 1,000 visitors.

During the heat of July, about 1,800 shooters visited the range.

As the weather cools and hunting season approaches, the numbers will increase to 2,000 to 3,000 a month, says Denise Reust, regional office manager at Roush.

And that’s been going on since the range opened in August of 2005.

Originally published Aug. 14, 2017.

Sarah Jones, of Warren, was named this year’s Indiana Duroc queen.

It’s a title that comes with the responsibility of being an ambassador for the Duroc breed of swine. Chief among her duties will be appearing at the Indiana State Fair, where she will hand out ribbons to 4-H’ers during swine events.

Originally published Aug. 10, 2017.

Ashley Crittendon was on vacation in Florida over spring break when she found a rock hidden in a hole in a palm tree.

It wasn’t just any old rock; this one had been painted blue and was adorned with a picture of a sun.

“It was really exciting, just finding a simple rock,” Crittendon says.

The old H.K. Porter/-Friction Materials is full of stuff that shouldn’t be left laying around.

There’s lead and asbestos, raw materials used in the manufacture of linings for automotive parts including brakes and clutches; and benzene, a solvent used in the manufacturing process.

All are known or suspected carcinogens, but all are still used — under strict regulations — in manufacturing today.

Originally published Aug. 7, 2017.

While Huntington County’s schoolchildren may not be all that fired up about returning to the classroom, Huntington County Community School Corporation’s superintendent, Randy Harris, is stoked about the 2017-18 school year, and ready to take the proverbial bull by the horns for the year’s tasks ahead.

Originally published Aug. 3, 2017.

It seems everybody likes the idea that incoming seniors who reserve a parking space at Huntington North High School can paint their space in a creative way. It’s the first year the school has allowed the painting of the reserved spaces, serving as a fund-raiser for student council.

A photo of a painted spot posted on the high school’s Facebook page has already received more than 330 “likes” – from the likes of fellow students, teachers and even Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters.

Originally published July 24, 2017.

Mix 1,500 gallons of ice cream with a few hundred gallons of milk, toss in some chocolate syrup, and what do you get?

New pens for the goat barn.

That’s after you serve hundreds and hundreds of milk shakes.

Shakes that have developed such a following that the line to order one sometimes snakes clear across the Huntington County Fairgrounds.

Originally published July 17, 2017.

You may think the firefighter freeing your loved one from a mangled vehicle is a god.

He’s not.

Neither are the dispatcher who sent him out, or the police officer or the emergency medical technician also working the scene.

Sure, sometimes they go back to work unscathed and wait for the next call.

But sometimes that horrible thing that just happened eats at them.

“We’ve had some pretty tough hits on the fire department,” says Huntington Firefighter Jason Meier.

Tony Cotterman was surprised when he won a pair of Ford Mustangs in a contest earlier this year.

What’s even more surprising is that he almost turned them down.

Cotterman, of Fort Wayne, was awarded a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT350 and a 2016 Shelby Mustang GT350 in the Mustang Dream Giveaway. The contest, which is open to residents of the United States and beyond, is conducted annually by Dream Giveaway Promotions, an organization that raises funds for charities through prize drawings. Cotterman made a donation and entered the contest last fall.

Originally published July 13, 2017.

Sonya Harshman moved to Andrews about three years ago so her husband could be closer to work. But an old house located on their new property provided the inspiration to hunt for historic treasures. And, catching the “bug,” Harshman hasn’t stopped hunting.

“That’s an 1857 log cabin,” she explains. “Whenever we moved here I thought, you know, I’m going to get a detector and just see what’s out in the yard. And that was it.”

Originally published July 10, 2017.

Connor Huff has two sisters at home, but they’re, well, girls.

He has “a whole bunch of brothers,” but they don’t live with him.

There are some other kids in his neighborhood, but they’re all younger.

Luckily for 12-year-old Connor, he has Jason.

“I actually get to hang out with another boy,” Connor says. “I actually get to talk to him.”

Originally published July 6, 2017.

Paul Bickel moves fast on a bicycle.

As a result, his career in bicycle motocross has moved fast, too.

Bickel, a Huntington native, has competed in over 50 events. He’s raced in places as far-flung as Australia. He’s upped his proficiency from intermediate to expert.

And he’s done it all in just 12 months.

Originally published July 3, 2017.

Melissa “Myndi” Greer threw a party on June 25 to celebrate her 50th birthday.

She was also celebrating beating the odds — again.

Doctors told her parents that their newborn wouldn’t see her first birthday; then they told her she wouldn’t live through her teenage years; then they said she’d be lucky to see 30.

“Now, the doctor says, ‘You’re going to live as long as you want,’” she says.

Greer has the most severe form of osteogenesis imperfecta — brittle bones that break easily, and frequently.

Originally published June 29, 2017.

The Girl Scouts have a song that goes, “Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other is gold.”

In 2004, four little girls in Markle decided to join Daisies, the youngest level of Girl Scouts, when they were in kindergarten.

Thirteen years later, the girls — now high school graduates and headed to college — have forged a friendship of gold together bonded by scouting.

Originally published June 26, 2017.

The name Georges Auguste Escoffier isn’t one that makes it into everyday conversation.

But everyone who eats owes a debt to Escoffier, says Jeff Albertson, one of the French chef’s newest disciples.

Albertson, a hometown chef who chairs the hospitality administration program at the Fort Wayne campus of Ivy Tech Community College, was one of two Ivy Tech chefs to be inducted into Disciples Escoffier International USA during a recent food tour in France and Germany.

Originally published June 22, 2017.

As a nurse, Huntington resident Alysha Wilson found herself working in some very unsavory neighborhoods in Fort Wayne.

Jenny Eversman, a Fort Wayne resident, was fearful for her young family when her husband was away at work.

Both women found a way to deal with their trepidations and now have formed a new club in Huntington County to help other women become confident behind the trigger.

Originally published June 15, 2017.

A new ministry devoted to helping women with children find shelter and get back on their feet has moved from the vision stage to the hammer and saw stage.

Originally published June 12, 2017.

Helen Purviance was 28 when she gained fame as the “doughnut girl” of World War I.

The Huntington native, then an ensign with The Salvation Army, was ministering to soldiers on the front lines in France in 1917 when she and a friend surprised the men with freshly-fried treats.

A century later, the doughnuts are coming back to Huntington, served up freshly made by Salvation Army Capt. Dennis Marak and his crew using Purviance’s original recipe.

Originally published June 8, 2017.

The story goes, she rode along with her family from Pennsylvania, traveling in a canvas-covered wagon to the frontier known as Indiana – the “Land of the Indians.”

It was the early 1840s, and Millie was a pioneer woman in a rough, new, unforgiving country.

Although time has made her appear a bit older, in her long pioneer dress and frilly bonnet, Millie is only about 9 years old – a fictional character made up by Laura Whiteleather.

Originally published June 5, 2017.

When Steve Mitchell learned he was going to lose his job as a surface mount technician at United Technologies Electronic Controls in Huntington, his world was in for a major shift. After working there 23 years and close to retirement age, he needed to kick in Plan B.

“They decided to move to Mexico; I don’t really have a choice,” Mitchell says. “My family is here; that’s where I belong.”

Originally published June 1, 2017.

This past year at Roanoke Elementary School, people were seeing double a lot more than at other Huntington County schools — make that double times eight.

The school had eight sets of twins this year — three sets of girls, three sets of boys and two sets of boy/girl twins.

“We have kind of a ‘twin anomaly’ here,” says Principal Chris Tillett. “They’re just cute … They’re a lot of fun.”