Farewell hot summer.

Thanks for the memories!

            Greetings all. Summer is over. Fall colors, Halloween, elections, Thanksgiving, Hobbit Day, and Christmas are fast approaching.

            Seems like only yesterday we were publishing the Primary Election Guide for Hendricks County. Now, the General Election Guide is just about ready to be mailed to every household in Hendricks County. There are over 80,500 households in the county.

            Thank God we are not a swing state. We have family in Wisconsin, and they are already tired of all the political ads being blasted using television, radio, newspapers, podcasts, social media, Morse Code, ASL, smoke signals, semaphores, billboards, and telegraph machines.

            Of course, if we were a swing state The Republican would not complain about all the advertising. Maybe if we try real hard, we can make Indiana a swing state for the next election.

Legislators are Gearing Up

            This is the time of year when our veteran state legislators are crafting and building support for the bills they want to introduce into the 2027 Indiana General Assembly.

            Not all legislators start working this early on bills for next year’s session, but the most successful legislators do. Is your legislator one of the successful ones that starts early to build support for their bills on both sides of the aisle before the session begins? Ask them. They are here for you and don’t forget that.

            Also remember, next year is a budget year for the General Assembly. Your Representative Jeff Thompson is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the single biggest architect of our state’s budget.

            Feel free to reach out to him to better understand where your money is going to be spent for the next two years. Yes, it is your money.

The Importance of Local Journalism

            Last week I was invited by the Hendricks County Community Foundation to attend a breakout session of the Indiana Philanthropic Alliance’s conference in downtown Indy.

            The breakout session had to do with how local community foundations could support the newsrooms in their communities. Lucky for us, HCCF already understands how important the work is we are doing in Hendricks County.

            However, I was also invited to the big dinner that evening where they held a moderated discussion with representatives of the MacArthur Foundation and the Lumina Foundation.

            I can’t tell you how floored I was to hear them talking about the importance of local journalism. It was like the heavens opening and a choir of angels telling us that they see us and recognize the hard work we are doing. Validation. Thank you, William, Eric, Frances, Deb and Skylar for inviting me to the conference. It meant a lot.

KevDog, the Reporter

            I never know what is going to happen around the office when I leave town for a few days.

Apparently, while on vacation our dog Kevin got a job at the newspaper. I know we are supposed to be an equal opportunity employer but that’s a bit ridiculous.

            She seemed to have had a good time though. Looking at pictures in the newspaper and on Facebook I saw her drinking from my coffee mug, visiting Frank’s Place where I eat a lot of times, hanging out at the Gallery on the Square and Forget-Me-Nots and napping in her little bed in the front office. She’s a chip off the old block.

No, I didn’t get Kevin’s pronouns wrong. No, Kevin did not have a sex change. Kevin is a girl dog. Don’t ask. Well, you can ask my wife, she named her.

From the Archives:

            Every now and then a longtime subscriber and contributor to The Republican will send me snippets of things he finds from past issues of our newspaper. Here is one from March 2, 1893.

The man who would steal or mutilate a newspaper belonging to another is a man to be watched. Of course lots of good things appear in The Republican. That’s what everybody says, but they get it in an honorable way, by subscribing.

That’s all for this week. Thank you all for your support of this 179-year-old Hendricks County treasure.

See you next week. Sayonara.‍ ‍