24 hours in muncie 2

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_1_C

www.thestarpress.com Sunday, March 20, 2011 • 21E

F2F3F2F3

9-10 a.m.: No such thing as ‘strangers’ Almost as quickly as the order is taken, it appears from the kitchen,

a member of the wait staff softly smiling as he or she sets the plate of piping hot food in front of the customer. The customer smiles back, eager to dig in.

That’s pretty much how it goes for the next hour at Eva’s Pancake House. It’s 9 a.m. at Eva’s, and while the place isn’t packed, it’s not empty either. There’s a continual flow of customers, keeping the employees busy but not overwhelmed.

About five booths near a window looking out on Wheeling Avenue are occupied — people there with family, spouse, a friend or alone. Besides the music piping in from the internal system, the place is pretty quiet. Almost peaceful, if a restaurant can be described as such. No need to compete with others or loud music to be heard. Every once in a while the voice of a little girl in a highchair can be heard. Two TVs — one in front, the other in back — play, but the sound is muted. The sound of clanking dishes as plates are emptied serves as a reminder of the location.

Manager Dave Lawless keeps a watchful eye on everything, making sure customers are greeted as they come in. Lawless also has his eye on the plants at Eva’s, taking time to water them.

The economy has changed the restaurant business but recovery is in sight, Lawless says.

“Regulars aren’t as regular,” Lawless says. “Where they were regular every day, now they may be regular twice a week. I see a slow process of people are starting to come back a little more often.”

One regular, Buck Deacon, stops in this Wednesday morning to grab some of his favorite food and meet a friend.

“It’s a neat place,” Deacon says. “Atmosphere is nice.”That atmosphere is one where strangers become acquaintances.

As a woman, who has been sitting with her husband, puts her coat on, she stops and stoops down to talk to the little girl sitting behind her. Introductions with the other adults at the table are made, and the three chat as if they were old friends before the woman and her hus-band leave.

— Oseye T. Boyd

As Judge Marianne Vorhees takes the bench to begin a series of hearings in criminal cases, most seats in her courtroom are occupied.

The jury box is full, not of jurors, but of criminal defendants, a dozen men clad in orange and white jail uniforms. Each man’s ankles are linked with

chains, with his hands both cuffed and connected to a waist belt.In the courtroom gallery are friends and relatives of those prisoners, other criminal

defendants who were able to secure their release from custody while awaiting trial, and about a half-dozen defense attorneys.

What will prove to be a long morning of hearings begins with Vorhees talking via speaker phone with a non-present inmate’s attorney, asking for a continuance as the inmate pursues treatment for drug addiction.

A few yards away, sheriff’s deputies have instructed one of the prisoners to join pub-lic defender Ron Smith in the gallery.

Smith asks his prospective client a series of a ques-tions.

“Have you ever been diagnosed with any mental health problems?” he begins.

Another public defender, John Quirk, sits at the defense table with his client, a young Muncie man facing drug-related charges.

Quirk tells the judge he is engaged in “ongoing negotiations” with Deputy Prosecutor Diane Frye, who sits with a Community Corrections employee at the prosecution table. While a plea bargain might be in the works, for now the trial of Quirk’s client will remain set for mid-April.

Public defender Jake Dunnuck and another drug defendant take the defense table, and Dunnuck reports he’s “pretty sure” his client’s two pending cases will soon be “wrapped up” with an agreement.

Vorhees moves on to a pre-trial hearing for another Dunnuck client, but it ends abruptly.

“He has not arrived yet,” the attorney tells the judge.

The next hearing sees Vorhees revoke the sus-pended sentence of a young man who has tested positive for cocaine three times since his August convictions on forgery, fraud and battery charges.

“Judge, all I would like to say is I’m sorry,” the 28-year-old defendant says. “Other than using the past five years, I’ve been doing the best I can.”

He pleads for “one more chance.” His mother testifies that he has been considered “a good worker” at a local restaurant, but concedes to Deputy Prosecutor Frye that his employers were probably unaware of his drug use.

“I think Thomas need inpatient treatment,” the Community Corrections worker says. “I think he wants to be clean; I just don’t think he can while

he’s out.”Vorhees agrees, telling the defendant that serving a six-year sentence in prison, rath-

er than on probation, is “going to be your best option” given his repeated drug use.A man jailed on a driving-while-intoxicated charge is called to the defense table,

and is told he is a candidate to be placed on electronic home detention while he awaits resolution of the case, part of a program aimed at reducing jail overcrowding.

