Local Taekwondo Student Awarded Scholarship

Little Rock, AR – The H.U. Lee Memorial Foundation recently announced the winners of the 2010 scholarships.

Joanna Deal, a 1st Degree Black Belt at Hayden’s ATA, received a $500 Regional Scholarship. Deal is attending Ivy Tech and plans to study to be a medical assistant.

The H.U. Lee Memorial Foundation was founded in 1992 to honor Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee, founder of the American Taekwondo Association. The Foundation strives to assist those students that have exemplified skills obtained through the American Taekwondo Association by providing scholarships to assist with the costs of higher education.

Handicapped man

rescued from railroad tracks

A Kendallville man says he is alive because of four guardian angels. 39-year-old Mike Schneider was riding across rail tracks in his wheelchair Saturday afternoon when his front tires got stuck. Drivers along Main Street in Kendallville passed by for minutes staring and pointing, but nobody stopped to help. That was until three fifteen-year-old girls and an unidentified man came to the rescue.
"I asked him if he needed help and he told me yes. There wasn’t a thinking process, we just reacted to the first thing we saw,” Jordan McCarty, Chelsea Stephens and Holly Handshoe said about their rescue attempt.
Schneider was stuck on the Norfolk Southern tracks; one of Northern Indiana’s busiest rail lines. Locals say trains usually whiz through rail crossings in Kendallville at sixty miles per hour. Although the four citizen rescuers didn’t know when the next train was to come through town, they did know they had to act fast.
"We were trying to work as fast as possible to get him off the tracks,” the three girls added.
After a few minutes of fiddling with the wheelchair, the four rescuers pried and lifted Schneider and his wheelchair from the tracks. Their swift action came just in the nick of time.
"The train was down there on the tracks, we heard it and it was going so fast. That was only two minutes after we moved the man,” McCarty said. "It really didn't settle in until we walked away, then we were just shaking and crying for hours,” McCarty added.
While it was a scary moment for the three teens, it’s become a point of pride for their parents.
"I told Jordan I was so proud of her. Not everybody would have done that, but for three fifteen year old girls it speaks volumes,” Jordan’s mother Heidi Ramer said about her daughter.
On the other side of town, Mike Schneider sat in his front yard Sunday afternoon, reading about his rescue on the front page of the local paper.
"I am thankful for them, they are my guardian angels,” Schneider said about his four rescuers.
While front page fame will eventually wear out for Schneider, gratitude is a virtue that will never grow old.
When Schneider was only 21-years-old, a serious car accident threatened his life, placing him in a coma for eleven months. After waking from his coma, he recovered many motor functions through three years of grueling physical therapy. However, he never regained the ability to walk and therefore uses a wheelchair to travel throughout Kendallville.
Police do not know who the forth rescuer is. The town only has 10,600 residents and authorities think if he lived in or near Kendallville, somebody would’ve recognized him. Amid all of the chaos, no one caught his name. By the time people gathered their thoughts again, he had vanished.

IRS lists county nonprofits at risk

to lose tax-exempt status
WASHINGTON — Small nonprofit organizations at risk of losing their tax-exempt status because they failed to file required returns for 2007, 2008 and 2009 can preserve their status by filing returns by Oct. 15, 2010, under a one-time relief program, the Internal Revenue Service announced today.

On the list were the Avilla Chamber, Avilla Volunteer Firemen, Main Street Business Association in Kendallville and more. See list below.
The IRS today posted on a special page of IRS.gov the names and last-known addresses of these at-risk organizations, along with guidance about how to come back into compliance. The organizations on the list have return due dates between May 17 and Oct. 15, 2010, but the IRS has no record that they filed the required returns for any of the past three years.
“We are doing everything we can to help organizations comply with the law and keep their valuable tax exemption,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. “So if you do not have your filings up to date, now’s the time to take action and get back on track.”
Two types of relief are available for small exempt organizations — a filing extension for the smallest organizations required to file Form 990-N, Electronic Notice (e-Postcard) , and a voluntary compliance program (VCP) for small organizations eligible to file Form 990-EZ, Short Form Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax.
Small organizations required to file Form 990-N simply need to go to the IRS website, supply the eight information items called for on the form, and electronically file it by Oct. 15. That will bring them back into compliance.
Under the VCP, tax-exempt organizations eligible to file Form 990-EZ must file their delinquent annual information returns by Oct. 15 and pay a compliance fee. Details about the VCP are on the IRS website, along with frequently asked questions.
The relief announced today is not available to larger organizations required to file the Form 990 or to private foundations that file the Form 990-PF.
The IRS will keep today’s list of at-risk organizations on IRS.gov until Oct. 15, 2010. Organizations that have not filed the required information returns by that date will have their tax-exempt status revoked, and the IRS will publish a list of these revoked organizations in early 2011. Donors who contribute to at-risk organizations are protected until the final revocation list is published.
If an organization loses its exemption, it will have to reapply with the IRS to regain its tax-exempt status. Any income received between the revocation date and renewed exemption may be taxable.
Noble County nonprofits on the IRS list follow:
ABC NURSERY SCHOOL OF AVILLA INC 7724 E 100 N AVILLA
ALBION MARSHALS POSSE PO BOX 101 ALBION
AMERICAN LEGION POST 0110 VERNER HANES W COUNTY LINE ST WOLCOTTVILLE
ATWOOD LAKE COTTAGE & LANDOWNERS ASSOCIATION & CONSERVATION CLUB R 2 WOLCOTTVILLE
AVILLA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE INC PO BOX 79 AVILLA
AVILLA VOLUNTEER FIREMEN INC PO BOX 440 AVILLA
BETHANY MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL INC/MARCELLA L HOOVER MINISTRIES R D 1 RD 1000 N 690 E KENDALLVILLE
CENTRAL NOBLE SCHOOL ADULT ATHLETIC BOOSTERS INC PO BOX 154 ALBION
DISTRICT 15 CLUB COUNCIL INC 0151 C R 66 LAOTTO
DOWNTOWN BUSINESS ASSOCIATION OF KENDALLVILLE INC 130 S MAIN ST KENDALLVILLE
FOUNDATION FOR THE KENDALLVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY INC 126 W RUSH ST KENDALLVILLE
FRATERNAL ORDER OF EAGLES 1763 AUX 306 S CAVIN ST LIGONIER
HAPPY HILL FELINE HAVEN INC 2297 S 50 W ALBION
HOPE ALIVE FAMILY MINISTRIES INC PO BOX 62 LAOTTO
INDEPENDENT FARMERS OF INDIANA INC R R NO 2 ALBION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LIONS CLUBS WATERLOO LIONS CLUB PO BOX 246 AVILLA
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTERS CARRIERS 0952 KENDALLVILLE INDIANA 695 FAIR ST KENDALLVILE
NOBLE COUNTY POLICE RESERVE INC R D 1-300 SOUTH LAOTTO
ROME CITY PRESCHOOL INC RR 3 KENDALLVILLE
ROME CITY BUSINESS MENS ASSOCIATION INC LOCAL ROME CITY
VOITURE NATIONALE LA SOCIETE DES 40 HOMMES ET 8 CHEVAUX 833 VOITURE 11622 N VENETIAN WAY CROMWELL
WEST NOBLE FOOD CLOTHING PANTRY BANK INC PO BOX 66 LIGONIER
YOUTH OUTREACH UNLIMITED INC PO BOX 387 WOLCOTTVILLE

