Thursday, May 22, 2025
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N. Riley Highway Closure Starts Next Week
CSX Railroad will be closing the N. Riley Highway rail tracks starting next Tuesday, May 27, for total rail and approach reconstruction. The official detour, highlighted above, is State Road 44/I-74.
Washburn Named Stine Award Recipient
Shelbyville Middle School eighth-grade student Elizabeth Washburn accepts the Roland Stine Award, presented by Rick Hauke of the Shelbyville Kiwanis Club, at last night’s academic awards ceremony, while faculty and staff members Jennifer Dixon, Scott Hughes, Katie Beyer, Rex Olds and Nicci Sargent look on. Roland Stine, who died in 2003, was a Shelbyville High School graduate who taught at the old junior high and SMS. He also served as a city councilman and a State Representative. BELOW: Washburn and SMS Principal Wes Hall hold up the Stine plaque for Elizabeth’s family to take photos after the ceremony. | photos by KRISTIAAN RAWLINGS
City Cemetery Memorial Walk: Honoring the Soldiers Resting There
by DONNA DENNISON
The weather is warmer, the grills are getting cleaned and crosses have appeared on the courthouse lawn. We are all setting our sights on the upcoming Memorial Day, looking forward to our three-day weekend. However, let’s not forget what Memorial Day is really all about.
In 1866, a group of women in Atlanta, Ga., calling themselves the Ladies Memorial Association, proposed to clean up and decorate the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers who died in service. They called this day Decoration Day and planned it in late April, when the best spring flowers were available. They started a media campaign in Georgia that was picked up in several newspapers. In 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic, a national group of Civil War veterans, declared May 30th Memorial Day, a day to remember all who died in the Civil War. It would be 100 years before Congress would make Memorial Day a federal holiday in 1968. The date was changed to the last Monday of May, mostly so federal employees could have a three-day weekend.
According to the Shelby Democrat paper, May 15, 1868, the Shelbyville Dumont Post No.18 of the Grand Army of the Republic went to City Cemetery to decorate the graves of their fallen comrades. Yesterday, the Shelbyville Library’s Genealogy and History Department went to City Cemetery to celebrate the lives of the soldiers resting there. There are more than 80 soldiers buried in City Cemetery spanning four different wars. These are just a few of their stories.
William Biggs was born in Rush County in 1839. He married his wife in January 1862 and left for the war in August of that year. He took part in more than 11 large engagements, including the Battle of Vicksburg, but was captured at the Battle of Red River. He spent 13 months, 19 days as a POW in a Texas prison camp before being released in a prisoner exchange. He came back to his wife, had eight children and lived to be 71 years old.
Nicholas Deitzer Sr. and his two brothers came to Shelbyville from Germany in 1932. Nicholas Sr. and Nicholas Deitzer Jr. both enlisted together in Aug 1862, the Senior being 51 years old, Nicholas Jr. being only 23. In December 1863, Nicholas Senior was discharged due to deafness. When he came home, he found out his son Nicholas Jr. had come home in July, being killed at the Battle of Hoover’s Gap, Tenn. Six men in that family served in the Civil War.
Warren Good was born a slave in Kentucky. When the war broke out, he asked his master for permission to enlist. Thinking the Confederacy would need all the men they could get, he gave his permission. Good enlisted in the Union Army. After the war, he came to Shelbyville, worked hard and earned the respect of all who knew him. He married, raised eight children, and was a member of Mason Lodge No. 1981, IOOF and the Grand Army of the Republic.
James Wilson was born in 1854 in Indian Territory. He enlisted in August 1862 and fought in 29 major battles. He was the last Civil War Soldier in Shelby County when he passed away at the age of 90. His son William, also buried in City Cemetery, was a Spanish American War Veteran.
Memorial Day is a day to remember the soldiers who gave their lives for our freedoms. This Memorial Day, we honor each and every one of them.
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NOTEBOOK:
The Addison Times yesterday, based on previous reporting, noted that MHP had contributed “at least $15 million to the YMCA project.” We followed up with MHP officials to obtain a better number: $24 million, which included construction costs and $988,000 in equipment and furnishings.
