The Indiana primary election is being held today and the voting is under way.  The polls opened at 6am this morning and voting will continue until 6pm.  I was amazed at the excitement I saw this morning from Barack Obama supporters. On my way driving into Fort Wayne at 6:30am  Read the rest of this entry »

Wimzit.com and the Decatur Indiana Community site has joined partners with Rent.com to help you find rental houses, apartments and condo’s in the  Decatur, Fort Wayne and Bluffton Areas.  If you have ever looked for a rental house in the Adams County area you know how hard it can be to locate one without knowing the area.   Read the rest of this entry »

Wimzit.com the home of this site ” Decatur Indiana Community” is starting to get heavy search engine traffic.  If you have a local organization  in North East Indian that is hosting a function or event and would like some publicity email us at Read the rest of this entry »

    In today’s high tech world of the Internet you need to take special care to protect then not only from local dangers but those that may come from outside your community.  My children have been taught from a young age never to post their real name, photo’s, or other identifying information on over the Internet without my permission.  I thought this would be sufficient until I realized other parents might not take the same precautions.

Out of curiosity one day I took the time to sit down with my daughter and have her show me the sites she visits and uses to meet and share ideas with her friends.  I was shocked to find out that all her friends had profiles on MySpace.  I didn’t think in the small rural town of Decatur, IN it would be that popular among the teenage kids.  The fact that the kids were using these pages wasn’t nearly as shocking as what I found on their sites.  Most of the pages included kids real names, photo’s and basically their entire history throughout their chats.  My daughter didn’t quite understand why this upset me so until I pointed out several things about her I could derive from the sites. Here is some of the common information I found about her and her friend by just viewing their sites and reading their chat.

• Just about every teenager’s full name was listed either in a chat post or directly on the site.      
• Reading the chats I could just about tell you where every one of the kids went to school, worked, or just hung out on the weekend.      
• Most of them even times where they would be at or leaving one of these places.     
• I could tell you what make model and color of car most of them drove.     
• Some were so bold as to list their home addresses.     
• Just about every one of them had a photo showing them and their friend, most pointing out names of each person in the photo.      
• The scariest thing I found was the over half of them were using public profiles allowing anyone to view and comment on their site. 

Some of you may think, so what? Their kids let them have their fun. For those of you that think this way, do you realize that this information is a child predator’s dream come true?  I don’t know about other areas, but in Decatur, In there are 18 registered sex offenders. Why would you let your children expose themselves to such dangers? Please be responsible and monitor how your children are using the Internet.   

I did a little more research on the compliant filed contesting John McCain’s presence on the Indiana Ballot.  I have been unable to find anything on either the Indiana Republican party site or the National Republican Committee site.  I’m surprised that there wasn’t at least mention of it on the Indiana Republican Party website.  I did however find a report on FortWayneNews.com that states an Indiana Republican Party member went to the state Election division and counted 531 signatures on file in the 4Th congressional district for John McCain. We’ll have to continue to watch and see if any official press release comes out about this issue.

UPDATE:  The motion to have John McCain removed from the Indiana ballot was officially dismissed by the courts on Wed March 13th.