That man, however, elects to remain in jail.“It’s just not possible,” he tells the judge.” I live with my parents. I’m not going to put

that embarrassment on them.”— Douglas Walker

A few yards away, sheriff’s deputies have instructed one of the prisoners to join pub-

9-10 a.m.: Delaware Circuit Court 1

Felony chargesTotal felony criminal charges

filed in Delaware County courts during 2010:❙ Circuit Court 1: 238.❙ Circuit Court 2: 244.❙ Circuit Court 3: 290.❙ Circuit Court 4: 276.❙ Circuit Court 5: 249.The cases are filed on a rotating

basis based on the month in which an alleged crime occurs.

OSEYE T. BOYD / THE STAR PRESS

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_3_CMU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_2_C

22E • Sunday, March 20, 2011 www.thestarpress.com

In a small room tucked away in the back of Hair Matterz, Mattie Wallace holds court.

Wallace is a hairstylist, and everyone who walks in her “office” is there so she can work

magic on them. And work her magic she does. Already this morning, Wallace is juggling three cli-ents — one in her chair, another waiting to be rinsed and another under a dryer — when a fourth walks in. Later, another client running a few minutes behind, calls to let Wallace know. No big deal, Wallace tells her. She has plenty going on.

Such is the life of a hairdresser or beautician or hairstylist. No matter which title one chooses, the outcome is the same: women are transformed when they sit in that chair.

As the woman under the dryer reads a book, Wallace curls the hair of the woman in her chair. As soon as she finished with the curls, she moves the waiting customer to the shampoo room. After she’s finished in the shampoo room, the woman moves into the chair — Wallace’s chair — right in front of her station. It’s the chair where Wallace does her work. She grabs some hair gel and gets busy, twisting and parting hair into the client’s desired style.

On her table, next to various magazines, hair sup-plies and other things a hairdresser needs, sits a hair oven with what looks like every curling iron a beau-

tician would ever need.Decorated with an animal print rug, two dryers,

a loveseat and two chairs on the opposite end of Wallace’s station, the room is anything but quiet. Customers talk freely to each other, catching up on the latest happenings. Wallace joins in the conversa-tion, sharing stories and laughs with the woman in her chair. From the conversations, it’s easy to tell there’s a familiarity between the women. Longtime clients of Wallace’s, the women bump into each other at the shop.

Wallace also has a magazine rack. This is no nor-mal magazine rack, however. Sure there are enter-tainment magazines lining the shelves, but more importantly there are hair magazines featuring the latest, hottest cuts, colors and hairstyles. Clients often flip through the pages, looking for a new ’do.

Throughout the hour, Wallace continues the jug-gling of customers. When she finishes styling the hair of the client in the chair, she moves her to the dryer and the woman under the dryer to the chair, where she removes hair rollers and styles. Once Wallace is done with that client, she takes her next waiting client to the shampoo bowl to wash her hair. As if on cue, just as the shampoo is finished, another client walks in the door.

— Oseye T. Boyd

10-11 a.m.: Conversation matters

Decorated with an animal print rug, two dryers, a loveseat and two chairs on the opposite end of Wallace’s station, the room is anything but quiet. Customers talk freely to each other,

catching up on the latest happenings. Wallace joins

in the conversation, sharing stories and laughs with the

woman in her chair.

LEFT: Mattie Wallace finishes up washing Renee Peak’s hair at Hair Matterz.

BELOW LEFT: Mattie Wallace gets a hug from long-time customer Sandra Rowe at Hair Matterz. Rowe used to babysit Wallace when she was just 3 years old.

PHOTOS BY KURT HOSTETLER / THE STAR PRESS



F4F5F4F5



The volunteers at Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana’s warehouse work with assembly-line efficiency to fill grocery bags for needy schoolchildren.

The seven or eight workers walk one by one past a gauntlet of food-laden skids — cookies, graham crackers, macaroni and cheese, rice, fruit packs — using one hand to hold the plastic Marsh bag while the other one stuffs it.

“Two milks and then one of each of everything else,” volunteer Tonnee Wilson says.

They then pass the full bags off to Kevin Ross, who counts as he lightly tosses them into a huge cardboard box with the number 176 on the side, his goal num-ber.

“Seventy-one. Seventy-two,” he counts.