HOOSIER NEWS: Oscar Mayer will be heating things up at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway tomorrow with a new Carb Day tradition: The Wienie 500. The famous Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles will race at the IMS for the very first time to see who is really the top dog. The inaugural Wienie 500 will be a showdown between six different Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles representing different regions of the U.S. based on local styles of hotdog. The Wienie 500 lineup will be: Chi Dog (Midwest), New York Dog (East), Slaw Dog (Southeast), Sonoran Dog (Southwest), Chili Dog (South) and Seattle Dog (Northwest). The Wienie 500 will be streaming live on Friday, May 23 at 2 p.m. via the FOX Sports app, or tune into the FOX Sports Indy 500 pre-show on Sunday to see highlights from the race. (IndyStar)
NATIONAL NEWS: Given that three of the four teams in the playoffs are from areas that have never won in the NBA Finals, the ratings for the playoffs have been great so far. Through 22 games, ABC and ESPN are reporting playoff viewership is up 12 percent, with an average of 4.88 million viewers per telecast, the second-most watched postseason in 14 years. Including the TNT and truTV games, the games as a whole are up 3.3 percent over the same period a year ago, in a moment where overall television viewership is down 9 percent. (Sportico/Numlock)
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SHS Courier Archive Highlights
April 1975
Mr. Mel Davies, former SHS teacher, had received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a two-year research project on potters and pottery. Through the years, Davies had collected examples of traditional earthenware and stoneware. Upon retirement, Davies had joined the staff at Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement. SHS graduate Mike Helbing was also working at Conner Prairie.
Mark Campbell and Susan Shisler were named co-editors of The Courier for 1975-76. Bob VanNatta would be business manager, with Bill Buchanan as assistant. John Hartnett was sports editor, with help from Denise Miller, Todd Glidden and Sam Ardery. Liz Woollen would head the photography staff, which was comprised of Scott Brown, George Brokering and Barb Inlow.
French teacher Mrs. Allen was stepping down to stay home with her first child. She had grown up in New York and had spent a year living in the northeast part of France.
The SHS Boys’ Track team won its first meet since March 1972. Event winners included Steve Frazee and Chuck Phares, and top performers were Jeff Martin, Randy Bryan, Karri Kivela, Mark Inlow, Gregg Babb and David Drake. The team was coached by Dennis Hearne.
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This Day in Shelby County History
News around Shelbyville and the surrounding area as reported on or about this date in history. Selections are curated by The Addison Times from Shelby County Public Library Genealogy Department materials.
2005: Three Shelby County deputies - Travis Maloney, Rod Mohr and Jim Thurman - became certified with the Drug Recognition Examination. Their training included two weeks in Evansville and a four-day course in Phoenix, Ariz. The certification did not include additional pay.
1995: ISTEP results were in, and 4.1% of the county’s third-, sixth- and eighth-graders had failed the test. Those 93 students would take the test again after summer school. Failing it a second time would mean repeating the grade.
1985: Construction on Charles Major Manor on East Franklin St. began. Framing was expected to take three weeks.
1975: Members of the new Shelbyville Moose Lodge approved a five-year lease of the former Elks building, 46 W. Broadway, from owners Marshal Shaw and Morris Tobian. Earl Neu, a former long-time Eagles Lodge secretary, would be the Moose Club manager.
1965: The Shelbyville school board purchased two acres adjoining Loper school on the south side. The purchase was in connection with a proposed 10-classroom Loper addition and for a playground.
1955: Coffee prices were cut locally to 75 cents a pound ($9 in today’s money, compared to the average 2025 price of $7.54 per pound), the lowest price in five years. “Largely under resistance of American housewives to last year’s high prices, along with bumper Latin American crops and rumors of price wars, wholesalers and retailers began dropping the coffee prices last week,” The Shelbyville News reported.
1945: Mr. and Mrs. Clancy Colvin, of Muchmore Hill, received word that their son, Pfc. Hugh Colvin, had been one of 10 men who first made contact with Russian troops in a meeting of the two armed forces in Torgau. Pvt. Colvin had written in a letter, “We drove into the town square and from the other side came a number of Russian infantry troops. Then followed a day of celebration.” Pvt. Colvin had previously received a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in action.
1935: The City of Shelbyville submitted federal paperwork to receive a grant to resurface South Harrison St., from Taylor St. to city limits. The grant would include the cost of removing the abandoned traction line rails and ties and filling in of the resulting street excavation with concrete.
Trustees of Kennedy Park offered to turn the park over to the City. The park had been placed in trusteeship seven years’ prior by Fred Kennedy, local manufacturer, for the benefit of the city’s recreation program.
1925: Community picture shows, which had been held through the county for several years during the summer, were returning, Henry Meloy and Clyde Kennedy announced. The first week’s show would be “Progress of Power”, a farm educational picture.
1915: “The city is all astir today because of the appearance here of Howe’s Great London (circus) Shows. This aggregation came in this morning on two sections of 42 cars, via the Pennsylvania from Rushville,” The Republican reported. “There are 600 people with the show.”
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OBITUARIES
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