Sunday, May 19, 2024

Locals in Blue River Highland Games

Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy Carlos Rosales (above) and Shelbyville patrolman Glen Jennings (below) traded in their utility belts for kilts yesterday while participating in the second annual Blue River Highland Games. Dawn Higgins, a law enforcement officer in Indianapolis and daughter of Ellen and the late Jerry Higgins, was also on site, assisting at the Shelby County Fairgrounds. The Scottish event was made possible by the Shelbyville Parks and Recreation Department. | photos by JACK BOYCE

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Harper Wraps Up Four-Decade Career in the Classroom

Retiring Shelbyville Middle School teacher Scott Harper connects with students before the bell rings. | photo by SMS YEARBOOK STAFF

Despite the passage of 40 years, retiring teacher Scott Harper remembers his job interview at the old junior high school.

“I got in my Gran Torino Sport and had to get out a map to find Shelbyville,” Harper, then a recent Ball State University graduate, said. The neighborhood location of the school wasn’t apparent. “I had to knock on a couple of doors to find it.”

More memorable were Principal Gene Sexton’s questions, or rather question and two observations.

“He asked, ‘Can you coach?’” Harper assured him he could, and then Sexton noted that the two were both left-handed and went to Ball State. Hired. Harper was soon running shop class adjacent to Paul Cross Gym in a room once used by Eugene “Popeye” McNew.

Harper hails from Greentown, Ind., and first went to IU-Kokomo, where he met his eventual wife, Mary. They finished their education studies in Muncie. While Scott came to Shelbyville, Mary taught at Indianapolis Public Schools. Since the Harpers didn’t live here, Elwood Thomas, a school administrator, invited Scott over for dinner in the evenings in between school and coaching duties. 

Mary came over to the old Hendricks the following year, and the two continued their careers at Shelbyville Central while raising their children, Ted and Molly. When the junior high school was closed, Scott moved over to the new middle school. With his retirement, only one teacher remains who moved over from the old building.

Although Harper’s class is now called Engineering Tech, remnants of the old shop class, such as some machines, remain.

“I remember the good old days. We built projects such as sheds,” Harper said.

Many students also remember building, or even still have, items constructed in the SMS woodshop. 

For a time, Harper and colleague Gregg Cory drove to school two nights a week for their master’s degrees. “Those were great conversations on the way there and the way back,” Harper recalls.

In 2000, Harper stepped aside from coaching and took a second full-time job at the local horse racetrack, where he worked until 2012. Some nights he worked over to help with staff coverage.

But now, he’s looking to slow down. With Molly a school administrator and Ted the New England Patriots’ sports dietician, Scott is looking forward to more time with his four grandchildren.

As do many teachers, he has plenty of connections in the community.

“I enjoyed working and coaching,” Harper said. “There are enough memories that I have experienced at the old junior high and middle school that will last my lifetime.”

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NOTEBOOK:

• Records are made to be broken. In this case, Shelbyville Middle School 800-meter runner Macey Robbins took advantage of one last opportunity to break her own school record, lowering her time to 2:29.47 at yesterday’s state track meet.

• NATIONAL NEWS: Kids officially cost more than a house. That’s according to a report in Bloomberg citing new research from the nonprofit Child Care Aware of America, which found the price of care for two kids has surpassed rent payments by 25% in every state—and is more than double in eight states and DC. Per the report, a married couple spends 10% of their income on child care, well above the government’s 7% recommendation. And the average child costs their parents ~$11.6k per year, up 3.7% from last year. (Morning Brew/Numlock)

• The Addison Times publishes essential news and historical content to build our Shelby County community, and is free thanks to the generosity of supporters. Those who donate a minimum of $5 a month (or $45 one-time) receive the three remaining quarterly Addison Times magazines for 2024 as an appreciation gift.

• Want the daily edition read to you? Struggling with your email provider filtering out your local news? The Addison Times Substack app will solve those challenges!