In 2010, Second Harvest provided almost 9 million pounds of food to needy people in eight counties in East Central Indiana. The agency relies heavily on volunteer power. Last year, volunteers from across the community, includ-ing churches, Ball State University and Delaware County Community Corrections, put in 10,000

hours of unpaid work.On this Wednesday, the warehouse crew includes 14

volunteers at three stations, four part-time employees and only one full-time employee.

Two men operate forklifts nonstop, pulling goods off two trailers parked in receiving bays.

The temperature in the warehouse is just 55 degrees, meaning that workers wear coats and hooded sweatshirts, but it still beats working outside in 14-degree weather.

At the far end of the 30,000-foot facility, four volun-teers break down 40-pound boxes of sweet potatoes into portions more suitable for a single family, tossing bad and broken potatoes into a large bin.

In between, stacks of Huggies diapers and other neces-sities stretch 15 feet into the air.

The quantities seem enormous, but Operations Director Joe Fox explains they won’t stay warehoused for long.

“It turns so quick,” he said.— Nick Werner

volunteer Tonnee Wilson says.

10-11 a.m.: Feeding the hungry

Second Harvest by the numbers1983: The year Second Harvest incorporated.

8: The number of counties in East Central Indiana served by the local Second Harvest.

110: The number of programs Second Harvest provides food for, including 65 church food pantries and a number of soup kitchens, shelters and after-school programs.

205: The number of food banks such as Second Harvest across the United States.

8.7 million: Pounds of food donated by Second Harvest last year.

10,000: Hours of unpaid work volunteers performed for Second Harvest in 2010.

Jeremy Babb sorts sweet potatoes at Second Harvest Food Bank on Feb. 9.

NICK WERNER / THE STAR PRESS



F6F7F6F7



Paula Morris has quite a few perks as the program director for Huffer Memorial Children’s Center.

As she sits in the agency’s new baby room, rocking an eight-month-old baby girl to sleep at 11 a.m., she is clearly experiencing one of them.

“I think I can speak for all of us when I say we care first and foremost for children and their growth,” Morris says.

“We want them to grow up to be all they can be and that means providing them with opportu-nities now to reach their goals. We all love these children.”

Close to 140 children between six weeks and 12 years of age spend time at Huffer, meeting with early childhood teachers, eating lunch and taking the naps that many of them resist.

The facility is clearly child-focused, with toys and bright colors greeting visitors at the front door. That’s assuming you get past the front door, which is locked for the children’s protection.

In the baby room, infants coo at each other, speaking a language only they understand, flash-ing a smile to any person who will pick them up to be played with, talked to or simply rocked. Well, until it’s time to go to sleep.

Then it’s time to settle down in the cribs with each baby’s name on it.

The older children, the 4- and 5-year-olds, have a different experience, spending time in a class-room where they learn the alphabet along with social skills.

And to say these children are inquisitive is an understatement.

“Did you know my mother’s name is Erica?” “Did you wash your hands?” “Did your mother tell you not to chew with your mouth full?” “Did you get to make your own sandwich?” “How much do you like tater tots?”

In one classroom on Feb. 9, co-teachers Brandi Smith and Toni Kirtz encourage the children’s questioning during a lunch that involves sloppy joes and vegetables.

After hearing her name called 40 times in a 30-minute time span, “Miss Brandi” can answer any question the children throw her way, causing one 4-year-old to declare, “She knows everything!”

By noon, it’s time for the pre-kindergarteners to take their naps, after cleaning up their tables and washing their hands.

Only then can Miss Brandi sit without hearing someone call her name.

— Ivy Farguheson

About Huffer ❙ Huffer Memorial Children’s Center opened in 1972.

❙ Some of the 16 teachers have been working at the center for more than 30 years; others have been serving children at Huffer for less than 10 years.

❙ In January, the agency opened a new room for infants, welcoming eight babies into the center. The baby program will expand in March to include two new rooms.

“I think I can speak for all of

us when I say we care first

and foremost for children and

their growth. We want them

to grow up to be all they can

be and that means providing

them with opportunities now

to reach their goals. We all

love these children.”

— PAULA MORRIS

11 a.m.-noonWhirlwind of activity

IVY FARGUHESON / THE STAR PRESS



F8F9F8F9



F10F11F10F11



11 a.m.-noon: Killing time

Top to bottom, clockwise:

Celeste Larson, a freshman, watches TV

while eating lunch at L.A. Pittenger Student Center at Ball State University on

Wednesday, Feb. 9.

