Letters to the Editor 03-01-2000

- Right And Wrong - Pension Plans - Missing Word - Good, Bad Drivers - Religious Imposition - Jail Revival - Silver Lake Thanks - Diallo Acquittal Right And Wrong Editor, Times-Union: Tim Keyes writes "First, none of you, the readers, including myself, are 'wrong' or 'right.' We no longer live in a world of absolutes."I hope you don't have offspring, Tim.I can hear it now: "Daddy is it wrong for me to blow up the school?" Your rock solid response, "Well Timmy, I can't say that it is wrong.You know what I always say, "We no longer live in a world of absolutes."Tim hang on to a chair or something because "You Are Wrong.

Tigers End 2-Game Losing Streak

As far as Al Rhodes was concerned, Jim Miller's timing was perfect. After Northridge's boys basketball team drilled Warsaw 75-56 the night before, Miller arrived Saturday for a visit with Rhodes.Miller coached Rhodes when he played basketball for Penn, and Rhodes served as an assistant coach under Miller for four years at Warsaw. "With me, after the tough loss (Friday) night, I was rejuvenated by seeing coach," Rhodes said. Rhodes watched his Tigers (5-2) bounce back at home in Saturday's 56-40 win over Elkhart Central (1-4), last year's Class 4A state runners-up. The Tigers, a team ranked No.6 in the state in Class 4A, entered the Central game on a two-game losing streak.Following the 19-point loss, Rhodes said he would use Saturday morning to reassess his team. "This win tonight was extremely important from a confidence standpoint," Rhodes said.

Quick Start, Cabrera Lead Tigers To Win

Two boys basketball teams that haven't played each other in nearly a decade, Warsaw picked up where it left off against visiting Rochester Friday. Fueled by a strong start and an impressive all-around performance from junior Shaun Cabrera, the Tigers led the entire game en route to a 59-47 win. "I thought we got off to a great start," said third-year Warsaw coach Doug Ogle, whose Tigers improved 4-0."We didn't want to let Rochester get any confidence.I was very happy with the way we started the game.We have a lot of respect for Rochester's team and their players.They're not a typical 2A team." Of the 12 players on its varsity roster, Rochester lists seven of them at 6-foot-3 or taller, including 6-5 freshman Kory Barnett and 6-8 junior Josh Stoops. Warsaw, on the other hand, despite being a Class 4A school with nearly 2,000 students compared to Rochester's 550 students, has one player listed at 6-3 and two at 6-4.

Tigers Try To Scratch Seven-Year Tournament Itch

Warsaw's girls basketball team went 12-8 last year. This season the Tigers entered Christmas break with a 7-1 record, their only loss coming to Huntington North, and they have the chance to start the new year and go back to school with a 9-1 record. Warsaw will host its 21st Tiger Tournament Saturday with Mount Vernon (Fortville), Indianapolis Perry Meridian and Valparaiso. "In this tournament there's usually two teams that are ranked and it's wide open," said Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst."You could play one day and play again the next day and have a different winner.Valparaiso is the highest ranked and Mount Vernon knocked off Connersville, a previous No.1." True to form, there are two ranked teams in the tournament.Valparaiso brings to the table a class 4A No.3 ranking and an unblemished 10-0 record.Perry Meridian comes in with a 9-2 record and a class 4A No.8 ranking.

Viking Boys Sluggish In First Win

AKRON - After Tuesday night's game against Wabash, Valley boys head basketball coach Bill Patrick said that his team had a tendency to play to the level of its competition.That may have been the case in the Vikings 65-53 season-opening win against the Apaches. Valley jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the opening minutes of the first quarter and seemed to coast from there, save an early second-quarter run. Leading by a slim margin of 12-10 to start the second period, the Vikings showed a glimpse of intensity.Shane Denny's jump hook in the lane put Valley back in the lead 13-12 after Wabash's Matt Hicks nailed a three pointer to open up the period. Valley's David Lash whipped the crowd into frenzy when he stole an Apache pass and drove the length of the court before throwing down a tomahawk slam with a Wabash defender in his hip pocket. The dunk capped a 9-0 run that allowed the Vikings to return to autopilot.

AIDS Day Came And Went

World AIDS Awareness Day came and went. Did anyone notice? Did anyone know that Dec.1 was AIDS day? If I hadn't seen a brief in the back of some magazine, I wouldn't have noticed or known at all.I'm sure I'm not the only one. One in 300 Americans is HIV positive or has AIDS.AIDS is the second leading cause of death among all Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.In the United States, half of all new HIV infections occur in people under age 25.And one-third of Americans who are HIV positive are unaware of their infection. That's pretty staggering. Yet a day dedicated to making people more aware about the disease and the people affected disappeared before it even came. One reason could be that too many people think there's a cure out on the market and the scare is over.Wrong. There is no cure yet for AIDS or HIV.

Blount Hired By ML Motorsports

When the ARCA RE/MAX Series holds it's annual awards banquet tonight, ML Motorsports will cart away a trophy for finishing fifth in the 2004 season standings. Next year, the members of the Warsaw-based stock car team believe they can sit at the head of the table as the series champion. After hiring 25-year-old Walkerton native Chad Blount, the crew at ML Motorsports expect to make some noise during the 2005 season.They expect to qualify on the pole, win races and challenge now six-time ARCA champ Frank Kimmel.

