Saturday, January 27, 2024
Republicans Goolsby and Crisler File for County Council Seats
Republicans Shawn Goolsby (left) and David Crisler (right) file paperwork this week with county election clerk Jeff Sponsel to run in the Republican primary. Goolsby and Crisler are running for at-large seats. | photos submitted
Local Republicans are filling out the primary ballot, with two announcing campaigns yesterday for Shelby County Council seats. Shawn Goolsby and David Crisler entered the at-large seat race.
Goolsby and her husband, Brent, have lived in the Fairland area since 1993 and have three adult children, all Triton Central schools alumni, and have three grandchildren enrolled in the district.
Goolsby has been a licensed Realtor since 2001 and a Real Estate Broker since 2011. She is employed as director of sales and marketing at Davis Building Group.
The Goolsbys are members of New Life United Methodist Church in Fairland, where she has served as fellowship director and education director for Sunday school classes for all ages. She has also served on the Administrative Council for the past six years, with her term just ending December 2023. While her kids were at Triton Central, she was head of Market Day and served on the PTO. She has also been a representative for CASA.
Goolsby said in a media release that she plans to use her professional background to serve county residents. “In my career, I have to be able to listen closely to my clients to determine their needs and wants, and provide properties that best fit those while also making sure to stay within their budget. I hope to use these skills, and more, to serve the constituents of Shelby County,” she said.
Crisler and his wife, Angela, have been residents of Hendricks Township since 2018. One of their sons is a 2020 graduate of Triton Central, and their youngest son is currently a junior at TCHS. They also have three other children. Their son Daniel is a Lieutenant in the Indiana National Guard and a firefighter with the Shelbyville Fire Department.
David Crisler is a department chair at Ivy Tech Community College, overseeing the Homeland Security/Public Safety program at the Indianapolis campus, as well as being Lead Chair of the statewide Homeland Security/Public Safety Curriculum Committee. Before joining Ivy Tech, he retired from a 24-year law enforcement career in central Indiana. Crisler also served 28 years as a high school football coach and has worked part-time as a school police officer.
The Crisler family attends Mt. Pleasant Christian Church in the Greenwood area, where they have been members since 1998. David and Angela have served in several different ministry areas of the church.
He hopes to bring greater transparency and communication to local government, and believes in growth while maintaining and respecting the county’s farming and manufacturing roots, Crisler said in a press release. “I look forward to serving the citizens and businesses of Shelby County in a purposeful, thoughtful, and effective way so that Shelby County can reach its full potential in several areas,” Crisler said.
The primary election is May 7.
MOVING ALONG
Construction is underway on the 26,000-square-foot Julia Nicholas Runnebohm Early Learning Center at the Intelliplex, expected to be complete by the end of this year. The center will serve children ages six weeks to six years old. | photo by KRISTIAAN RAWLINGS
Former Slaves Documented in Early Shelby County History
Local historians in the early 1960s wrote a series of papers to mark a century since the Civil War. “In commemoration, for it is not intended to be a celebration,” Gendron Winton wrote. One article, part of a compilation typed and stored in the Shelby County Public Library’s Genealogy building, covers slaves in Shelby County.
“Indiana was organized as a free state, but the tax rates of the year call for the payment of $4 for each bond servant over 12 years of age,” Winton wrote. “At that time whites were ‘bound out’ legally, the difference being ‘voluntary servitude.’”
Winton cites the first Black residents of Shelby County to be brought here in 1820 by Jacob Fox when he settled in Marion Township, coming from North Carolina. An 1871 Shelbyville newspaper said Fox was about 70 years old. “He came to this county in 1820 bringing with him Isaac (everybody knows Old Ike, who is now head cuisine at the Ray House) and Silas and Dilly Coleman, who then belonged to him. They were always treated as members of the family and remained with Mr. Fox until they were 21 years of age, when they were allowed to go where they pleased.”
A few years later, pioneer Mathew Kelly, an early member of the Missionary Baptist Church, brought a slave to Jackson Township. Local “freedom papers,” copied from county court records, state: “Know all men by these presents that I, Matthew, Kelly, do give Isham, an old black man who has been a slave for me for many years in the state of Kentucky, Greene County. Believing that all men should have their freedom providing they have their just right, the liberty, trading, traveling as he thinks proper, also his freedom during life against all claims, bills of sale, or any other instrument of writing whatsoever. Given under my hand and seal, Sept. 21, 1829.”
The first former slaves to hold property in Shelby County, Wintin documents, were Hazard, Hedgeman and George Graffort, who had taken, as many did, the surnames of their owner. The Shelby County Tract Book shows that in 1821 two tracts were entered, one in what is now Addison Township and the other in what is now Shelby Township, by several “Graffort heirs.”
Thomas Graffort, who had served in the War of 1812 as a Lieutenant, had left his land in Kentucky to his wife for her lifetime, but at her death each of his 15 slaves was to have a tract of 80 acres bought for them “in the new territory just opened up” (Shelby County, Indiana). But by the time the will was probated there was not that much land to be had in one place. Most of it was entered in Rush County, but 480 acres were entered in the aforementioned tracts.