Anastasia Meurer kills time at the Student Center

before going to class.

Dee Robinson, a junior at Ball State, waits to start her shift working in the

Student Center food court.

As so many do, John Mayfield works on his

laptop while at the Ball State Student Center.

Brittany Nedderman and Evan Nicola share lunch

time together.

Center below: Yousuf Bahrami gathers with

other graduate students from the physiology

department. The group of guys meets there every week for what they call

Taco Bell Wednesday. “It’s man time,” said Rocky

Anderson.

PHOTOS BY KURT HOSTETLER / THE STAR PRESS

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_11_C


F12F13F12F13

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_13_CMU_MN_3RD_N_B_F_12_C


Pam Harper sweeps around the din-ing room at Timbers Lounge with the momentum of a figure skater.

She delivers a burger to one table, then a soda refill to another before returning to her spot behind the bar.

“You ready to order?” she asks a man at the bar in a Green Bay Packers pullover. “You want a ten-derloin? I gotcha, babe.”

Timbers is a bar with a lot of personality, and like any great personality, this one is full of con-tradictions and idiosyncrasies.

The bar is workingclass with a strong court-house clientele.

Timbers is famous for its 25-foot-tall, fiberglass Paul Bunyan statue outside. Its building, a former gas station, has no windows, and interior walls are covered in wood paneling, neon signs for domestic beer brands and a variety of NASCAR memorabilia.

Yet for all the testosterone that went into designing Timbers, it’s women who make the world go round here during the lunch hour.

Harper anchors the dining room on this day with two other women, including owner Danyelle Cross.

Today’s special is spaghetti with meat sauce for $5.50.

At the height of the lunch hour, the women are taking care of 35 customers. One man wears a gray suit and orange tie. Two other men at a table near the door wear brown overalls.

Probably two-thirds of the customers are drinking water, tea or soft drinks, reflecting the fact that most people there are probably returning to work after-ward or some other responsibility that requires sobriety. One woman at the bar tells another she was heading to Burris Laboratory School afterward for a grand-son’s spelling bee.

“This is about normal,” Danyelle says. “It’s a mix. A lot of regulars and new faces.”

The lunch crowd often doesn’t die down until 2:30 p.m., but Pam doesn’t mind.

“We hope to be busy,” she tells The Star Press.

In the back, Bobi Goodpaster and Julie Studebaker take care of the cooking, dressed in identical camouflage pants and drab green T-shirts.

They alternate between the grill on one side

and a prep station on the other that faces out to the dining room through a serving window.

Music from a Top 40 station plays in the back-ground.

Goodpaster has worked at Timbers for 17 years.“Unless it’s steak, we can serve faster than

McDonald’s,” Goodpaster said. “We pride our-selves on that.”

Minutes later The Star Press puts Goodpaster’s claim to a test, ordering the famous Whitey Burger with lettuce, tomato and mayo and a side order of fries.

That burger is on the bar in 3 minutes and 59 seconds.

— Nick Werner

Noon-1 p.m.:Serving up lunch

About Paul Bunyan ❙ The Paul Bunyan statue has been at Timbers since 1993.

❙ He is 25- to 30-feet-tall and made of fiberglass, chicken wire and steel beams.

❙ Richard Kishel, a Burris High School art professor, built Paul in 1965 for Kirby Wood Lumber.

❙ Kirby Wood Lumber burned in 1988, but Paul survived the fire.

❙ Kishel also designed a big Uncle Sam that stood in front of the old Merle Lindsay Chevrolet dealership on South Walnut Street.

❙ Ol’ Paul has changed his look occasionally, dressing up as Santa Claus and a 1960s hippie.

“Unless it’s steak, we can serve faster than McDonald’s. We pride ourselves on that.”

— BOBI GOODPASTER

NICK WERNER / THE STAR PRESS

Julie Studebaker (left) and Bobi Goodpaster cook during the lunch hour at Timbers Lounge.

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_13_C


F14F15F14F15

For the first day in nine calendar days, the students of Northside Middle School are back for a full day of classes. A snow/ice storm the week before made for a series of closings followed by days shortened by two-

hour delays.Yet the long layoff has not created the drowsy, slow-moving

students one might expect.In room 109, the room of 11-year teaching veteran Joanne

Norris, a classroom full of sixth-grade math students not only seems attentive, but downright eager to learn about, of all things, linear functions.