Letters to the Editor 03-02-2000

Dealing With The Problem Of Child Abuse

Children count on their parents to protect them. When they can no longer count on their parents for that protection, something is wrong. Marie Noe pleaded guilty to killing her eight children between 1949 and 1968.The 70-year-old Pennsylvania woman will not go to jail. Researchers want to study her instead to learn more about why mothers kill their newborns. In Brooklyn, Ind., Elizabeth Sanders was investigated for the death of her 16-month-old child.She claims her son, Dylan, fell out of his crib, possibly landing on a toy.Doctors say he died of blunt force trauma to the abdomen. For two years, Ronald Shanabarger plotted to father a baby with his wife, let her bond with the baby and then kill the seven-month-old Tyler.Had he not confessed to the suffocation of the child, doctors would have ruled the death Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He wanted to get revenge on his wife for not returning from a trip when his father died.

Letters to the Editor 02-16-2000

- Tire Dump - Accountability - Property Damage - Cheap And Unfair Tire Dump Editor, Times-Union: It sure is nice to see the tire dump at Atwood finally being cleaned up.The people in this area owe a big "thank you" to some men and women who have worked hard for several years to see this through and finally get some action.Justin and Laura Roberts, Jim and Pam Roberts and Bill and Evelyn Bradbury have spent their own money; spent thousands of hours; endured threats against them, their children and grandchildren; and still fought to do what was best for this area.

Plymouth Contains Zolman But Can't Stop Warriors

Five-foot-10 Wawasee junior Shanna Zolman stood in a hallway Saturday night and spoke of how good she thought her team could be if all five starters played at the same level in one game. She says that hasn't happened yet.Moments earlier her coach/father Kem Zolman said the same thing. "I don't know how dangerous we can be," Shanna Zolman, the state's leading scorer at 33.8 points per game, said."We don't know who is going to step up on any given night.When all five of us are clicking, we're gonna be state contenders." On a night Zolman was held to 17 points, the second-lowest scoring total of her career, the 3A No.3 Warriors were still good enough to top 3A No.6 Plymouth 47-44 in the championship game of the inaugural Northern Lakes Conference Tournament. Wawasee, a team that starts four sophomores and one junior, improves to 12-0 with the win; Plymouth, a team that started four seniors and a junior, falls to 7-3.

Letters to the Editor 02-25-2000

John Glenn Shows That Age Doesn't Preclude Adventure

U.S.Senator and American astronaut John Glenn's return trip to outer space Thursday can serve as a reminder to us all.That reminder is that no matter how old we get, we can still reach the stars. Glenn is 77 and returned to outer space Thursday 36 years after his first trip. Glenn last went into space before Nixon's resignation, before the end of the Vietnam War and before many high school students and college students today were born. In our trendy, pop-culture, fast food, channel-surfing times, we sometimes forget that we are all aging.There is no fountain of youth where we can remain forever young, even though cosmetic companies would have you believe otherwise.The phrase, "It won't happen to me!" doesn't apply here. The human body ages, for all people.I'll get old, you'll get old, and that one person you had a crush on back in high school will get old.It's the way it works.

Tough Tournament Awaits Warsaw Girls Basketball Team

A girls basketball tournament with Mount Vernon, Perry Meridian and Valparaiso, all top-notch programs, looms less than 48 hours away, but Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst has other problems to deal with on a Tuesday afternoon. His practice begins at 1:30 p.m., but a team from Cincinnati competing in the boys basketball tournament is supposed to get the gym at 2 p.m.The freshman girls basketball team thought its practice was supposed to be held in the auxiliary gym, but it's set up for gymnastics practice.Now all the girls basketball players are playing on the main gym floor, until they are kicked out when the Cincinnati team arrives. Before practice, a player stands in the doorway and asks Wienhorst if he tapes ankles, since the assistant who usually tapes her ankles will not be at practice. Finding a place to practice, taping ankles and getting through the day are Wienhorst's main concerns.The tournament is still two days away.

On The Court Boys Basketball Previews

He's Not Ready To Give Up On Humanity

We live in this world for just a limited time.Some of us may live to be 100.Others may die as children. It's because we don't know the length of our lives that we must make the very best of it.But living a fulfilling life does not come easy.Many forces push against us and even knock us down. As children, those forces came in the form of school bullies, difficult teachers or not being able to get what we want.We think they are important issues at the time, but as we grow older, we realize they are not. During our teenage years, we are pushed down by our peers, restrictions such as curfew, and not having enough money to do what we want to do.We think they are important, but again, we realize they are not when we are older.

Rochester Upends Valley In Plymouth Tourney Opener

PLYMOUTH - For the Tippecanoe Valley Vikings on Monday night, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In the opening game of the Plymouth Holiday Tournament, Valley led Rochester by 14 points midway through the third quarter.However, when the final buzzer sounded, the Zebras had bounced back for a 66-65 victory. The key was free-throw shooting, and the Vikings couldn't do it when they had the opportunity to put away a young Rochester team.Valley made just 12 of 25 from the charity stripe, while Rochester knocked in 15 of 20.But even worse, it seemed that Valley's misses came at the wrong times. For instance, late in the second quarter, Scott Cooksey went to the line with a chance to give his team an 11-point lead going into halftime.However, he missed both free throws and the Vikings held just a 32-23 lead at the intermission.

Letters to the Editor 03-15-2000

- School Violence - Programming Problem - 14th Amendment School Violence Editor, Times-Union: In one of your past issues of the Times-Union, you stated that we should do something about the violence in the schools, using that six-year-old girl in Michigan as an example.

Letters to the Editor 03-23-2000

- Respect The Flag - 'Class' Basketball - Congratulations Tigers - Census Intrusion - Relay For Life - Gas Prices Respect The Flag Editor, Times-Union: For those who want to light Old Glory on fire, stomp all over it or spit on it to make some sort of "statement," I say let them do it.But under one condition: they MUST get permission from three sponsors. First, you need permission of a war veteran. Second, you need a signature from an immigrant. Third, you should get the signature of a mother.

Letters to the Editor 03-30-2000