Hazard and Hedgeman received 160 acres in the northeast corner of Addison Township. But in 1835, Hazard transferred his title to W.W. McCoy, then Shelby County Sheriff, to satisfy judgements awarded by the court. At sheriff’s sale, his 80 acres brought $92, not enough to pay his debt. Hedgeman sold his ground to William Little about the same time for $300. George, one of those who held the Shelby Township land, sold his property at the same time. It was then that the will was recorded, probably to clear the title.
NOTEBOOK:
NATIONAL NEWS: A new survey of parents of young adults extracted a concession from the parents. The survey found that 51 percent of parents said they rarely or never listened to their own parents when they themselves were in their 20s and 30s when it came to finances, work or relationships. Only 16 percent of parents of young adults said that they went to their own parents for advice extremely or very often when they themselves were young adults. (Pew Research Center)
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This Day in Shelby County History
2014: Annie Thomas, a senior at Southwestern High School, broke the school’s single-game scoring record with 38 points against Indian Creek. The previous record had been 37 points, held by Beth Hammond.
2004: More than 3-1/2 inches of snow was dumped throughout the county.
Cartons of cigarettes were stolen during a break-in at Miller’s Grocery, 110 W. Washington St.
1994: Former Shelbyville Mayor Ezra Dagley, 70, died. Dagley had been a veteran of the police department, where he served for 20 years, including three years as police chief. Dagley was mayor of Shelbyville from 1976 to 1979 and then worked for Yager Bowling Service of Shelbyville from 1980 until his retirement in 1990. He was a U.S. Navy World War II veteran who served in the P.T. Boat Corps. Mayor Bob Williams ordered flags at half-staff, and said Dagley was a mayor who always spoke his mind and was “good-natured.” Williams had been police chief when Dagley was mayor. Dagley was best remembered for securing a federal urban development grant to improve streets and sidewalks in Shelbyville and securing federal funds to build an apartment complex for senior citizens behind Junction Shopping Center. Dagley Court is named after him. He had been elected mayor by 121 votes over Republican Jack Worland in 1975. He ran for a second four-year term, but was defeated in the primary by former city Clerk-Treasurer Delight Adams. He made another run at the city’s top elected post in 1983 and was defeated by Billy Cole in the 1983 primary.
1984: Loper Blue won the city elementary boys basketball sixth grade tournament. Members of the team were Scott King, Ronnie Guffey, Scott Asher, Johnny Tackett, Wade Minton, Chris Brown, Mike Richardson, Andy Linville, Larry Lollar, Blake Clements, Rickie Davis, Steve Fox and Dan Hastings. Dave Wimmer was coach. Susie Crawford and Krista Smith were scorekeepers.
Loper Blue also won the city elementary fifth grade boys basketball tournament. Members of the team were Jason Adams, Brad Barnard, Chad Christian, Todd Staats, David Tilford, T.J. Walsh, Tony Bieszczat, Scott Crafton, Travis Heaton, Tony Imel and Andy Rice. Dave Wimmer was coach.
1974: The Waldron Volunteer Fire Department purchased a Hurst power rescue tool called the “Jaws of Life.” The jaws could exert 10,000 pounds of pressure either opening up to 32 inches or closing and was capable of lifting or pulling five tons to free a trapped victim. Fire Chief Jack Knoll tested the equipment by lifting the side of a 12,000-pound fire truck.
1964: Wrecking crews dismantled a portion of the second floor of a large L-shaped frame structure, part of the former Albert Furniture Co. located on the north side of E. South St. at the end of the street. Two sections of the former factory were being razed.
1954: The Silver Beaver award, highest honor given by the Boy Scout Council for outstanding service to boyhood in a local council, was presented to George Hearn of Shelbyville during a ceremony at the Scottith Rite Cathedral in Indianapolis. The Silver Beaver award had previously been given to Donald Wickizer several years prior. Locals attending Hearn’s ceremony were Mr. and Mrs. Donald Kyger, Donald Wickizer, Frank Kehoe, John C. DePrez, Howard McMichael, Charles Hepp, Harold Meloy, Robert Glidden, Dan Heiniger, Dr. H.R. Page, William Kendall, Victor Sexton and Lyall Wortman.
1944: Despite local word on the street, only 20 Shelby County juveniles were on probation. “This certainly shows that the problem at present is no worse than it ordinarily is,” Arthur McLane, county director of public welfare, said.
1934: Sixty-three locals would be employed to construct Shelbyville’s municipal airport, located on a 50-acre tract northeast of Shelbyville on the German Road. A related federal project would be paining roofs throughout Shelby County to guide aviators.
1924: The temperature reached an official high of one degree, with many people who had thermometers saying theirs never got above zero.
1914: “The members of the Shelbyville police force have thrown down the gauntlet to the habitual loafers and bums of the city, and in the future they will find it to their best interest to do their loafing at home and not on the streets in the business part of the city,” The Republican reported. Those caught loafing would be put in jail, the paper said. “This move has been taken with the expectation and hope of clearing many of the streets, which are now practically impassable for women of refinement and culture. They are forced to work their way through crowds of loafers, men of little or no culture, who sneer and make insulting remarks which can be heard and which makes one’s blood boil.” Police promised “no leniency” in the matter.
OBITUARIES
None today