CR's Cooney honored by IHSAA

Ray Cooney, sports editor and assistant managing editor of The Commercial Review, will be honored tonight prior to the tip-off of the Jay County High School boys’ basketball game.
Cooney, 33, will receive the IHSAA Distinguished Media Service Award in District II.
The presentation will be made by IHSAA Commissioner Bobby Cox and sports information director Jason Wille.
Sports editor of The CR since March 2001, Cooney has won numerous awards from the Hoosier State Press Association for sports event coverage, feature writing, news writing, and photography. He received five HSPA awards in 2011, helping The CR to third-place honors for general excellence among small dailies. In 2009, he received the Outstanding Baseball Media Award from the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association.
A native of Avon, Ohio, Cooney graduated from St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio, then went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in communications from Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural editor of the campus newspaper, The Cleveland Stater.
Prior to joining The CR, he worked as a reporter and sports writer for The Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria, Ohio. He also worked as a sports writer for The Morning Journal in Lorain, Ohio, while he was a student.
This is the 27th year the IHSAA has recognized outstanding members of the news media for excellence in coverage of high school athletics. Rob Weaver of WPGW is a past recipient of the same honor.

GED prep class
WorkOne will be offering a GED preparation class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Geneva Library. Walk-in students will not be accepted.
To register or for more information, contact WorkOne at (260) 824-0855.

Chamber
committee to meet
The Jay County Chamber of Commerce committee planning this year’s Expo event in April will meet at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 26, at the Community Resource Center.

Pilot project
A planting transferability pilot project that would allow Indiana agriculture producers to plant approved vegetables for processing on base acres under the Direct and Counter-Cyclical Program or Average Crop Revenue Election Program has been announced.
Eligible producers have until March 1 to sign-up.
The program offers producers the opportunity to diversify their crop production and better use their base acres. It allows producers to plant such crops as cucumbers, green peas, lima beans, pumpkins, snap beans, sweet corn, or tomatoes on a farm’s base acres. More information is available at the local Farm Service Agency office and at http:///www.fsa.usda.gov.

Pie day marked
Koffee Kup Diner in Portland, which has won the Taste of Jay County “Best Dessert” honors three times, will be taking part in a special promotion on Monday, Jan. 23, in recognition of National Pie Day. The event is in conjunction with the Jay County Visitor and Tourism Bureau’s promotion of authentic food culture in Indiana.
Hicks sees impact
The upcoming Super Bowl in Indianapolis will establish the city as a top-tier convention center, Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and associate professor of economics at Ball State University, told The South Bend Tribune this week.
"The Super Bowl, more than any other American activity, tends to put the city on the tourism circuit," Hicks says. "What cities tend to do, not surprisingly, is advertise the hell out of their efforts.
"This advertising tends to lead to a lot more convention and visitor activity from then on out. The Super Bowl changes your position from being a second-tier convention city to a top-tier convention city."
Hicks, who conducted a study of economic impact in Super Bowl cities since 1969, estimated a benefit of some $360 million for Indianapolis, in addition to the enhanced reputation. Some impact will reach beyond the city and the ring of hotel rooms -- Kokomo, Muncie, West Lafayette, Bloomington, Louisville, Terre Haute -- to meet the demand for some 70,000 beds.

Red Gold
owner buys land
Nine tracts of land surrounding the Pendleton Correctional Facility sold for $3,465,000 during a Thursday auction in Anderson, The Herald Bulletin reported.
The auction, which lasted nearly two and a half hours at the Garden Hotel, sold off 658 acres. For much of the auction there was a bidder for the farm land in its entirety although that bidder dropped out after bids for the tracts individually went above $3.4 million.
The highest individual bid came from Brian Reichart, owner of Orestes-based Red Gold, who purchased two tracts for $1,555,000 total.
Reichart said he was looking for land that could be irrigated to plant “quality Red Gold tomatoes.”

He said he felt he got a good deal for the property and was happy with the auction — done by Colliers International.

More than 70 people were at the auction with about 35 registered bidders.

Originally, 851 acres were to be sold. However, the state donated one parcel of land to the town of Pendleton.

All of the tracts sold are zoned for agriculture meaning if anyone wished to build commercial or residential property they would have to have the property rezoned.

The announced sale of the acreage had brought opposition, including state Rep. Scott Reske, D-Pendleton, who said the land’s sale would halve the buffer zone between the prison and a nearby elementary school. Dozens signed a petition circulated by former prison guard Joe Riley and his daughter Kelly Borgman.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Administration, which manages the state’s real estate leases, said the same patterns of patrols of the area will continue.

The Department of Administration decided to sell the land, she said, because it was no longer being farmed by correctional facility staff and inmates and the acres will be added to the county’s tax base.

There was no demonstration or incident from opponents during the auction.

Larry Smith, of New Castle, was at the auction although he didn’t bid on any of the land. He said he was upset not because of safety concerns but that the state felt the need to sell the property.

“It seems like the governor is trying to sell everything we have off,” Smith said. “That’s the people’s land. What right does he have to sell it all off? Sell, sell, sell; that’s all the governor has done.”

He also expressed some concern about where the proceeds from the sale would go.
The Indianapolis Executive Airport, about eight miles west of U.S. 31 on Indiana 32, bought a spare runway friction meter from the South Bend Regional Airport to qualify for receiving some of the traffic, says John Schalliol, executive director of the South Bend Regional Airport.
"They will be using a temporary FAA air traffic control tower for the Super Bowl week, and must have the runway friction determined before they can activate the tower," he says.
"All of the smaller airports are facing the use of de-icing fluids in the event of a snowstorm on one of the high-traffic days."
Some Michiana people have participated in preparations, says Dianna L. Boyce, director of communications for the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee.

One Michigan City woman, Bev Meska, created 250 blue-and-white handmade 72-inch scarves for the committee to offer as a "warm welcome" for volunteers. The project aimed for 8,000 scarves and collected 12,464 from 45 states, England, Canada and South Africa, with the extras going to hotel workers and other front-line greeters in the city.

Super Bowl business can't get any better for local sports bars, says Phil Schreiber, general manager of Between the Buns in Granger, which will have a free halftime buffet, games and door prizes during the event.

"The Super Bowl has kind of become the Mother's Day for sports bars," he says. "It's the one day we can pretty well count on filling the restaurant to the maximum.

"It makes for a fun atmosphere. It doesn't hurt to have lots of televisions and a good sound system."

If anything, Schreiber says, the proximity of the event might dent traffic at Michiana venues.[[In-content Ad]]