NORTH MANCHESTER -- Chester Township firefighter Rex Renz received a hero’s welcome Friday evening, April 10, after spending nearly the last six months at the University of Chicago hospital. Rex received a heart, liver and kidney transplants.

To honor Renz and celebrate his homecoming, hundreds of friends and well-wishers lined up at Manchester Intermediate School to form a welcome home parade that went by his house on Ogden Road near Laketon Friday, April 10.

“The greatest blessing was seeing Rex standing outside waving and calling out to everyone,” Chester Township Trustee Flo Dahlstrom.  “A miraculous life story.”

LaFontaine and North Manchester are among the 214 Hoosier cities, towns and counties that will share $126.5 million in state matching funds for local road projects.

The funds, part of the Next Level Roads: Community Crossings Initiative, was announced Wednesday, April 8, by Gov. Eric Holcomb and Joe McGuinness, Indiana Department of Transportation commissioner.

LaFontaine will receive $240,340 while North Manchester will receive $563,664.

“WE will be paving several sections of streets in town following a paving plan started a few years ago that includes many portions of streets as you enter LaFontaine,” Clerk-Treasurer Diana Heath told The Paper of Wabash County. “We will be paving Branson Street in downtown and will be replacing curbs and sidewalks.

I have dreamt of my wedding since I was young. Not just in the typical way that most young girls do, fantasizing about the poufy ball gown and the abundance of flowers and the elegant reception where people would eat fancy meals and drink champagne. I dreamt about the love that came with a wedding. The “can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence world series kind of stuff” love, as quoted from my favorite childhood movie, “It Takes Two.”

I finally found that type of love about two years ago in my old childhood friend, Spencer. We had lost touch for years, but as soon as I saw him again, I knew that I would marry him. It felt right and finally, that love I had been dreaming of was mine, and although it seemed too good to be true, I soon found out that it wasn’t. It was real, the love, and I hoped I would get to keep it forever. Finally, the wish of forever was solidified by a ring that Spencer slipped onto my finger, surrounded by beautiful nature, on the last day of August in 2019.

It seemed as if immediately, we had chosen a date, June 20, 2020, I had downloaded a wedding app that would help me plan, and I got started on the long list of to-dos that would go into the best day of my life.

Every decision we made was carefully thought out and signified our love and our personalities. That was our goal as we began planning: to make it our day. We wanted our guests to see us in every detail.

The Wabash City Council on Wednesday, April 1, unanimously approved an ordinance spelling out essential policies for the City of Wabash to maintain governmental functions during a public health emergency.

The measure, which was approved on two readings by council, was suggested by the Indianapolis law firm Barnes & Thornburg and was being approved by various municipalities around Indiana, Mayor Scott Long said.

“Barnes and Thornburg were apparently very involved with advising the governor and the Legislature on how things are going to operate under the emergency,” City Attorney Doug Lehman said.

The ordinance details such things as meeting attendance, employee pay and sick leave.

Under the measure, no member of any board, commission or governing body is required to attend in person any regular of special meeting called or scheduled during the COVID-19 emergency.

Ask Joe Swisher why he wanted to become a police officer, the answer is quite different than one might expect.

“I have a saying that I created, and I really try to live by this: The uniform in policing is a doorway that opens to the path of compassion,” he told The Paper of Wabash County. “I’ve always viewed this uniform as an opportunity to do that, one that you wouldn’t have when you’re not wearing this uniform. Kids look at you every day. It’s like being in a parade every day.

“It opens doors that wouldn’t be there. Doors to help somebody, to listen to somebody, to have heart and have compassion.”

In May of 2019, Madison Miller went from being RJ Waldon’s girlfriend to his fiancé, and from that point, they began to plan the wedding of their dreams.

As they looked forward to the day they would become husband and wife, and counted down the days, they never imagined that a worldwide pandemic would cause their wedding day to change so drastically.

Originally a wedding planned for the day perfectly between both Madison and RJ’s birthdays, April 4t would now be a wedding on a Tuesday. A day they looked forward to sharing with their friends and family, totaling 250 guests, would only be witnessed by their immediate families. A reception with pizza and donuts and dancing and excitement would now become dinner at home with their families; and a honeymoon where the newlyweds would witness the grandeur of Yosemite National Park for the first time would become a honeymoon at home, practicing social distancing.

Although the couple began seeing changes to their day before the coronavirus hit the United States, they were still hopeful that they would still be able to live out the day that they had tirelessly planned for and looked forward to.

The school year started out, in the words of one local high school senior, “like a dream.”

But with the onset of COVID-19, school days were canceled for a few weeks. Those few weeks turned into more than a month under a mandate from Gov. Eric Holcomb.

Shut down until at least May 1, no one knows what the rest of the 2019-20 school year holds for any of the students or faculties of the local school districts. And that means the current senior class doesn’t know what will become of what is supposed to be one of the highlights of their young lives.

The Paper of Wabash County sat down with a group of seniors from Northfield, Southwood and Wabash high schools to discuss their thoughts about their senior years, and what the future holds for them.

Kyndra Baldwin has always enjoyed crafting. In fact, she used to host “Pinterest Parties” in the barn she and her husband, Adam, own.
“My friends would come, my family, and we would make a whole bunch of crafts,” she said. “Their friends started to want to do it, or their co-workers. So, strangers I didn’t know in my barn … that was kind of weird.”
The building at 14 W. Canal St. came up for sale, and she and her husband purchased it and, since last October, Custom Crafts has operated out of it.
The business offers all customized crafts, she said.