Words like “variables” and “coefficients” fill the air.

The students start their class with a problem of the day, to which the answer is “y=-4x+2.” It’s a review of the work they had done the day before. Today, the group continues its pro-gression in the world of graph-ing three spots on a chart to form a line.

It is a fairly active class. Four to five kids raise their hands for each question Norris asks of them. One girl, Maddie, who sits in the middle of the class-room, wants a crack at every answer.

As the teacher next door can be heard raising her voice a bit through the retractable wall, Norris asks that the lights be turned off. Today’s lesson, like so many for Norris, is to be carried out on the real star of the show, a SMART Board — an interactive screen that the teacher and students can write on using Word documents as a modern-day answer to the chalk board.

The students are espe-cially energized by this, eagerly awaiting the moment near the end of class when Norris asks for volunteers to come work some equations on the gadget. Every hand in class goes up for that request. Some even leap from their seat in anticipation.

Says Norris of their enthusiasm after the snow days, “They were ready to come back. They got their rest.”

But this is not just a math class. There are other lessons being taught here, too. Like those of attentiveness, when Norris asks whether there are questions about last night’s homework but reminds the class that they should “listen closely, because I’m not answering the same question twice.”

There are lessons of compassion as well. As Norris explains this day’s homework, she kindly requests of her stu-dents that they use the numbers 0, 1 and 2 to work equations. They can use any number they want to find correct answers, but, Norris explains, doing so would make grading a much

more time-consuming process for her. Her students smile at the notion.

Halfway through this hour and after a passing period, teach-er Tyann Gillum is standing upstairs outside of her door, room 218, welcoming her eighth-grade social studies students.

Class begins with a silent reading session. Today it’s a sheet on Diana Ross, part of Black History focus, a daily reading for this group.

Later in the class, students break up into “constitution groups.” The six groups work on the project they are about

to present to the entire class — a rhyme, rap or rhythm using specific vocabulary words. Today, there are words like uncon-stitutional, bond, inauguration and impose, among others. The words each group struggles to use correctly, however, are precedent and speculator.

After group presentations, the class transitions into a bit of a lecture/discussion, first reviewing some material about “Thomas Jefferson and The Bitter Campaign.” And finally, just before the clock strikes 1 p.m., Gillum begins a discussion about inaugurations.

“How many of you saw President Obama get inaugurated last year? It would have been around your lunch period,” she says.

Several hands go up, all with the energy of a group who sat at home for nine days eager to learn.

— Greg Fallon

Noon-1 p.m.: Eager for knowledge

GREG FALLON / THE STAR PRESS

Northside Middle School sixth-grade math teach Joanne Norris works on linear equations with her students.

SMART BoardsNorthside Middle School is home to four SMART

Boards. Two reside permanently in the math

department while the others float around the school for teachers to

share.

There are lessons of compassion as well. As Norris explains this day’s homework,

she kindly requests of her students that they use the numbers 0, 1 and 2 to work

equations. They can use any number they want to find

correct answers, but, Norris explains, doing so would

make grading a much more time-consuming process for

her. Her students smile at the notion.



1-2 p.m.: A caring hand

Melanie Fancher is wearing running shoes. And she needs them.

A steady stream of stu-dents comes into her meticulously orga-nized office at Northside Middle School.

The first one has a headache. The next one needs her afternoon dose of prescription medication. Another comes in for Vaseline for chapped lips.

“Sorry, I’m all out,” Fancher says as she signs the student’s notebook (a hall pass of sorts). “Let’s be responsible for our own lips,” she adds with a smile before sending the student back to class.

As the school nurse, Fancher says she’s “seen it all.”

So far today, she has seen 30 kids.At a nearby desk, student helper

Benjamin Wurtz, 11, is working on his math homework. “I run passes to stu-dents, and when kids have nosebleeds, I can get the Kleenex for her,” he says before getting back to his equations.

Moments later, a young girl hobbles in with a sprained ankle. She fell down the steps on the way out of the wres-tling room, she says.

“I’m going to let you chill for about 15 minutes,” Fancher says, grabbing an ice pack and helping her into a small room, where the girl stretches out on a bed.

There are four small “patient” rooms, each with a bed.

There is also a special room set aside for students with diabetes, equipped with bins with their names on them, filled with their medications and blood sugar monitors.