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This Day in Shelby County History

2014: The Shelbyville High School baseball team won their first Hoosier Heritage Conference championship since 2002. Scott Hughes was coach of the 17-2 team. Conner Hasecuster hit a two-run home run giving the Bears the lead for good in the title game. Ethan Larrison struck out 13 batters. The team’s seniors were Larrison, Austin Peugh, Chase McColley, J.D. Cox, Mitchell Mathias, Adam Eads, Daniel Kuhn and Wayne Burnett.

2004: Firefighters from throughout the county met at Shelbyville High School for joint training. During much of the session, they worked to keep two hoses running continuously at the top of Shelbyville’a aerial ladder unit.

1994: Renovations began at the 66-year-old City Hall to install an elevator and shuffle offices.

Cracks and holes were forming in the surface of a temporary bridge that spanned the Big Blue River on North Harrison Street, but state officials said it was safe. The cracks were due to Styrofoam falling out between the concrete girders, but it was the girders, not the Styrofoam, that supported traffic, officials said.

Loper Elementary student Ryan Cherry, 10, won Osco Drugstore’s “Color Yourself to College” sweepstakes, winning a $5,000 scholarship from Osco Drugstores.

1984: Edna Osborne left a memorable impression at the Shelbyville High School awards program. Osborne, who was there to present the Vestavia Scholarship, urged members of the class of 1984 not to complain about their troubles. “Don’t complain,” she said, “because half of the people don’t care and the other half will be glad you are getting what you deserve.” During her brief comical talk, she revealed she did not have the Vestavia Award. She had instead handed it to recipient Lisa Callahan earlier. As Osborne left the podium, she blew kisses to the applauding audience.

1974: Ralph VanNatta, Commissioner of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and former Shelbyville Mayor, was scheduled to speak at the annual Shelby County Memorial Day Services. VanNatta was a veteran of the Korean War. A special guest for the ceremony, if his health permitted, would be Shelby County’s only living Spanish-American War veteran, J.W. Wilson of Morristown.

1964: Winston Churchill was appointed special non-paid deputy sheriff of Shelby County. To clarify, that was Winston Churchill of Moral Township, a detective with the Indianapolis Police Department who had volunteered to help Sheriff Edghill Moore. Shelby County’s Churchill was 33 year old, some 51 years younger than the British statesman.

Milan Lummis was appointed city engineer. He would continue his employment at KCL Corporation, where he had worked for the past 11 years. Lummis, 36, graduated from Shelbyville High School in 1946 before attending Purdue University. He had married Jackie (McGinnis) and they had two children, Larry and Laura.

1954: A free dance was held for adults and teens at The Rec. The dance had been organized by Rec manager William Southworth. A new soda fountain at The Rec was turned on for the first time.

Dr. William Dalton was appointed the county’s first health officer for the newly established county board of health, to be in effect Jan. 1.

Members of the Shelbyville High School junior prom court were Mary Louise Rahe, Phil Breedlove, Roberta Davis, Sandy Sirkus, Wilma Yoder and Charles Olinger.

1944: Shelby County had raised the second-most in the state for the National Foundation for the Control of Cancer. Local women in charge of the efforts were Mrs. Frank Kolkmeier, Mrs. Lucille Fix, Mrs. Marion Ayers and Mrs. Moris VanWay.

1934: Clyde Hobbs, 820 State Street, was fined for operating a motor vehicle with a ficticious registration. Hobbs had painted a 1930 automobile license plate to make it look like a 1934 plate. The fine was paid by Clyde’s father.

1924: A salesman showed off the potential for four wheel brakes. “The Public Square, at West Washington Street, was made very wet by a street sprinkler. The driver started at city hall, and when he reached the water on the Public Square, the machine was traveling at the rate of 40 miles an hour,” The Republican said. “In the water, the brakes were applied, the heavy car stopping within 20 feet. All were convinced that the four brake equipment works, works right and works when it is needed.”

1914: City Council ordered two shows at the carnival either had to be canceled or modified. “The councilmen today said there was nothing so bad about either of the places but that they still were not exactly the best things in the world,” The Republican said.

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OBITUARIES

None today.