Bellmont High School in Decatur Indiana was the seen of this years Winter Spectacular. The Winter Spectacular brought in show choirs from thought northeast Indiana.  There were several different competitions that were held throughout a day of exciting singing and dancing.  The day was kicked off by performances by the Ladies division (female only) show choirs.  The schools that participated in this event were Garrett High School’s Rhythms Connection, Columbia City High School’s City Lights, East Noble High School’s Premier Edition, East brook High School’s Kittens, Northrop High School’s Ville de Filles, and Southport High School’s Simply Chic.  The Bellmont High School’s L.E.G.S also performed an exhibition at the end of this competiton.  Winning first place in the ladies show choir division was the “Ville de Filles” from Northrop High School.
   The mixed divisions show choirs that include both male and female performers followed this division of show choir competition.  The small show choir group was the first of the mixed division choirs to perform at the Winter Spectacular.  The included Lakeland High School’s New Wave, Southwestern’s Esprit, East Noble’s Knight Rhythms, Lakeview High School’s Spartanaires, and Southern Wells High School’s Singers.  The Lakeview Spartanaires that traveled all the way from Michigan won Grand Champion for the Small Choir group.
  Next to perform was the large choirs that included Northrop’s Charisma, Columbia City’s City Heat and Churubusco’s New Era. Prior to the award ceremonies Bellmont High School’s Brave Generation performed an exhibition to finish off the evening.  Winning Grand Champion of the large choir division was Northrop High School’s Charisma.  I must say it was quite an exiting performance that had the crowd standing on their feet.

I was surfing the web today for further information on the Bellmont High School Student that brought a gun to school.  It is amazing how much is actually being published about this topic.  Its not only on Adams County local sites but national news forums as well.  One respose I found was from a user named Bellmont Staff.  I am assuming from this poster’s comments the he or she is an actual teacher from Bellmont High School or the North Adams County School Board.  Here is that user’s response to a forum on topix.com :

“Just wanted to let everyone know that the staff was not told of the situation either. We still have not been officially told anything. The only information we have to go on is rumor. In fact, one “rumor” that has not been put in print is that the student brought the gun and loaded clips to school to sell them. I’m finding it disturbing to see the whole situation reduced to a student being curious. This is not a 5 year old child we are talking about here.
The school was not put under lockdown because the situation was “under control”. With what criteria did they use to determine that the situation was “under control”—a 15 year old that had just brought a gun and loaded clips to school? The only way to be reasonably certain of the situation is to follow the procedures set forth for a lockdown and search lockers and backpacks. The comments I have been hearing from students and staff sounds eerily familiar to all the other situations that have ended with dead bodies instead of a loaded gun and clips. “

Obviously since the post is by “Bellmont Staff” I cannot say for certain it was written by a teacher but sure sounds like it to me. I can’t believe that Bellmont School Staff wasn’t fully informed about the goings on at their own school.

 The internet isnt the only place to hear about the gun incident at Bellmont School.  It has also been widely covered on local radio stations like WOWO and all of the local Fort Wayne T.V. news reports. Its a shame the only time Decatur, In gets recognition is when a kid takes a gun to school or a grandmother gets beaten by her grandaughter and friends. 

An Adams County teenager takes a gun to school.  Decatur police were called to Bellmont High School after receiving a tip that a student had a gun in his locker.  Decatur police found a small calibur handgun in the teens locker.  The gun was unloaded , however there was a clip loaded with ammunition found with the gun.  Students at the Adams County School were unaware of the incident until after the gun had been seized.  School officials thought it best to keep it quiet so as not to create a panic among the other Bellmont students.  Has Decatur, IN caught up with the big cities? Should the Adams County School Board consider installing metal detectors at Bellmont High School like the schools of larger towns?  What happened to the days when we only worried about our kids smoking and drinking at parties?

Indiana has 3 contestants in the American Idol top 24 finals this year.  This is the seventh season that American Idol has been around and this year marks a big one for the midwest tv viewers.  We have Amy Davis , Luke Menard and Amanda Overmyer all representing Indiana in the American Idol season 7 competition.  In addition there is another midwest teenager  Garrett Haley from Elida, Oh that has qualified for the Top 24 in American Idol.  Im very curious to see how the Indiana American Idols do this season.  good luck to all of you.

Bellmont High school will be hosting the ISSMA ( Indiana State School Music Association) district competition Saturday Feb. 2nd.  For those of you with children attending remember this can be a stressfull event for them.  For some of those competing, it will be their first time in a solo event,  help them be prepared by reviewing all the requirements at issma.net  Make sure they get a good nights sleep and breakfast the in the morning before the competition.