A main area in the center has all her supplies within reach. One cabinet holds daily prescription meds for stu-dents. She gets the doses ready each morning. Cups are marked with the student’s name. A plastic tool cabinet — one she found at a hardware store — has a little drawer for each inhaler.

Another cabinet has the non-pre-scription meds kids use often, such as ibuprofen, Tylenol, all alphabetized by last names.

Labels on the drawers of another cabinet indicate what’s inside: scissors, tape, gauze, calamine lotion, gloves, alcohol, antibiotic ointment. There’s a sink stocked with plenty of plastic cups.

But the most important thing in that office?

“Ice,” Fancher says without hesitation. “Ice fixes everything.”

She pulls open the freezer, which is stocked with ice packs prepared by her student helpers.

Speaking of ice, 15 minutes is now up for the sprained ankle girl, so she heads back to class. “Come back and we’ll put more ice on it after class,” Fancher tells her.

Fancher grabs a quick glob of hand sanitizer. She does this after every stu-dent.

A girl strolls in with a sore throat.“Let me mix up the magic potion,”

Fancher says. The girl gargles with it, then heads back to class. The potion is a mix of warm water and salt. “Works every time,” Fancher says.

Most students are sent back to class. “A fever, that’s your ticket home,” Fancher says. So is vomiting or diarrhea, she adds as she makes a bee-line to her desk.

Noticing a small break from ailments, she sits down for the first time to write out an incident report on the girl with the sprained ankle.

— Michelle Kinsey

Back in the service department, an employee of American Chevrolet Cadillac is preparing some lucky new owner’s Silverado pickup truck for delivery, buffing its pearly white finish until it sparkles under the lights high above.

In one of the cubicles ringing the showroom, meanwhile, assistant sales manager Blake Absher is conferring across his desk with another couple shopping for a car.

They are already customers, of course. The aim is to make them new owners, too.

“That’ll be your bucket seats ...” you can hear in passing, before the person-able Absher’s voice trails away.

The showroom is large and packed with shiny cars radiating that new-car smell, one mixed with the faint aroma of coffee coming from the customer-waiting area. Wafting from the public-address system, in turn, is the sound of oldies from the Beatles, the Doobie Brothers and, perhaps slightly less wel-come, the Archies.

Back in his own cubicle, meanwhile, assistant sales manager Samuel Harris pulls a thick notebook from a shelf behind him and flips through it. A record of past customers, during slow hours he peruses it to identify folks who by now might be in the market for another new car.

When he finds one, he’ll call, especially in light of new deals that he can offer to stimulate car sales.

“It can be hugely benefi-cial to a customer,” Harris said.

Lunchtime and din-nertime are hot times to encounter new customers, Absher and Harris continue, and winter weather doesn’t really hurt. A lot of farmers shop for cars when their fields lie fallow and frozen.

But when they are not dealing with customers, or working the phones trolling for customers, the salesmen

still keep busy, especially when the snow flies.All those cars out there on the lot have to be started and scraped, and

the snow around them cleared.“Our cars need to be accessible at all times,” Harris says.Beyond that, they need to be neatly parked and presenting their best

sides to the buying public. It’s a sales lesson, Absher says, that anyone can pick up in the aisles of a grocery store.

“All the cans of peas,” he reminds a visitor, “are facing forward.”— John Carlson

owners, too.

1-2 p.m.: Business as usual

Did you know?❙ Melanie Francher (above) has been the school nurse at Northside Middle Schoool for 11 years. Before that, she worked at Ball Memorial Hospital for 20 years.

❙ In a school of about 800 students, Francher sees about 60 of those students a day in her office.

❙ The most common complaint? “I have a headache.”

JOHN CARLSON / THE STAR PRESS

Samuel Harris, assistant sales manager at American Chevrolet Cadillac of Muncie, does customer research during a lull in sales activity.

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_15_C


F16F17F16F17



It’s a busy time of day for the Muncie Indiana Transit System.

It seems no one wants to walk today, not when such as easy alternative is available. The buses are clean and

modern and they run on time, except during bad winter weather, say the riders on today’s bus.

“They keep up with technology,” says one of the riders, Dustin Davis.

Half a dozen MITS buses are hybrids, like this one, a green alternative to traditional diesel-powered buses. Hybrids are powered by both a diesel engine and an electric motor. The hybrid buses have a smaller engine than traditional buses and can still use soy biodiesel, which MITS has been using for several years.