Hayden Honda among top dealers in nation
Dealernews, the premier business information resource for North American powersports retailers, announces the winners of the 19th Annual Top 100 Awards, the industry's largest, longest running and most prestigious retail competition. In Indiana, Hayden Honda PowerHouse of Kendallville won the award. The Dealernews Top 100 Awards is a juried competition that recognizes dealerships for their achievements in retail design and merchandising, marketing, e-commerce, marketing, customer service, community involvement and general business management.

Kendallville to host classic car speed exhibition in September
5/20/2010
Million-dollar classic cars will roar down the runway of Kendallville Municipal Airport in a first-of-its-kind event Friday, Sept. 3.
Owners of 1930s-era Duesenbergs will test their powerful cars on a quarter-mile course set up on the airport's runway.
The public will be invited to watch the Ab Jenkins Memorial Duesenberg Exhibition of Speed and Stinson Fly-in. The admission fee is expected to be $10.
The national Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club is staging the event, along with the ACD Festival and financial sponsor Interstate Batteries.

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Protect yourself from online robbers

How do criminals get your personal information online? One way is by lying about who they are, to convince you to share your account numbers, passwords, and other information so they can get your money or buy things in your name. The scam is called “phishing”: criminals send email, text, or pop-up messages that appear to come from your bank, a government agency, an online seller or another organization with which you do business.
The message asks you to click to a website or call a phone number to update your account information or claim a prize or benefit. It might suggest something bad will happen if you don’t respond quickly with your personal information. In reality, legitimate businesses should never use email, pop-ups, or text messages to ask for your personal information.

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Information at your fingertips;
at www.inspire.IN.gov
by State Rep. Matt Bell, Avilla

The Indiana State Library has numerous resources and collections, but due to its location in Indianapolis, these resources have not always been easily accessible to all Hoosiers. Now, thanks to the Internet, location is no longer an issue. Information is available at the touch of your finger tips.

INSPIRE is Indiana’s virtual library that provides Hoosiers unlimited access to a collection of academic databases, magazine and journal articles, Web sites, pamphlets, images, almanacs, library catalogs and more. This resource is accessible to Indiana residents who have Internet access at school, home, in their library or at their place of business. It is available free of charge.

The database is broken down in several different sections including, Kids Search, Student Research Center, Indiana Memory, Indiana State Library and Net Library.

If you are looking for the online collection for the Indiana State Library, Net Library is your one-stop shop. Here you can find over 3,000 e-books available at the click of a mouse.

Kids Search and Student Research Center are designed to help with homework. Both areas feature multiple subject areas and subcategories, allowing the user to focus on the needed information. Help guides, training and tutorials are also available for teachers via this site.
For history buffs, the Indiana Memory section is a must see. It is dedicated to preserving our state’s history through archives, memorabilia and photos. Included in the archives is information on laws of the Indiana territory, election returns, pay and receipt rolls for the Indiana territory militia and the documents leading up to Indiana’s statehood. The collection is a collaboration of efforts of academic libraries, public libraries, historical societies and museums, reflecting Indiana’s cultural heritage.
Another special feature is What Tree is That? It includes a guild to identify trees, a glossary of tree terms, tutorials, and will even tell you what tree to plant where.
INSPIRE is 24/7 access to a plethora of information that can be easily obtained at www.inspire.IN.gov. This link can help you with everything from landscaping to your child’s homework. It is a wonderful resource for Hoosiers of all ages, and I hope you will take advantage of it.