Happy Father's Day!

Sunday, June 18, 2023

PEOPLE OF SHELBYVILLE: Local Teacher Creates Summer Job

Teachers are accustomed to solving problems, so when Andrew and Arielle Nance’s mosquito control provider retired, they weighed their options.

“I looked into it and thought, I can do that,” Mr. Nance said.

So he read the training manuals and earned his license for self-application.

“And then the neighbor saw me. He wanted it, and then he told somebody at church, and it got to about four or five people,” he said.

Nance contacted state regulators through Purdue University to take the leap to commercialization. The result was a dozen-plus customers without any marketing.

“Last year was basically teachers, friends and family,” Mr. Nance, who teaches at Shelbyville High School along with his wife, said.

This year, he put up Nance Mosquito Solutions yard signs and started a Facebook page, which resulted in business more than tripling.

The business, which operates when temperatures reach 60 degrees in the spring to when they dip back to 60 degrees in the fall, keeps Nance’s summers busy as he sprays local yards and landscaping for mosquitos, ticks, fleas and other types of outdoor pests. The application, which is safe for humans and pets, lasts about three weeks.

“I'm a people person,” Nance said. “I meet so many different people in this job and hear their backgrounds. And that’s what I love about teaching too.”

NOTEBOOK

• STATE NEWS: Former longtime alcohol lobbyist Marc Carmichael is Democrats’ first candidate this cycle to announce a bid for Indiana’s open U.S. Senate seat. Carmichael would face an uphill battle against the likely Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Columbia City). Carmichael spent nearly five years in the Indiana House of Representatives in the late '80s and early '90s. He also ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 1996. Carmichael spent two decades as head of the Indiana Beverage Alliance, a trade association for beer distributors, before retiring in 2020. (Indiana Public Media)

This Day in Shelby County History

2018: Waldron junior Dalen Williams participated in the discus event at the USATF Junior Olympics State Championship, held at Ball State.

2013: John and Kathleen Freeman celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Mr. Freeman was a retired colonel/director of U.S. Army Aviation. They were the parents of the late Mark (Jill), Paul (Valerie), Phil (Liz) and Theresa (Frank) Griffin.

2008: The old Cedar Ford Bridge, Shelby County's last surviving wood-covered span, was purchased by Monroe County to be reassembled there. The bridge, which once spanned the Little Blue River on German Road a few miles east of Shelbyville, had been hauled away in pieces by a Rush County woodworker to be stored in a barn for 18 years before Monroe County officials stepped in.

2003: The Class 2A No.2-ranked Triton Central Tigers advanced to the state championship game at Victory Field. The team had won the first baseball sectional in school history, then won the regional.

1998: The Shelbyville News issued a correction regarding their reporting that the last Golden Bears team to win a section had been in 1982. Brett Means called in to report it was actually 1984. That sectional was the Golden Bears' fifth in nine years under Coach Tom Hession. In the bottom of the seventh inning of the 1984 sectional, the team was down 8-7 against Greensburg. Brian Tackett walked with one out and was forced out at second base on Kirk Lawrence's grounder. That brought up the Bears' No. 9 hitter, Randy Mathies. The junior had been pinch-hit for in the previous inning and had not homered at all that season. But on a 1-1 count, Mathies blasted a 380-foot homer over the center-field fence to win, 9-8. Shelbyville had rallied from a 7-2 deficit.

1993: Restoration was completed on the Chillon Lodge Knights of Pythias building, the one with a turret, on Public Square. It was one of three buildings owner George Lux had restored to their original appearance, including the Irwin Union Bank building (originally the Major-Hunker building) at 29 Public Square and 1 Public Square.

1988: Shelby Eastern retirees were honored with plaques: Clarence Cox, director of building and grounds; Jack Hasecuster, custodian; Anna Mae Reed, elementary teacher; Mary Barlow, head cook; Audrey Romack, elementary teacher; and Marian Small, cook.

1983: Wellman Group cut 56 local jobs by eliminating the manufacture of its industrial furnace line. Local officials said the line had lost money seven consecutive years.

1978: The number of false alarm pulls on the Gamewell alarm boxes had increased dramatically, Fire Chief Wayne Williamson said. Two juveniles and four adults had been arrested for making false alarms in 1978.

1973: Winners of the Auxiliary Police Rodeo were Todd Copple, 4, and Kristi Riggs, 2, youngest boy and girl to catch a fish; Teresa Anderson, "most fish" with 44; Victor Chancy, largest fish; Roger Lay and Cherry Headlee, first boy and girl to catch a fish; Hugh Coy, 69, oldest man to catch; Helen Freese, 50, oldest women; and Mack McCoy, most poundage, 38 pounds, 12 ounces (41 fish). The pond had been stocked with 800 pounds of catfish.

1968: City Police Officer James Pickett was re-elected to his third straight term as trustee of the state Fraternal Order of Police.

David Bird was appointed as the Urban Intern with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Chicago. Bird had recently graduated from Ball State University.

1963: An estimated 2,500 kids participated in the seventh annual Shelby County Fishing Rodeo, hosted at Little Blue River. A newspaper photo showed Dale Collins releasing a catfish from a row boat. Bill Suiter of the Sportsmen's League was at the oars and Dan Collins was in charge of the balloons which were kept in a large paper bag in the front of the boat. The balloons were attached to the fish, then they were released.

1958: A newspaper photo showed Max Miller, 8, of Shelby Township, with his new pets, six baby skunks. The mother had "met an untimely end when caught in a raid on the hen house," the caption read.

1953: Local attorney J.P. Barnard announced a new industry would be started here which would manufacture and fabricate laminate produced from fiber glass and fiber glass insulation. The business would employ 10 and be conducted at 917 Lincoln Ave. in a building leased from Arnold Fogle, and which was previously the site of the Fogle Manufacturing Company. The new industry, called Shelby Products, followed the founding of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company here.

1948: Two Shelby County candidates would be competing for the Farm Bureau Queen designation at the State Fair. Paule Cole, of Geneva, was first to enter. Ellame Owens, who graduated from Shelbyville High School and just finished at Ball State Teachers College, was the second.

1943: Twenty-seven years to the day since Walter Wintin entered service in World War I, the Shelbyville Police Chief returned for service in World War II.  He was sworn in as "a machinist's mate in the Sea-Bees, the hard-fighting construction forces of the United States Navy," The Republican reported. Wintin resigned his local position before leaving.

1938: Sandman Brothers marked its 20th anniversary. The firm had been established by the late William and Chester Sandman, the present owner.

1933: The contingency of young men from Shelbyville serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps, better known as the reforestation army, were en route to San Pierre, Ind. after conditioning training in Fort Knox, Ken. "The work has been hard, and the food has not been ideal, because of a lack of competent cooks, parents of some of the Shelbyville boys have been informed, but nearly all of the boys enrolled have evidenced a determination to stay with it for the full six months' period," The Republican reported.

1928: A large delegation of local residents left for Logansport to attend the annual convention of the Indiana Sunday School Association. They carried banners and badges advertising Shelbyville to host the meeting in 1929.

1923: A flow of gas appeared in the well which was shot on property owned by Dorsey Jones on West Broadway, previously thought to only be a "bloomer." The owners double-checked after smelling gas and discovered what appeared to be enough gas to supply one house.

OBITUARIES

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