Hybrid or diesel, the buses are a life-saver for many in the community.

“It’s the only transportation I’ve got except for my bike,” says Larry Brown, a retired laborer.

David Trego, 55, who receives Social Security disability benefits, rides the Northwest Plaza route to the AT&T store to pay his phone bill.

Also on the bus is James Barham, who uses a wheelchair and whose only complaint with MITS is that it doesn’t go to the Meijer or Menards superstores or the license branch on the outskirts of town.

Another rider this afternoon, a stout older man wearing greasy blue jeans, reeks of body odor. It’s a mixed group.

Starting around 3 p.m., the bus fills with students from Central High School. As expected, they are noisy.

Amanda Adams, a frequent city bus rider whose only

transportation is the Muncie Indiana Transit System, says the kids are “not always nice,” but that’s not the case today. There are no profanities heard on this trip. In fact, several of the students thank the driver when they get off at their stop.

“They’re generally good kids,” says driver Bartley McCourt, “Some clash now and then, but that happens everywhere, brother.”

— Seth Slabaugh

2-3 p.m.: The easy way home

Award-winning systemMITS was named Outstanding

Public Transportation System by the American Public Transportation

Association in 2005 and again in 2008. This award recognizes excellence in ridership growth, financial management, system

security and safety, and customer service. In 2007, MITS was awarded the Gold Award for Safety by APTA.

“They’re generally good kids. Some clash now and then, but that happens everywhere,

brother.”— MITS DRIVER

BARTLEY MCCOURT

PHOTOS BY SETH SLABUAGH / THE STAR PRESS

Larry Brown, a retired laborer, uses MITS when the weather is not nice enough to use his bike. He’s just one of a wide variety of passengers who use MITS as their preferable form of transportation.

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_17_C


F18F19F18F19



Just days before Valentine’s Day, the romantic panic of Muncie is palpable on Charles Street.

Inundated with hundreds of orders and special requests, Normandy Flower Shop’s owner Judy Benken says it’s not uncommon to have to turn

away a potential customer on Feb. 14 because the shop simply does not have the manpower or the time. And looking at the stacks of papers and piles of petals, no one can fault the small-but-mighty workforce in the category of trying.

The Normandy team spends hours each day crafting unique treasures — sometimes staying so late into the night, it becomes morning. “You just gird your loins and go at it,” Benken says of the hectic nature of the holiday. And, of course, no one on Feb. 9 is complaining about the boost the business gets amid the rough economy.

Where the women of Normandy should have room to complain is in the constant standing required for their work. Gathered around a workstation in the back of the store on this afternoon, the energetic team exhausts even the most casual of observers. Amazingly, it’s rare to hear a negative word. Florist

and mom-to-be Heather Barr, strip-ping lilies of their sticky parts, smiles and points to her padded tennis shoes, crediting them with keeping her on her feet.

In her 13th Valentine’s Day in the business of flowers, designer Verna Gudger has even another reason to feel the push by this point in February. “My husband’s birthday is Valentine’s Day,” Gudger says. The veteran flo-rist has had to plan her celebration with ninja-like precision around the Valentine’s production for many years.

There’s no doubt flowers articulate many of the things we try to say on Valentine’s. Thousands of orders, mil-

lions of flowers and 28 Valentine’s Days later, Benken has learned the ebb and flow of the energetic business. Though frenzied, the business owner tries to keep perspective: “We keep people happy. If they’re happy, I’m happy.”

— Taylor Etchison

2-3 p.m.: Keeping people happy

Working in the flower bizThe employees working at Normandy Flower Shop this afternoon are no strangers to Valentine’s Day, after years in the business for floral sales:❙ Judy Benken (owner): 28 years❙ Verna Gudger (designer): 13 years❙ Heather Barr (florist): 5 years❙ Andrea Brown (florist): 2 years

KELLY DAY / THE STAR PRESS

TOP: A gerber daisy is part of a flower arrangement at Normandy Flower Shop in downtown Muncie on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. ABOVE RIGHT: Verna Gudger gets flowers out of a refrigerator. ABOVE: Andrea Brown arranges flowers.

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_19_C


F20G1F20G1

MU_MN_3RD_03-20_N_B_F_20_C


24 hours in muncie 2

Documents

criminal defendants

little girl

courtroom gallery

series of hearings

manager dave lawless

criminal cases

occupied people

neat place